Do We Really Need #Overuse?

I will admit that I don’t use#twitter all that much. I do know however that the #prudent use of #hashtags can help you find #trendingtopics. It is getting a little #rediculous though that everyone is using them everywhere. As far as I know they are #onlyforuseontwitter. Yet I am seeing them #everywhere … #facebook, #emails and there are even some weirdos who use them in their #blogposts.

Maybe I am just missing something. It must be because I still don’t really understand all this social stuff. I looked up #howtousehashtags and found this article. Maybe I should have actually read it before I #bloggedabouthashtags.

Either way, I still think that they are #overused.

 

By the way, did you order me a Hawaiian shirt for my bday yet? If you tell them I sent you … they will probably say “who”? But it would be amusing to me.

 

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My Mommy Taught Me To Share

However, I didn’t think I would have to share as much as some social platforms want me to. (Yes, I am going there again). I ranted the other day about how Facebook changed again and how I hated it. I still don’t like what they did. Put my friends statuses in order please. You don’t know what is important to me. The other thing that bothers me is that stupid ticker thing. It is distracting and I don’t care what friends of friends of friends are doing or when a friend comments on another person that I don’t know. If we can see all this, why bother having a friends list of any kind anyway? If everyone can see everyone elses stuff. Whatever.

Anyhoo, I am going to go to my twitter account going forward and tell people everything I am doing every minute of the day. When I eat a gummy bear, you will know. When I go to the bathroom, you will know. When I do ANYTHING … YOU will know.

Don’t worry, I am too lazy for that. You won’t know anything.

An Open Letter To Facebook

Dear Facebook,

I would like to formally congratulate you on the good sense to just bow out and let Google+, Twitter and Linkedin win in the Social networking arena. Your “improvements” are non user friendly, and it is wholly unprofessional to not have an opt-out or customizable option. I do however appreciate the fact that your latest “upgrade” will more than likely increase the value of my Google stock.

I can emphatically say that you have no idea what stories or updates are of interest to me, you have no way of knowing who my close friends or coworkers are, and if you want to decide who I see updates from, then you should also decide which of my bills you should pay for me.

The scrolling updates bar on the right side of the screen proves that you do not know who I want to see updates from. It is distracting and there is no way to easily see the entire conversation that a comment was posted about. To use industry terms … YOUR UI SUCKS ASS!

Mark *uckerburg, in the spirit of  you not being a dick, I expect to have a formal apology from you, posted to everyone’s wall, by tomorrow morning. This should state that you screwed up, the constant screwing with our lives was a mistake, and that you are splitting the company up into at least 3 different entities.

I, along with many other bloggers, investor groups, developers, cat hoarders and out of work cartoonists, have been adding pieces to the full page newspaper obituary for Facebook for some time now. We do appreciate the fact that month after month you make it easier and easier to write. The only thing that we ask is that you formally change the name of your company to Fecesbook so that it matches our obituary.

I hope that this letter finds you buried ass deep in complaints and that you die a quick painful death as a Social Site.

Cordially,

The staff at Voicesinmybrain.com

P.S. If you find it in your heart to sue me for anything, I welcome the publicity and notoriety.

Am I Becoming Anti-Social?

Up until a few years ago, about as “social” I was on line was going into the occasional geek chat room to talk about the latest Stargate episode. Then I got roped into joining Facebook for the new job I had. I started requesting friends and liking things. I had no clue why I was doing this. It wasn’t long before I was Tweeting, Foursquaring, Digging and whatever else I had to do for my job at the time. Now there is Klout, Google+ and god knows what else.

I don’t have time to do all of these. It is hard enough trying to be on Facebook alone. I am not sure I would be able to tweet if my blog wasn’t automatically posting there. I am not sure what the hell Klout is about or why I have any or what to do with the Klout I have. I don’t think I have dug anything for quite a while and I am not sure where I am supposed to check in on what service so that I can have a political future in a coffee shop.

I don’t really want to join Google + but I am sure that I will end up on there eventually despite my better judgement. To me it is just social overload. There is a car commercial right now, actually a couple of them that reflect my sentiment PERFECTLY! They both have a younger person talking about how they are worried that their parents aren’t social enough. The one commercial has a girl on her computer mocking her parents for having 16 friends while she has over 600 or some nonsense. They then show her parents being out and about biking with friends and then getting into their car. It may be a little different than I am relaying but you get the idea. They are making fun of how people think “being social” is about being online all the time.

I don’t want to be social only on the computer. Yes, I keep in touch with friends and have made new friends because of the computer, however, I can’t golf with some of these friends, I can’t go to dinner with most. I don’t want to attend a virtual something somewhere. I still want to have a real life.

I hope in a few years people still actually will se each other face to face occasionally.

Gotta go, I have a virtual thing to go to in 42nd Life.

What Did You Just Say?

