Social Media Phenomena You Don't "Get"

[deceriacomics]

I don't get the whole photographing every meal you fucking eat thing. It's food, just eat it!

Oh man, the food pictures thing really pisses me off. It's bad enough when some idiot has to spam social media with the unremarkable bowl of shlop they're eating for dinner – but what's worse is when people's pictures impede upon the flow of the general public. Like sit your paparazzi ass down and don't block an entire line of people. Your lil frappuccino photoshoot can wait hahaha.

[isaacfriedman]

Dat Boi

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nuf said

[NickRowler]

There are so many...

Modern memes. When I was into memes, the majority of them were advice animals and rage comics. Now EVERYTHING is a meme.

Shipping real people. Not characters, but people (mostly Youtubers) with other people. It's sort of creepy. Some of there people are married. Sometimes straight people are shipped as gay, sometimes gay people are shipped as straight. I once heard someone who shipped a father with his son.

Pregnant Elsa.

Adults throwing tantrums over kid shows. Yes, adults can watch and enjoy kid shows but seriously when people are ranting and making change.org stuff because "shows today are not as good as when I was a kid" or crap like that, I feel like they need to step back and remember the fact that they are 22+ years old, not 7. Kid shows are made for kids, you (an adult) can legally drive, go to bars, watch R rated films, watch porn, and leave the house without your parent's permission. You can get a bank account and get a Netflix.

"Reblog/Like/Share if you support LGBT rights" or "Reblog if you care if I killed myself". THESE THINGS. They are so pandering and mostly made to get cheap likes. Like do people think if they don't like/share/whatever, people will think you don't support LGBT rights? Like "Oh no, I have to do it or people will think I am a bigot." The second also bugs me because it doesn't actually help the OP. People reblog because they are anti-suicide because "Oh no, I have to do it or people will think I am pro-suicide." It is sort of hard for me to believe that a stranger on the internet really "cares" about you when they know next to nothing about you. Even if the person did die, people would continue to reblog the statement and won't even know but still think they are helping.

Internet reviewers who think a "review" means screaming and waving their arms around and yelling "it sucks balls" over and over again. While it can be funny, it is not a proper way to criticizes a piece, and I refuse to see it as a proper review of the work.

[JessJackdaw]

@NickRowler Actually the word meme is much older than it's popular internet use back in 2007. It's a psychological term used to describe an idea that repeats and evolves when distributed in human commerce. The mental meme is cultural adaptation as thoughts are changed slowly as it passes from mind to mind.

I.... read to many psychology manuscripts as a kid. Umm, but it is sad how we just think of the meme as a stupid thing people post as a joke. The definition still works, but the word has been forever tainted.

[bakasama25]

You can "meme" to the list of words that got tainted or twisted, like trope, calarts, otaku, cis, cultural appropriation, social justice, animation, canon, and bunch of other words.

[Michelle]

Adults throwing tantrums over kid shows. Yes, adults can watch and enjoy kid shows but seriously when people are ranting and making change.org stuff because "shows today are not as good as when I was a kid" or crap like that, I feel like they need to step back and remember the fact that they are 22+ years old, not 7.

This is endlessly annoying to me (and why I don't like tumblr because it's FULL of these types :1). I mostly can't stand this new phenomenon of fans making demands that the creators to cater to their wants. I understand listening to your fanbase and considering them, but fans shouldn't be acting like they run the show. It's great that social media can bring fans closer to the creators of their favourite shows, but some people act way too entitled.

[AnnaLandin]

I'll drop back in and say I don't dislike emojis as a thing; I'm just specifically avoiding the Tapastic-ones because the freaks me out something fierce, and they don't seem as though they're correctly sized to fit with the text.

[indagold]

"Reblog if you care if I killed myself" really makes me scared for the poster because they're never going to get the feedback they think they want. I would reply seek a suicide hotline or something because it sounds like they're planning their suicide.

[69Michi]

That sort of post is literally begging for trolls to come and trample all over their little fragile heart. I honestly can't understand why people think it's good to express such sort of personal matter on a social media and then went on a rampage complaining about "cyberbully." To those people I say close your laptop/turn off your computer and go seek PROFESSIONAL help.

[katverwho]

Were you around for mudkips?

[katverwho]

You CAN actually post from computer! You just have to get a third party app for it. I like a bit better sometimes, since it lets me type tags more comfortable (I hate typing on my phone)

[PurpleGround]

I also detest 'Reaction' videos.

