“On March 11th, 2011, The world was introduced to friday. A “song” by 13 year old artist Rebecca Black, which addressed some of the deepest issues affecting teenagers of today; Deciding what seat to sit on in the car, the relationship between thursday, friday, saturday and sunday, and Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! It was a Ghastly, auto tuned attempt at music, getting creepy when a grown ass man started rapping about driving past school buses, But it was one of those catchy tunes that never quite leaves your head.

88 million viewers hated it. With just cause of course. It was an awful song, But at a point, some of the comments on the videos youtube page got me really disturbed. Some one wrote “Terrible singer, I hope you cut yourself and die” another “Hope you cut yourself and get skinny so you’ll become pretty”.. This was a 13 year old girl.

This post isn’t about Rebecca Black. God no. Its about a trend that’s been part and parcel of the internet since it became the phenomenon it has. Hate and spite being spewed from behind the comfort of online anonymity.

If you use the internet, you’d know that any site with a comments section, Or a twitter account  can be used to launch the most scathing attacks on a person, usually in the public eye, people sit and troll about how they Hate this or that person, whose job is to be creative, and they wish he would die and insult his person, or family. (Yes its wrong to wish someone would die. Even majela).

But we’re all used to this stuff. Its all a part of the internet. My problem is when People decide that their “asshole-ness” Can be transferred off line and into their real lives. Online, once you sign in your I.d, You become a Professor, connoisseur of Taste in music and fashion, Joke bisector, and an expert on pretty much Everything.  But when you actually start to believe you’re all that, There’s a problem. Today, Being rude is almost default behavior, People put others down just to look cool, and earn laughs, its all well and good on twitter, but when shit MEETS the fan at Rehab, therell be hell to pay.

One More thing. What’s with the tendency of the internet to Ruin everything? Someone tweets a joke, and its Sooooo funny you’re literally rolling on the floor laughing, Then someone retweets it, Then another, Then another, then someone steals It, and people retweet HIM, then someone steals it, and blackberry broadcasts it, then Another one steals it, posts it on facebook, tumblr, his joke blog, and There you have it. The life cycle of a funny joke. Approximately 6 hours.
Or a song. You make a wonderful song, someone makes a nice cover of it, and another, and another, Until we’re all sick of hearing about marvins Room…

Oh well.. Its the internet.”

T

However, we’re cool with talking smack to a bunch of strangers who may be weirdos in real life, but its much weirder when we’re talking to someone who we know with a “shadow account”..

What is a shadow account? You ask me, if you have to ask this question, you’ve carried last.  All the “big boys” have one..

A shadow account is a fake account created by someone in desperate need of attention to further some “secret agenda” of theirs… to the normal eye, they’re just normal tweeters particularly fond of/ loatheful of one person, but to the trained eye, they’re extremely easy to spot..

Why would I want a shadow account?  You’ve carried last again… if you’re an egotistical, attention seeking prick (if you tweet, you probably are) then a shadow account is Perfect for you. Seriously, check out some uses of a shadow account..

To support your argument: you know, cos everyone you’re arguing with is a moron, so you can use your shadow account to back yourself up, and make your point seem more popular than it deserves to be

To attack your critics: coughednutcough Definitely, if you’re an online “big boy” and can’t be seen fighting with your “haters” all the time, you can use a shadow account to defend yourself J

To Promote your shit: if you have a “blog” or youre selling something, you can use your shadow account to talk up your merchandise, wash, wash, wash and wash until people think “hey, someone’s buying it, let me…

To air Opinions you wouldn’t want attributed to you: We all have an inner “politician”… some more than others. You want to say something really hateful about that celebrity but he follows you and you don’t want to get blocked… what do you do? @boycottdbanj

HOW TO HANDLE YOUR SHADOW ACCOUNT.

You can’t just wake up and have a convincing shadow account.. it takes time, guts and brains..