I know a lot of people have written, talked, discussed and bitched about today’s topic. I may have even written about it before, but I have to again. I am going to admit that I am NOT the best with grammar. A lot of my posts prove that. HOWEVER, I take great umbrage when people who are supposed to be “professionals” don’t know how to use the English language in its simplest forms.

What sparked this rage you ask? I was watching some videos online at work (yes, it IS part of my job), and the
“professional” host of this particular webisode I was watching kept saying “valentimes day”. Not once, not twice, but EVERY time he said it. I even jacked up the volume and replayed to see if I heard him correctly. I did. This guy supposedly wrote a book.

Later that afternoon, I was talking to someone else and they said “irregardless”. Really?

It pains me to go on Facebook every day because of the utter disregard for the whole “there, their and they’re” fiasco. I am also really upset that Twitter and texting have devolved our language into sound alike groupings of letters that were once relegated to snappy license plates. I actually read something on facebook the other day that was talking about language, or growing as a person or some such thing, and “ur” was plastered throughout. It was on facebook! It’s not like there is a character limit!

UC 2 really annoy ppl. I might start talking like that IRL. WDYT? Would it work? Or is it just MHO?

I understand that sometimes the abbreviations are ok, but only when space savings is needed.

It isn’t just the abbreviating that drives me nuts, it is people just using the wrong words all together. Or should I say “alltogether”? I no people do that alot. and I really wish they wood stop. I don’t care that much accept the affect that it illicits makes it hard for me to breath. I know that most people think that is is just an allusion, that it doesn’t really happen that much. That you don’t see it on any proper stationery. I expect this fact as the norm. Why than do so many people write like this, rather then the right way? Who nose.

I just know that I am going to expect that my children learn the correct usage of words. I am buying every episode of Schoolhouse Rock for my daughter AND my niece. Hopefully when they are old enough to tweet and facebook, or whatever is around then, they will know how to cite the correct site when they complement their projects earning a compliment on their work.

My brain now hurts, so, until next time, remember … “A noun’s a special kind of word, It’s any name you ever heard, I find it quite interesting, A noun’s a person, place, or thing.”

I’m Feeling A Little Deflated

It seems my crusade to unseat Charlie Sheen as the biggest twit has fallen on deaf ears. That’s ok though. I am not sure that I thought that through too well.

To make up for it, are you ready? Voicesinmybrain.com presents:

How To Change A Flat Tire

Step 1 – Get out of car, kick tire and curse at it

Step 2 – Take out your cell phone

Step 3 – Call AAA

Step 4 – Get back in your car and wait with your clean clothes and clean hands.

 

Until next time, remember … “I may be a living legend, but that sure don’t help when I’ve got to change a flat tire.”

Can I Out Twit Charlie Sheen?

Do I really want to? Not sure if I used that correctly. I think it might be “tweet” but I am not really out tweeting Charlie Sheen, I just want to get to more followers than Charlie Sheen. Charlie Sheen got 2 million in the short time he has been on Twitter. I have 12. I really don’t use Twitter all that much, but I think that the few things I have to say are far more interesting and less psychotic … ok … more interesting that what Charlie Sheen says most of the time. I have a “follow me” link in the right side bar. Perhaps with enough correct tagging, I can get 2 million followers in 2 weeks. If I get that many, I might actually have to tweet then, won’t I? I will have to come up with even more clever things than I do now.

Charlie Sheen is going to endorse products on his Twitter. I don’t think I would actually buy anything that is sold by someone that wants Charlie Sheen to endorse it. Are you tied of me saying Charlie Sheen yet? I read somewhere, I think it was about the content farms, that they get higher up in search results by saying the same phrases, like Charlie Sheen, as many times as they can in one post about Charlie Sheen. This may drop me to depths of google results that are even lower than Charlie Sheen after a bender, but, what the hell. Charlie Sheen.

I would be happy to endorse products like Charlie Sheen. Not the same products as Charlie Sheen though. I could endorse fun things like Warheads (the candy), or Sonic slushes, or Hot Dog Ritchie’s, or any number of other things I like. By the way, unlike Charlie Sheen, I am not being paid for the above mentions. I think I have to say that by law. Charlie Sheen doesn’t listen to things like the law.

If my Charlie Sheen twit off works, maybe I will do a web show like Charlie Sheen. I can rhyme poetry too.

So help me become a bigger twit than Charlie Sheen won’t you? I promise I will “bring it” and then instead of Charlie Sheen, it will be me who is “Duh, Winning!”

This message has been brought to you by the committee to make the voicesinmybrain bigger twits than the voices in the brain of Charlie Sheen. Any likeness to characters living or dead was probably done intentionally and without remorse. No tiger blood was spilled and no warlocks were harmed in the writing of this post. Charlie Sheen.

I Just Don’t Get It

There are many things in life that I do not understand. Whether it be that I am just not tuned into the latest trends, technology or whatever. There are also things that I do not care to try to understand. I know a lot of this will change as my daughter gets older and I will want to know about everything that is going on, but I will worry about those when they start to rear their ugly heads. I don’t need to stress out over that right now.

