Our irritating nation

January 6, 2009 by Johnny

So finally… FINALLY… one brave city has stepped up and made it a crime to be annoying. 

This is definitely a step in the right direction. But really, Brighton, Michigan has only done what the entire nation should have done back in 1979, before the 1980s blitzed with Human League and Boy George and Flock of Seagulls, desensitizing the populace so completely that Ryan Seacrest is able to be a star today. But it’s a bittersweet victory. I’m glad that assholes are no longer able to operate with impunity in Brighton, but all this story really does is remind me that douchebaggery has reached epic proportions in the rest of the nation, and that it is proceeding unimpeded.

I mean, look at MySpace. MySpace is proof that as much as 90% of the internet is populated by staggeringly annoying dickbags. When you’re in my shoes (which happen to be size 11 Nike Frees) you get people telling you that you need to be on MySpace. But my response remains, “I can’t do that because nobody is yet kicking me in the testicles with ice-climbing crampons until I relent.” And so I remain: on Facebook, on Twitter, and maybe even on LinkedIn if I remember right. But never on MySpace.

I have a longstanding rant about the massive assholery that is MySpace, but I can’t say it as well as Diesel of Mattress Police* said it in his book Antisocial Commentary: 

“For those of you who aren’t tech-savvy, MySpace is an ‘online community’ that combines all the worst aspects the Internet into one difficult-to-use and horrifically ugly package. Bad web design; applications that don’t work properly; self-absorbed teenagers communicating in a barely coherent mélange of abbreviations, emoticons, and pop-culture clichés; an endless barrage of desperate singles ads; sexual predators looking for the aforementioned teenagers: MySpace has it all.”

Look: If you’re on MySpace and love MySpace and know all of your friends from MySpace and have pictures of yourself in a popped collar and orange tan making kissy faces to a soundtrack of the Jonas Brothers on MySpace, then this little rant is probably offending you. I could let that bother me and say something like Rodney Dangerfield said to Ted Knight in Caddyshack after defaming a hat that he didn’t know Knight was wearing (”Oh, it looks good on you, though!”), but instead I’m going to let it go because let’s face it: If you’re offended, you’re part of the 90%. You’re annoying. 

And it’s time to come face-to-face with that fact, because you probably don’t even know it. It’s like I told this guy I know, who watches SpongeBob SquarePants with his kids and doesn’t understand why straightlaced Squidward doesn’t like the incredibly irritating title character. I told him, “If you don’t understand why SpongeBob is annoying, then congratulations: You’re the neighborhood SpongeBob.”

You. Annoying. Buttweasel.

I like the idea behind this new law. It draws a line in the sand and says that if you mime in public, you’re going to get fined. If you call someone “brah,” we’re not going to stand for it. No longer will we sit idly by while balding men attempt heroic combovers! We will not be slaves to the person who walks on the left; the co-worker who reads for a half-hour in the bathroom; the unfunny guy who laughs snortingly at his own jokes. We will not abide Morning Zoo radio shows!

But still, this is Brighton we’re talking about. And Brighton, home of a ski hill that used to be a massive landfill, is in Michigan.

The land of thieves.

Even though Robin and I steeled ourselves after enduring weirdoes in Michigan over Thanksgiving, they struck again when we went back over Christmas. At the same Borders book store, a woman stood three inches from my right shoulder and leafed through a magazine that was clearly in my possession. And she didn’t even take it. She just flipped pages, breathing heavily into my ear, until she was done. Apparently this is normal behavior in those parts.

Honestly, I don’t know if this new law could have helped me anyway. How difficult will it be to enforce? What is annoying? Is reading over someone’s shoulder in close quarters annoying? I think so. But to others, it may not be. 

I mean, most of the world is annoying. American Idol is so irritating that it makes my uterus bleed: hundreds of thousand of deluded idiots singing formulaic bubblegum pop songs in front of an asshole Englishman, a fat black guy, and Randy Jackson. Yet, it’s incredibly popular. And you know who makes it popular? Other annoying people. 

I have no conclusion for this post. I’m just going to end it with no ceremony. I realize how irritating and incomplete that is, but what are you going to do? Give me a ticket? 

* If you dig the excerpt and the rest of Mattress Police, please visit this page and place your vote because it’s up for a Weblog award for Best Humor Blog. Although personally, I admit to being conflicted because The Bloggess is on the list, and she also makes me laugh so hard that I often pass kidney stones while reading. I’m going to have to ponder hard on this one.

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Comments

19 Comments on Our irritating nation

  1. Andy on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 1:13 pm

    2. Damned Michigan weirdos! Freaks!!
    PS: is Paula Abdul a “fat black guy”?

  2. Johnny Truant on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 1:14 pm

    3. Joke: 1
    Andy: 0

  3. Joely Black (@TheCharmQuark on Twitter) on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 1:33 pm

    4. I confess. I do read over people’s shoulders. It means that I get to be entertained while they have to do the awkward bit of lugging the newspaper/book/magazine and I don’t have to. And other people’s books are always more interesting, anyway. Anything read over somebody else’s shoulder is by its very nature interesting.

    I’m now very conflicted. I read The Bloggess and frequently cause my neighbours severe side-effects because of the laughter involved. But then I get the same experience here. And the description of MySpace by the Mattress Police is totally accurate.

