“Abraham Lincoln once said that if you are a racist, I will attack you with the north.” -Michael Scott
Television
Awkward Moments of 2012
Awkward Moments of 2012
Well, the awkward year is ending and soon we will have to get used to writing “2013” when entering in a date, after getting used to the whole “2012” thing. If you search for any events that happened in 2012, you’ll likely find some bad ones. Let us set those aside for a minute as we look for the good, funny, and weird stuff of this year. What were some of the awkward moments of 2012?
Around the Internet
The SOPA Protests
People LOVE their internet. How much? Well upon being threatened by possible internet laws that would ruin this whole free-for-all, “wild west,” thing we have going with the internet today, even though they claimed it was just against internet piracy, the big internet tech companies said NO THANK YOU and protested on the internet. The laws would require a ton of money and add a bunch of restrictions to the creation of things. You guys have blogs, right? You know what I mean. So, they created an internet blackout. Wikipedia, Reddit, the Lolcats and many others raised awareness by letting us see what life would be without them. The lawmakers, upon not being able to get their daily dose of icanhazcheezburger, said “Ok! We get it!” and went back to their drawing boards to come up with a way to approach us again without pissing us off this time.
Facebook’s “Read” Feature
Yup, so this happened. Facebook made things awkward by letting us see if the person we just messaged is ignoring us. C’mon, you know you’ve done it. “That guy” you’ve been talking to sends you a message and you don’t want to appear desperate so you ignore the message for a few hours or days before getting back to him. Well now he knows. Oh and thought you could get away with ignoring a post by one of the members of a Facebook group? Yeah… that’s gone. Facebook now shows who read it. Some may say that Facebook has too much power, but do they really? I mean, they only have your birthday information, cell phone number, address, knows your work place, a list of everyone you talk to, records of chats, can detect your face in photographs, sells general information, knows your likes and dislikes, tries to make you friends with your ex again, asks for your credit card information, knows where you are, and what you eat. That’s it. That’s all they know! No biggie.
YouTube’s Viral Videos
We all saw history being made with Gangnam Style with about 1.05 billion views! Psy, a South-Korean pop singer with the dance that looks like he’s riding a horse. My favorite part includes that one guy with the hat in the elevator. Mashable has created a list of the Top 10 Most Viral Videos of 2012 which is also worth a visit if you’re into the whole video thing.
The KONY 2012 Thing Backfired
What was it? It was a campaign and movement to raise awareness about Joseph Kony and his abductions for his army in Uganda in order to get people and the government to do something that had been going on for three-decades. So they did raise awareness, and the campaign didn’t really backfire.. but some people around the internet like to think so. Such a nice cause was tainted when Jason Russell (the guy behind the whole thing) flipped out. He was walking around San Diego intoxicated and well, had some psychological issues. He was just walking around naked letting it all hang out. That was awkward, dude. Then a bunch of people started talking about the video and coming up with their own reasons why the video was wrong, or how it was narrow minded and was even considered a bit racist among all these other things. People were saying that the video made the problem seem too simple to fix and that wasn’t really the case. Since then, the KONY 2012 campaign from Invisible Children has released more information and explanations about the whole thing.
On The News
NBC Delaying the 2012 Olympics
People were pissed! In order to find out who had won some of the events, we had to go online and watch them live on there. Hello, NBC.. we have something called The Internet and we do not want to be the last ones to find out the score on the most important sports event in THE WORLD. In the network’s defense, they are allowed to do so in order to improve their ratings. Not many people are going to be up late at night watching pole vaulting. They are also allowed to edit the opening ceremonies. Also to edit anything want before the show the public. Britain was all all like HELL NO when they found that NBC edited out the tribute during the opening ceremony for the victims of the bombing in 2005. You can read more about it here.
Celebrities
In short, here are the things buzzing around the celeb world that got awkward: Miley Cyrus’ haircut, Taylor Swift dating more guys and getting heartbroken (yay, more songs!), Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez breaking up and making up then breaking up again. In other news, Prince Harry and Kate Middleton’s naked pictures (not at the same time) came out. Paparazzis caught her in a private place she was staying, and they found Prince Harry’s photos of him partying somewhere in Las Vegas? I’m not too sure on this.. I don’t keep up with the celeb world. I will not post those pictures up here, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere. That stuff is always awkward.
The Mayan Prophecy –We’re not dead.
That was awkward. 12/21/2012 was supposed to be the day where some planet was gonna hit the Earth, or zombies were going to come out of the ground, or God would come and take his people. Maybe something else was supposed to happen? People all over the place were freaking out and legitimately believing that the world was going to end. They posted pictures of themselves eating their last meals, and holding hands with their loved ones, oh man.. I feel kind of bad talking about this now. Anywho, the world didn’t end, and we woke up the next day wondering if we were dead. Wait, was it just me? It would’ve sucked if it ended though.