This is my short list of what I don’t get lately:

WordPress.com’s “Freshly Pressed” Featured Posts – I was under the impression that WordPress.com was free so that the little annoying guy, like myself, could have a place to spout insanity and annoyance without having to pay big bucks for hosting and yada yada. I thought the featured posts were random, updated frequently and would show a lot of different things. I was apparently wrong. There have been times when the same featured post has been up for a week. There are a lot of the Featured Posts that are professional blogs that don’t need the exposure of being featured. I would like to have just one day where I had hundreds of views on my blog. Not for any reason but to say it happened. Oh well.

Justin Bieber – That is all that needs to be said. I will have to wait until Tori is older to find out about that fascination.

Facebook Places – Now, let me preface this one with admitting that I just started “checking in” to places. The reason is for my job. With coupons and specials and everything that can be offered with places, I have to know how this technology works so it can be offered to clients. With that said, I don’t understand why I have to let people know where I am every minute of the day. Can’t you just “check in” without everyone knowing? I know that it is word of mouth free social platform advertising and all that. I just feel that it is a little bit of too much information. Thankfully this doesn’t work with NFC yet. Once it does, I think I might have to turn my phone off or leave it at home. Maybe even do the unthinkable … get a phone that only makes calls!

Twitter – I have been trying to get on board with this one. I have a twitter account. I try to tweet, I follow tweets. It just seems like it is an awful lot of work to keep up with reading and tweeting all the time. I guess if maybe I had it on my phone, but then, I would be distracted all day and get nothing done.

Phone Apps – I know I am going to get a lot of eye rolls for this and be called an old man but, why? I have a Blackberry Storm. I like that I can go to the web when I need to, I like that I can read my emails and my Facebook page when I need want to. I installed a few apps on my phone. I recently removed them because the only time I used them was when I said to someone “hey look at the app I have on my phone”.

WOW I am really leaning toward the Andy Rooney territory here ain’t I?

Keenan Cahill – I am not being a hater but, WHY?!?!?! It is a kid who lip syncs, poorly at that, on YouTube. I have watched the videos. I watched videos of him singing the songs himself. He is horrible. Yet he has like 24 million views. MILLION! Someone PLEASE explain to me what is so special about these videos. I have seen comments on the videos themselves asking the same questions. Am I a little bitter? Probably. My video of me singing a bunch of different Muppet voices in 2 years only got 1,075 views. A recent push bumped it up some. Granted, I am not the most talented person in the world however, I think that I got mad skilz over this kid. Is it because there are 24 million people who are watching this video and making fun of the kid? Does he realize this may be why so many people are watching it? He isn’t even cute. He is a pretty unfortunate looking kid. And he is like 15. It’s not even like he is some little, little kid being cute. It was painful to watch these things. I am sure something will come out and I will feel like an ass for writing this.

Plenty of other things I don’t understand out there is this wonderful world of ours but this has riled me enough for one day.

Until next time, remember … “People write to me and say, ‘I’m giving up, you’re not talking to me.’ I just write them a simple message like, ‘Never give up,’ you know? And it changes their life.”

Get Me Some Salve, I Might Be Viral

Ok, so I even kinda grossed myself out with that title but it made ya wonder and read some more didn’t it? As most of you know, through my shameless plugging as self promotion, that I did a video of me singing the Rainbow Connection from the Muppet Movie. I sang it with like 10 or 12 different Muppet voices. If you haven’t see the video, you can view it HERE. Well, some people at work decided they wanted to have fun with it.

I work at an interactive advertising agency, which means we do things for the web. My video has been up on YouTube for about a year, but all of a sudden a few of them decided they wanted to do a social media experiment and use my video. They want to see what they can do to make older content go viral in a short time. They are sending it out, sharing links, will be updating tagging, yada, yada, yackity schmackity. They want to make me famous. Which in turn might get me voice over work. Which in turn would be good PR for the company. Which in turn MIGHT get everyone who made me go viral a nice raise. Maybe not that last part.

I am interested to see what happens. I have to admit it would be REALLY cool to get in the million views range. It would be even cooler to get a job as a cartoon voice, or just to do some voice over work in general. I don’t have a golden voice but I am also not living on a street corner and don’t need rehab.

So, if you want to be part of making me the next viral sensation and making me famous for all of 30 seconds per video clip show, link to the above video from anywhere you can. Post it on Facebook, Tweet the link, Digg it, StumbleUpon it, share it on whatever other sites. Share it from the bottom of this post. You even have full permission to repost this blog entry. Do whatever you have to do to make me a viral sensation. I am confident it can be done. Granted, I am not the most talented person out there, but there are a WHOLE lot of people with FAR less talent getting famous and rich for no reason. And no … I am NOT going to make a sex tape to be famous.

Stay tuned over the next few days and weeks to se how we are doing. Actually, if we succeed, you shouldn’t have to look for updates here.

Until next time, remember … “we don’t want to be happy, we want to be famous!”