I can agree with this. If it is done correctly its fine. Some people put the vid small and their face large makes me cringe when they "heh-heh" and "ha"... BUT, if put the face small and vid large will feel like watching the vid with a friend. Which is better so I don't have to focus the entire attention on his face. I guess I have different preference. >.<

[zelkats]

Two words:

John Cena

[elixiadragmire]

I was, and the team edward vs team jacob (was it? not a twilight fan) and the cat militant takeover too

[indagold]

I guess that's the price you gotta pay for being internet savvy.

[katverwho]

ADOPTABLES!!!! Like, isn't that sort like a commission only less unique?? I don't???

[Zanreo]

I guess I still am not into emojis. If I recall no one liked them, would avoid them as much as possible and now suddenly everyone loves them.

I remember I hated the MSN smileys... oh, and even though the Skype ones are a bit better, I still can't stand when my text automatically gets changed into them. Especially when it's just one word in brackets like (wtf) or something.
Also, when did all smileys in general start getting called "emojis"? To me, emojis are specifically the things listed here, these specific unicode-based symbols coded to show up differently on different platforms, not just a generic word for any smiley. I use emoji for the things linked and for other smileys (text-based or image) I just use smiley.

Oh, and speaking of MSN, I never got writing (L) in text. It comes from the MSN "heart" smiley/symbol and I saw it used outside of there in text, even IRL... haven't seen this in years but I remember it being A Thing years back.

Also, I've seen "trope" been used quite a bit as a generic shorthand for "thing/part of plot/character trait/other storytelling tool I don't like", or as an equivalent to "overused cliche". Just... no, that's not what trope means. Sure, some tropes are cliches but not all of them are, it's basically just a type of storytelling tool which ALL stories are going to use to some extent even if not intending to. They're not "bad" or "good" in themselves, it all depends on how they're used. If you mean "overused cliche" or "this ONE SPECIFIC trope" just say that, jeez, don't just say the movie was "too tropey" or something.

Also I never really "got" adoptables, like the dA adoptable-characters or whatever. So you just ask for (or often, pay for) this one premade character/design and then you "own" it and you're allowed to draw it, RP with it and use it like you want? It's not like it annoys me but... I don't really understand why it's such a big thing, having others make the characters you use? Maybe for some it's owning something made by such-and-such famous artist but even then...
In a similar vein, the whole "open/closed species" thing

I actually dislike "LOL" too, all the more when someone just "lol" NOT EVEN BOTHER TO CAPITALIZE IT

huh, I find allcaps "LOL" more annoying than lowercaps "lol" (which I use quite a bit haha). And if you say it IRL, please say "lol" as an actual word instead of "L-O-L"

Hashtag 90's kids or only 90's kids will understand makes me want to throw up.

Technically a "90's kid" here (1994) and I always found those 90's kids jokes really annoying, along with the whole "sooo much better back then" and "if you didnt watch/do/own X you didn't have a childhood". Doesn't help that I don't really remember much from the 90's since I was just 0-6 back then, if anything I have more childhood/early teen memories from the early to mid-00s and "identify" more with that. Still would find "00s kid" jokes annoying.

Oh, and another thing about the "if you didn't watch this show/own this thing" one, a lot of these seemed to be very US-specific shows/things that maybe didn't happen in the rest of the world. Some of those things I never heard about, or I might only know about the show from seeing screenshots on the internet but it never aired here.

I can't even escape it on Tapastic. One time I was looking in the new section and saw what was the beginning of some BL comic between Markiplier and some other Lets Player. Like Jesus people, they're REAL people, not fictional animu BL characters. This is just CREEPY and I'd be disturbed as all Hell if someone was making such fan art and comics of me, let alone an entire community. ESPECIALLY when they've publicly stated they don't like it.

Uggh yeah real-people shipping is just creepy If someone started seriously shipping me and my friends (or just some other random comic artist/game designer), making fanart/fanfics of us I'd just be really creeped out and uncomfortable

[Simon_M]

I hate twitter. All of it. If a new meteorite grazed the earth only to selectively get rid of all the servers where twitter exists and replicates as that mutant fungus it is, I would be very happy.

I'm playing it up, but not by much. I'm tired of the constant source of drama and miscommunication that that social network's brought to the cultural discourse.

[Michelle]

I forgot all about those! Seriously, I do not understand adoptables either. Why do people pay for a pre-made character? And then they... own that character? And can re-sell it? :I I have a friend who's all about adoptables and she'll sell off hordes of her old ones, some for up to $60 and I am just so confused why anyone wants these things.

[katverwho]

Please invite your friend to the forums so she can explain this to us XDD