First step:  Give your shadow account street cred. Use the account to attack popular people, like REALLY attack them,  insult them as hard as you can, till someone starts to retweet you just for the fun of it.. or RT reverend run… anything to get attention and followers. You can also google a naked picture and send it to the prettiest girls on your timeline, writing an introductory line, most effectively with bad grammar.. (if you want your shadow account to have a “creepy” rep)

Now you’ve got attention and followers, (even if they’re all disgusted by you, all publicity is good publicity) you can use your shadow account for s variety of gimmicks… You can  make yourself seem hotter than you really are by flirting with yourself.. “ive got a crush on @xxxxx” or “@xxxxxx is sooo hot”… yeah… watch the attention pour in.

you can catapult yourself to the league of “online grandmaster” by adding a  ”GBAM” or “CO-SIGN” to everything your real account types.. Don’t always agree with yourself though… You can make your shadow account more believable, and give it more “street cred” and “character” by having a different opinion sometimes…

If you’re a paranoid prick (like almost everyone else), you know you have “haters” steady  lurking. You can use your shadow account to get close to them. Mirror their views, laugh at their jokes, find out what the hell they’re saying about you (for those of you saying “is it that serious”?, youll be surprised at how many of your friends are doing this shit)

This post is getting long though… ill keep you informed on the latest trends in online assholery… In the meantime, Lets all get along though…

Last month the internet died…

one minute it was there.. i was skyping with this hottie, she was about to strip for me, the next minute it was gone.. i tried everything,  refresh, refresh, refresh, nothing… ctrl+alt+delete.. nope. hard reset.. nothing.

i remember thinking, how am i going to survive? it was crazy… why the internet? i mean, seriously, take away fax, post offices, public schools, take away eritrea and bosnia… why the internet?

I remember i didnt believe it until i went out to complain to ipnx the Next day. There were traffic jams everywhere.. i got to the office and there were thousands of people there.. i didnt know ipnx had up to a thousand subscribers.. the managers addressed us, and told us it was a global phenomenon.. Thats when i knew we were screwed..

did i mention it was a friday? yeah.. that night i went clubbing.. there were girls sitting down on the chairs in the club, holding their hands up in front of them, making strange motions with their thumbs.. Lagos was a zombie city… what the hell was going on?

i mean there was still electricity, water, and food, but what good was it without the internet? no twitter? Jide killed himself.. no facebook? thats what made me scared.. i’d like to think facebook retards only existed on facebook.. the thought of encountering them in real life? i just cant..

Surprisingly enough, we moved on somewhat.. well not really, but life continued. all in all, only 30,000 Nigerians comitted suicide. Most of them were Yahoo Yahoo boys, then the occasional twitter addict and forex trader..

Life at the office moved on smoothly. I discovered that HALF of the emails that i used to send, or my boss used to send us were absolutely unnecessary. The paper industry was flourishing.. So was the pornography industry. No one prospered like Alaba market though.. in the space of 2 weeks, with the demise of youtube, it became the worlds number one provider of videos, new music (official, studio leaks and naija party remixes)..

its been a month now. im surviving. what i cant stand though is my girlfriend. she speaks so strangely now. i think she had an alien encounter.. yesterday we were talking, and she kept saying “ehlowel” and “ehlemayow”.. she wanted to go to the toilet, but instead of excuse me, she said “beeyaarbee”.. I might have to break up with her… whatever disease she has might be contagious

Did i mention the pornography industry? yeah i did. add the lubricant industry tto the list of thriving businesses.. Apparently, a lot of guys have forgotten how to get a womans details on face to face basis. we all miss Match.com and twitter and facebook and blackberry messenger.  Its terrible. Now we have to buy flowers, and buy cards, and have meaningful conversations with them… who does that?

As sharp guys,  some boys have adapted. yesterday i was at a bar.  i watched a guy walk in. he had “facebook retard” written all over him. oh wait did i mention theres beef between facebook users and former twitter users? yeah. i really hope it doesnt get violent. that would be Genocide. facebook retards outnumber us greatly.. Anyways yeah, so facebook retard walks up to the bar, and orders a drink.. He downs the shot, then walks up to a wall, brings out a sharpie pen and scribbles on it. then he talks to the wall, brings out a picture from his pocket, pins it on the wall, and walks back to the bar. he beelines for this beautiful girl, who sadly, has Facebook retard written all over her too… he stuck a finger out and poked her in her ribs.. i was like “oh my God hes so rude”, but she blushed, whispered something to her friends, who all giggled.. she reached a hand out, and  poked him back, then took his hand and they both walked out of the bar. they went to have sex im sure.

people have been really strange lately.

Oh yeah, i would hate to be a Lawma or Lasaa worker right now.. people cant find enough places to scribble shit. some random zombie wrote some inspirational quote on my car, another person wrote out whats in store for sagittarius on my gate. stop this madness..

im really scared though…

end of pt 1…