    I do have to confess that I have a profile on MySpace that I’d totally forgotten about. I was scared off by a guy from Poland who had a foot fetish and said he wanted to make love to my feet. I only thought about it when I went on Dallas radio and the jockey said he’d seen my photos online and thought I had fantastic breasts. This was obviously quite scary because as far as I know there aren’t any photos out there of my breasts – fantastic or not – except that there are some photos of me on MySpace wearing The Jacket That Makes My Tits Look Big which might explain it.

    The DJ was guy, by the way, which only added to the general confusion. I’ll stop talking now.

  4. Joely Black (@TheCharmQuark on Twitter) on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 1:37 pm

    5. By “guy” I mean gay, of course. I’d say it was a typo but the letters A and U are nowhere near each other on a QWERTY keyboard which is actually making me a little concerned about myself and my typing skills right now.

  5. Tracy on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 2:04 pm

    6. Wait, wait back up. You know a guy who is old enough to have children that doesn’t understand why Squidward dislikes Spongebob?

    I think a good start would be to somehow eliminate the people who have some awareness that other people find them tiresome but persist because they think it’s cute.

  6. Johnny Truant on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 2:26 pm

    7. I’ll bet the jacket did it. To men, “big” often equals “great.”

    Tracy – I’m telling you, he’s his neighborhood’s SpongeBob. That’s why he didn’t understand.

  7. Dave aka EditorDave on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 2:34 pm

    8. The same guy who doesn’t understand why Squidward doesn’t like Spongebob is the same guy who loves “Barney the Dinosaur”… that purple obnoxious thing that also graces children’s TV shows. He also probably likes to watch the “OxyFresh” commercials–where the knucklehead is screaming his lungs out at the “viewing audience” (who just muted the toob and started up the TiVo).

    As for *annoying* folks? What about the bozos who think that everyone must hear them when they drive by? You know… the rumbling muffler and the huge subwoofer (and no, I don’t mean a wet Rottweiler) that vibrate your walls and windows every time they pass by at three in the morning.

    Well… I better quit before I become one of those *annoying* folks… alas, I fear that I may have strayed over that line already. *sigh*

  8. Anya on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 2:42 pm

    9. I have to admit that MySpace scares the bejesus out of me. I once tiptoed into that alternate universe of giant blinking Tinkerbells at the request of the friend. The pages were so ugly they burned my eyes and then I found a picture of an old school mate who I knew had gone to seminary…he was puking in a garbage can…it seemed everyone I looked up was either puking or their page made me want to puke. So I admit, MySpace makes me fear for my intestinal health and I have never ventured there again. American Idol also scares me. Obviously, I’m a wimp.

    In other news, I have forwarded your Michigan posts on to a very good friend who is thinking of moving there…he has been warned.

  9. Brandon on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 3:28 pm

    10. Makes my uterus bleed… That is awesome.

  10. Diane Whiddon-Brown on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 4:02 pm

    11. What IS with all the sparkly on MySpace? I mean, I’m girly. I like pink. I can even dig a little sparkle, but WTF? That place is not hip with the subtle.

    And it’s great that we’ve outlawed the annoying, but now what are we going to do about the assholes? Just wondering.

  11. Lisa Paul on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 8:40 pm

    12. Brighton, Michigan should NOT be praised. They’ve stopped as short as Daddy Bush who turned the tanks around outside of Baghdad. “Annoying in public”? What about annoying in Cyberspace? As you so aptly point out, MySpace and its users must die!

    Speaking of annoying in CyberSpace, we’re missing you at the Chuck Westbrook forums. A flamewar has broken out and we’re all blaming Mad Asthmatic. (Well, I’m blaming her. She’s calling me the Shit Stirrer Upper.)

  12. Johnny Truant on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 11:36 pm

    13. See? Everyone knows someone annoying. But are these people arrested? NO! This is why we need a federal law.

    Lisa: I just saw that now. A seriously intriguing situation!

  13. Lisa Paul on Wed, 7th Jan 2009 1:15 am

    14. Let’s just say Chuck isn’t pleased.

    And about those Blog Awards? I Am Bossy is totally my girl. I’m voting early and often. Then I’m calling Blagojevich to have him buy it for her. Pay to Play.

  14. Bryan Platz on Wed, 7th Jan 2009 9:19 am

    15. As a neighbor of Governor Blago (I am so proud of my community), I would really avoid getting involved with him. The guy has completely lost it. My favorite recent development is how he goes to work in track suits…

  15. Jenny, Bloggess on Wed, 7th Jan 2009 5:26 pm

    16. You should vote for Mattress Police because I already told him he could have all of my votes anyway.

    PS. You know who is on Myspace? Murderers. True story. Every time you hear about a murderer they turn up with a Myspace page. Myspace drives you to murder.

  16. Johnny Truant on Wed, 7th Jan 2009 6:50 pm

    17. So, literally less than five minutes after I read that comment, I overhear the news, which my wife is watching.

    Another murderer caught based on the findings on her MySpace page. No shit.

  17. Ed on Thu, 8th Jan 2009 5:13 am

    18. DON’T CUSS THE ENGLISHMEN! FUCKER.

  18. Johnny Truant on Thu, 8th Jan 2009 6:52 am

    19. Well, only Simon is an asshole. Other Englishmen are great. Except for you. You and your froofy pink shoes.

  19. diesel on Thu, 8th Jan 2009 4:03 pm

    20. Thanks for the link! The Blogess is going down! (Or so I’ve heard; I don’t want to start any rumors.)

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