Outcome

Bored in lecture -> endless facebook clickbait and 'relatable content' that constantly circulates. 

Sample posts presented in a format that I think accurately represents my feelings on this content.

Highlights include:

'How f*cking your ex is exactly like having that third slice of pizza'

'Teen boy's promise to carry tampons and pads to support women'

'The real reason wheat is toxic'

'Badass sheep promoted to Lance Corporal in the British Army'

'Share if you believe [in prayer]'

Got a helping hand from xCYBERPIRATENx

(file edited to avoid suggesting illegal activity)

xCYBERPIRATENx has chosen a name reminicsent of early hacker culture, which I found myself laughing at. I also noted how poor the spelling and grammar were, which seemed rather at odds with the meticulously created text files created by folks on bulletin boards. The crack worked as expected, which I guess in the end is all that matters, but it's worth noting that this file that was just meant to relay technical information left me wondering how the renegade internet culture has changed over the decades.

Stumbled onto Qualcomm's tumblr. I always find it so odd that big tech corporations, especially those that are so behind the scenes like Qualcomm, maintain such an active and well cared for web presence. I guess the goal is to make themselves more of a household name, but they work on the sort of products that mostly engineers need to be familiar with. Most of their content is original too, which suggests a lot of effort expended to appear 'relatable' to the general public. While it's definitely interesting, I have a hard time connecting with and wanting to share such clearly corporate branded content.

I like to play a game with myself sometimes when I see a weird article title - 'Buzzfeed or Clickhole'. 

Let's play it now!

Look at this article title - is it from Buzzfeed or Clickhole?

This one was easy - definitely Clickhole!

How about the next one?

Also pretty easy - this one's from Buzzfeed.

Don't get too cocky though, this next one's a little harder!

Feeling certain about this one? If you guessed Clickhole, sorry! This weird mashup is actually real content posted to Buzzfeed.

Now that you're on your toes, take a guess on this one.

Yep, that one's from Clickhole. 

Did you get them all? There's no fooling you! Your trained eye definitely knows its absurdist parody humor from its weird clickbait. 

Did you only get some of them? Looks like you haven't quite gotten it down! It's okay, sometimes Clickhole articles seem pretty innocuous, and sometimes Buzzfeed articles can be really strange. 

Did you miss most or all of them? Wow, do you even go on the internet? This may come as a surprise to you, but not all content you read online is true. You might want to spend some time practicing so you don't get caught mistaking an Onion article as real news. 

--

I couldn't help but throw out a quick mimicry of the kind of content I always find myself consuming - quizzes, in the loosest sense of the word. Whether it's the participatory action of taking a quiz, the false promise of learning some new tidbit of information about myself, or just a stubborn curiosity to prove that I'm good at identifying lyrics of a popular 90s song, I always find internet quizzes to be a particularly effective attention suck for myself.

The last image I'm including is from my bedroom - I've picked up a small collection of prints and print-like postcards (since they're cheaper and easier to store) from some of my favorite modern and contemporary artists. It's one part souvenir from museums I visit and one part decoration.