Category: technology

Internet + Clemson Fans = wait, what?

Published on by Paige DoltonLeave a comment

Per my usual day-to-day routine, I continuously check my twitter throughout the work day. Yesterday was no different. My timeline was filled with the usual stuff: girls tweeting song lyrics (I was guilty of this yesterday- ew), guys tweeting about sports, and the very plain and mundane details of everyone’s life. Yesterday, however, I was caught off-guard by a tweet, which had been responded to by Pierre Tong, as well as retweeted by many others with a picture of this banner:

Click picture for source

Now, I do not know this person, nor do I know the person who originally posted the picture, but neither of them did anything wrong- so don’t get this twisted, people. They simply saw something of extreme interest to them and felt like sharing it. It’s safe to say, though, that this picture/information went viral almost immediately in the Clemson online community. This “news” quickly spread via twitter and some even took to Facebook to inform their online friends of Clemson’s new and exciting honor.

This had ‘rumor’ written all over it.

Where was the link to the actual TIME Magazine article? Sure, a picture speaks a thousand words, but in this case, the only words I cared about were “Source:____” and they didn’t exist. So, naturally, I took to the interwebs to get down to the bottom of the news that was spreading through social media like wildfire, and this is what I found:

This screen-cap is from Clemson’s ‘Timeline‘ located on their website. That’s right, folks: Clemson University was named TIME Magazine’s ‘Public College of the Year’ back in 2001. No, I did not do the research to prove anyone wrong. No, I did not do the research so I could have something to tweet. I simply just wanted to know the facts, and quite honestly, I’m surprised that no one else did the same.

All it took was a simple Google search for me to discover that this twitter rumor was just that: a rumor. And boy, did everyone believe it. People weren’t just retweeting the original tweet and picture above, but they were taking that information and creating their own messages, which people were so quick and willing to believe as absolute truth, thus creating a chain reaction that propelled this false news through the twittersphere. Still, no one thought to fact-check what they were talking about. Then, to continue the chain of events, people started changing their Facebook statuses to inform everyone of this brand-new information. Pierre even attempted to poke humor at the situation by tweeting complete satire involving the gamecocks and TIME Magazine and people even took that to be true. *Face-palm* [I literally would NEVER use one of those star-phrase things that I just used, but the situation demanded it.]

The final straw was when my own brother tweeted about the situation, almost 4 hours after the online action had died down. I had nothing to say to him but this:

Moral of the story: check your facts, people. The incident yesterday really didn’t make Clemson fans look that intelligent.

Disclaimer: This post wasn’t meant to make anyone look bad or to say that all Clemson fans are idiots (come on, now). I simply just have a lot of time on my hands.

What Not To Tweet

Published on by Paige DoltonLeave a comment
Unfortunately for all of us, yes you did.

I get it. You use twitter as a place to get everything out that you feel like you just need to express to the entire internet. Except I don’t really get it at all. It’s not a public journal, people. If you really want to vent, then start a blog and then you have the right to say whatever the hell you want and people have the option of reading it. When I tweeted a link to this blog, you didn’t actually have to click it, right? You chose to. This being said, here’s my rant of things that I’m sick and tired of seeing all over my twitter timeline.

Requests to text you: Are you really that desperate that you feel the need to tweet ‘blahhh i have no friends txt me pleaseeeee’? That’s just pathetic. What, do you think people are going to read that and then think ‘hmmm, I should text that person because they are whining about it on their twitter’? No, I hate to break it to you, people don’t think like that. Maybe you should get your caboose off your twitter and go hang out with your friends, or, better yet, you should go ahead and text them yourself. What a concept.

Play-by-plays of your entire day: So you got a twitter to see what all your friends are up to, or what’s on their mind throughout the day, and they could do the same to you, right? That doesn’t mean that that your friends need to know exactly what time you wake up, where, when, and what you are going to eat for breakfast, or that you’re going to the bathroom right now. I really don’t care that you are currently “sitting on  the couch,” “taking a shower,” or “turning on your light switch.” No one cares about the mundane details of your everyday life.