A long time ago, the Mayans were hanging around the Earth looking up at the stars. I’m pretty sure we would all do the same thing if electrification had never happened. Those were good times, man. They were amazing record-keepers and found out many things about the stars.. and 12/21/2012 is supposed to be the start of a new era. So Happy New Era everybody!
Politics
The U.S. Presidential Election
It was sad and funny and awkward all at the same time. People were picking on Mitt Romney for bringing up his binders full of women, for his app having “Amercia” instead of America, for his big bird reference, and for his 5-point tax plan:
- Slide to the right
- Slide to left
- Left foot let’s stomp
- Take it back now y’all
- Cha cha real smooth
I’m not proud guys. We pretty much bullied a presidential candidate here in the U.S. I guess that goes along with the world’s stereotypes about Americans. It was definitely an awkward experience for all of us. We all watched the presidential debates, and the vice-presidential debates.. sweaty people, awkward moments, and new jokes and memes for us all!
Fast Food Takes a Stand on Politics
Only in the United States, friends, only in the United States.. Do you guys remember the post on Chick Fil-A? Here’s how it went: Chick Fil-A was donating money for campaigns trying to stop same-sex marriage, and people found out. So again, people were angry and got together to boycott Chick Fil-A and organized a kiss-in. Gay people would show up, take a picture kissing and submit it to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Read about it from the New York Times!
Did we forget that Chick Fil-A is a fast food chain? They sell chicken sandwiches. They stand their ground with their views of “the biblical idea” of marriage. They.. ugh! It doesn’t matter, people. They sell fast food!
Only in America would a fast food chain have a huge voice on controversial topics like these.
It HAS Been One Awkward Year
Can you believe it has been another year already? Einstein was right on this whole, “time moves at different speeds” thing. Think of all the things you have accomplished and all of the things that good people around the world have been doing for others. The world isn’t so bad.
Thank you guys for keeping up with me and this blog, lots of things have changed around here in just one year.. and from what I read, lots has changed with you as well. I will see you all next year!
Oh and I almost forgot, for all of you who like looking at the search terms people use to reach your blog, check out what people have googled this year on Google’s Zeitgeist Video:
When fat people call themselves fat
We all know about it, we see news reports all over the place about how fat America is getting. Hmm.. I know there are readers out there from other countries, so here is a question for you: Do you see news reports on fat America in your area?
Here in the U.S. we see them all the time! They’re always like “We are fat! Obesity is a problem. It can lead to diabetes, high cholesterol, sudden death, heart attack, depression..” the list goes on and on (and on and on). These things appear on the news so often, you’d think people aren’t actually noticing this stuff on their own. We see big people out on the street all the time, but for some reason, the news people think its an awesome idea to show clips of fat people walking around on the street.
I drew up that thing in like 10 seconds, sorry for the quality, but the whole missing-people’s-heads part is totally accurate. They news people go around filming the bellies and big butts of people walking by, and they probably feel super proud of themselves when they score a fat person holding a bag of McDonald’s or a fat dude walking around with an overweight child. Can you imagine seeing yourself on one of those reports?
“Look, I’m on TV!”
Not.
It is a horrible thing. According to kidshealth.org, one in three children are overweight or obese.
But when I go pick up my little cousin from school, I see maybe one overweight kid out of a class of 20. I’m not sure if they took a survey outside of a food court or something, but it seems a bit exaggerated. I guess it makes sense though, don’t television network news channels get a kick out of scaring the crap out of everyone?
DEATH! VIRUS! WAR! MOTHER-IN-LAWS!
It’s like, dude c’mon!
Well since I’m not here to lecture on obesity, and we probably get enough of it elsewhere anyway, lets talk about the awkward moment when a fat people call themselves fat.
What are you supposed to do when a person calls himself/herself fat and they actually are?
I’ve tried to come up with something to say given the many opportunities I’ve had in this exact situation over the years, but I still cannot come up with a solid way out.. Hmm..
Let us look at our options:
- “No you’re not!”- You just lied. That’s awkward, and now they’re probably going to defend their statement and you’ll be forced to say “Ok, yeah you are.. sorry.”
- “Haha! No, I am!” – This might make you look like a jerk if you’re slim. Have you ever heard a person say something like that? They call themselves fat around a person that is actually overweight? Ugh.
- “Yeah, you are.. haha!” -Whoa, you did NOT just do that! Even though it was probably supposed to come off as a joke, its an awkward one because its true. Now you both have to pretend like it was actually funny and play it cool.
- “… … …” – You stay silent. According to the Code of Awkwardness, this qualifies as an Awkward Silence. If the topic doesn’t get changed immediately, it gets worse exponentially. So pretend to tie your shoe, act like your phone just vibrated, or say “I have hairy elbows” for instant relief.
OK, let’s hear it. What would you say?
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More awkward: