FML

As of late I've taken to reading fmylife.com. It's an interesting little website where people submit terriblt, horrible, no-good, very bad things that have happened in their day/week/month/year/eternity, and then others can either say "Why yes, that is most horrible" or "Wow, you really had that coming"...

It's essentially one giant way to receive sympathy for all of your woes. Or, if you're someone like me, it's prime entertainment and a way to make yourself feel better about the things in your life. I don't really care who you are, you can't be down on your life after reading some of the things on this website. It's golden. So why am I, one who made this blog to complain, writing about it?

Because it is the devil. It is the devil that is spawned by a global information sharing network.

I imagine about 10% of the stories on fmylife.com are genuine, and genuinely terrible occurences. That's a pretty high percentage considering my skepticism towards all things on the internet and their level of truth. 10% out of who knows how many. And for those 10%, I fully understand that sometimes you just need to vent to a faceless entity about how much life sucks. The other 90%, however, are assholes.

Imagine the kid who just found out his fiancee is pregnant, and his best friend is the father. That poor boy's world was just shattered, so he posted a small paragraph to vent and maybe get some sympathy. Nothing wrong with that.

Now that gets buried under the slew of others submitting things like "I spilled coffee on my new pants" from people who just had a mildly uncomfortable moment. And people who make up stories just to see how many people on the internet will express sympathy for it. Now that kid with his genuine problem is lost at the bottom, and realizes that 200,000 people agree that spilling your coffee is terrible, while only 5 people agree his best friend nailing his girl is awful.

I guess I'm not really complaining about the site. I understand why it's helpful to some, and I certainly wouldn't want it to not exist. Yes, by the way, I do feel a small bit of guilt that I'm entertained by the suffering of the genuine stories. But anyway, I'm not complaining about the site. I'm complaining about assholes on the internet.

Like that LonelygirlWhatever crap a few years back. Way to be assholes on the internet. People were genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of a video blogger, only to find out the whole thing was scripted. That's a dick move. In life there's a line between being funny, and being a jerk. On the internet that is a thin, very pixellated and broken line. Suddenly the two are one and the same, because we're interacting through a keyboard and monitor.

I'm not entirely sure now what fmylife had to do with this post from the beginning. I guess I just wanted to plug it so others can get a chuckle out of some of the stories.

I think the whole problem could be resolved in a simple manner, however. Build a contraption to slap someone in the mouth whenever they cross the line between "Funny" and "Jerk" while on the internet. You can get slapped for being a jerk in person, why not on the internet?

Problem solved. You're welcome, world, that one's on the house.