Tweets to Justin Bieber: Seriously? He’s not going to respond. Write him love letters, I don’t care, but don’t clutter up my timeline. The worst part about this is that some girls have twitters solely dedicated to the Biebs, meaning that they only follow beliebers and they literally only tweet to the Biebs himself. Even if he does retweet you, you are still 100% insignificant to him in relation to his 13 million followers. Go be annoying somewhere else.

Song Lyrics/Bible Verses: Unless you are the actual artist tweeting the lyrics to your own song (no artists do this), then please do not do this. And I know that none of you b*tches are Jesus, so don’t even go there. I don’t care if it is displaying your currently apathetic mood or you want your ex-boyfriend to think it’s about him, I don’t want to see it. I can listen to whatever music I want to and believe in whatever God I want to; I’d prefer if you didn’t try to shove it in my face.

Full Conversations: This has got to be the worst. When you have a twitter conversation from your phone, you know it displays ‘sent from iPhone’, right? Well how about you use that iPhone to text your friend your super important conversation about your drinking plans tonight. There is no need to attempt to prove to other people that you have friends by communicating with them in the most public form possible.

Since this blog is connected to my twitter, I hope to God that some of you reading this right now learned a little something. If you are the perfect tweeter, then I give you a virtual high-five for not annoying the crap out of me on a daily basis.

5 Reasons Why Tweens Shouldn’t Exist

Published on by Paige Dolton5 Comments

If you don’t know what a ‘tween’ is, you are lying. Technically speaking, a tween is someone between the stages of being a child and a teenager; they range in age from 9 to 15. The most important thing anyone needs to know about a tween is that they are the most obnoxious living things known to man. Yes, I am well aware that at some point in my life I, myself, was a tween. After coming to terms with this fact, however, I realized that tweens today are incredibly more obnoxious and unnecessary than the tweens of my generation. This is largely attributed to the fact that almost all tweens today are exposed to media in large doses and that most of them now have iPhones, Facebook accounts and twitter accounts, thus leading them to think that they are God’s gift to the earth. If you are a tween and you are reading this: child, you are nothing special. So without further ado, here are the top 5 reasons why Tweens should not exist.

They dress like baby prostitutes. Yes, I did just quote mean girls. But the phrase could not be more adequate. Being between the ages of 9 and 15, most tweens have yet to encounter any weight issues and are still just skin and bone. Because of this, they feel the need to show off their skinny asses by wearing booty shorts and barely-there shirts. No. I actually don’t want to see your ass-cheeks and your flat as a board stomach while I’m shopping at Wal-Mart, thanks. If you need any more clarification, I stole this picture from an 11 year-old girl’s tumblr. Enough said.

They abuse social networking sites. Alright, so do a lot of college kids, but tweens really take the cake on this one. They feel the need to profess to the world every single meaningless aspect of their life. From whiny statuses to frequent MySpace pictures (clearly they didn’t get the memo), their Facebooks make me want to throw up. Tweens even play stupid games where they post a FB status along the lines of “truth is…” which means that their friends are supposed to write on their wall something that starts with “truth is…”. I wish I was joking. And don’t even get me started on twitter. Tweens’ tweets are comprised of two things: professions of love to Justin Bieber or complaints about how horrible their life is because their parents won’t let them go to Warped Tour unsupervised.

They only communicate via text-talk. You’d think that these kids were mute by the amount of time they spend attached to their cell phones. Tweens text like they are being paid to do so, and the way they text is just downright stupid. ‘Omggz gurl cum 2 mii casa 2dai so we can take pics in da mirrorrrr.’ Just stop. What’s worse is seeing a group of tween girls walking in the mall and literally every single one of them is glued to their phone. Why did you even get together today if you weren’t even going to speak to each other?

Their life is one big drama. Mom grounded you from the computer so you can’t tweet back to Justin Bieber and watch Teen Mom. BOO-HOO. There’s no need to go all psycho-freak and threaten to kill yourselves. Wait, Sally didn’t show up to the sleepover because she already had plans? Yep, you’re right. She hates you and you totally have every right to spread rumors about her and then cry about it to all of your friends, in addition to posting some sappy song lyrics as your Facebook status and tweeting up a storm.

We keep getting older, they stay the same age. There will always be tweens; there is no way around it. Even when we are 50, tweens will still be whining and pissing me off.