And the Blogger said unto Them, 'Thou shalt not Suck'

This one has been a long time coming, a germinating seed I never realized I had planted.  In a strange way, it is really the point of this entire blog, the alpha and omega.  Hinted at throughout, imperfectly realized, it has been the unseen force behind the preponderance of my articles.  Amazingly, it only just occurred to me to sum it all up in a (relatively) concise, explicit list.  Why should the Catholic Church have a monopoly on moral codification and condemnation?  That's right, faithful adherents, I am officially laying down a set of modern mortal transgressions, the new Seven Deadly Sins.  Why?  Because everyone knows pride, gluttony, the excessive banging of hookers, and coveting your neighbor's goat are hell-worthy vices.  Or at least most people recognize them from that cautionary psychological Brad Pitt thriller.

Ocean's Ele7en

These new entries, on the other hand, are the ethical violations that seem to get ignored or even go unnoticed altogether.  And, as a bonus, my list isn't specific to any creed or god, relying only on my own secular humanist authority.  Which should be more than enough for you.  So, without further ado, let's make like Dante Alighieri and count down the new Seven Deadly Sins.

Technophilia

In case you forgot, I am a bit, shall we say, leery of technology.  It takes many guises and forms, much like the Devil.  Truthfully, I do not hate it, despite the bile I spew here about it.  Technology rocks.  When it is being used as a means to an end.  You know, the way it was meant to be when it was invented.  This - more than the confusing interfaces, illogical commands, and general aura of hipster smugness - is probably what I most loath about Mac: it is about loving technology for its own sake, a cult that fetishizes devices for being devices, rather than for any particular thing they can do.  I suspect some of these people would actually have sex with their iPad if they could.  Is there an app for that?

If only that port was a little bit larger . . .

I'm not bitching about technology taking over our lives.  That happened already.  I am talking about technology replacing our lives.  I am talking about two people sitting across from each other at a restaurant table six years ago and not saying a word to each other, their glassy eyes glued to their phones.  And I laughed at the time, pointing out how absurd the scene was, like a New Yorker cartoon.  I'm still laughing now, only it's more hysterical and mixed with sobs.  I saw an ad online that touted Farmville as "an escape from the city."  I don't remember what happened next, because I sort of blacked out from incredulous rage.  People have been consistently neglecting their careers and families for several years now to play an unending series of "updates" (read: new backgrounds) of a kindergarten-level video game starring knockoff Pokémon that could have been made in 1989.

Coming soon: Christopher Nolan's visionary adaptation, Angry Birds Rising.

Liking gadgets and appreciating technical innovation is one thing.  Ticking off the precious days of your life in ever-more-fevered anticipation of the release of the next version of a device you already own (but with a new charging dock!!!) is pathetic, and not simply because its "inventor" ripped off most of the designs.  There is a fine line between "hobby" and "creepy obsession," which you pissed on as you crossed it miles back.

A recent example just blew my mind: there were people complaining about how Twitter spoiled the Olympics, because it revealed the results before they were televised.  Do you know how I learned this?  Enough people were griping about it that CNN had to run a news story on it.  Well, here's a real newsflash for you, fucktwits - don't follow those Tweets.  Better yet, don't follow any Twitter accounts, because they are the definition of mindless self-indulgence.  How can you complain about this when you are the one choosing to look at the results ahead of their airing?  You're ruining the surprise for yourself, as you did when you peaked at your Christmas presents under the bed before they were wrapped.  Nobody is holding a gun to your head.

"Read the Tweet.  Read it!  How does it feel to know your country
took bronze two minutes before the TV told you so?  Does it depress
you?  Doesn't it make you want to go on some sort of ill-conceived
rampage, now that you know what true chaos is?  Burn it all."

I mean, seriously?  If you are so addicted to a frivolous information feed that you cannot interrupt the stream even for the delayed gratification you supposedly want more, it may be time to seek professional help.

Shit, that's not what I meant, oh, Christ on a stick, no-

Better question: is this a real article?

No, no, no, no, NO.  Damn it, CNN, why did you have to go there?  Why?  You had to validate a bunch of losers' poor self-control by suggesting it may be an actual freakin' medical condition.  I was using the term "addiction" loosely, but you had to go make it clinical.  By running this "story," you're absolving them of the responsibility to turn the console off, because now they're victims of something beyond their control.  It's not their fault!  It's genetic!  Let's stage interventions!  Give them pills!  Pity them!  That will surely make this heinous new "disorder" go away!  What's that?  Some Asian gamers have died when they couldn't bring themselves to stop playing video games?  As in, literal death, without any extra lives?  What the almighty flying feng shui fuck, Asia?  Why do you have to be so weird?  Tentacle porn just wasn't off-putting enough.  This totally undermines my stereotypical image of you as a mysterious, majestic land of tranquil, cybernetic genius warriors.

No, CNN, no, they shouldn't.  And you are stupid for asking that question.

But while I'm harping on one of my old gripes, let's move on to the next sin . . .

Self-Victimization

I am a big critic of this one, in all its varied permutations.  You may recall me illustrating my contempt here and here.  "I was bullied to death!"  "I'm allergic to plants!  All of them!"  "He's not a dickhead kid, he has Advanced Mutant Godchild Syndrome!"  "Waaah, waaah, woe is me!"  Suck.  It.  The Fuck.  Up.  You are not special and misunderstood, you are not a tragic victim, your "struggle" isn't an inspiration to anyone, and you did nothing to earn the attention you are so desperately seeking.  And even if you did, stop it.  You are insulting those who really are suffering in some legitimate way outside of their control, ear-raping the rest of us with your miniature orchestra of nothing but tiny, self-pitying violins.  You know what nobody in the Bible said?  "God helps those who help themselves."  The real Most Interesting Man in the World and all-around renaissance pimp Benjamin Franklin actually coined this proverb, but given how many ignorant Americans persist in believing it is in fact Holy Writ, it's staggering how few take it to heart.

With all the personal empowerment seminars and self-actualization workshops clogging our hotel conference centers, I am baffled that most people aren't under the impression they can not only overcome any temporal obstacle - be it disease, oppression, or the entire cast of The Expendables 1 and 2 - but reverse the time-stream by flying backward around Earth via positive thinking.  Channel your inner spirit mongoose, realign your paradigm, whatever it takes, just knock off the hypochondriact.

Overexposure

The obsession with technology is directly related to this one, because the purpose of most modern consumer tech, aside from dulling our minds to facilitate the impending Reptoid invasion, is to help you lie to yourself and others.  It provides the illusion of importance, a false sense of celebrity to every 'Tard, Douche, and Whorey.  (You see what I did there?  Wordplay, motherfuckers).  Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Pintrest, FourSquare, and Jewish God knows what else all revolve around the conceit that the world revolves around you.  Your every waking moment is a memory for everyone you know to treasure, your every thought or opinion worthy of digital enshrinement for the masses to ponder.  "Everybody knows everything about all of us!  That's too much knowledge!" the incomparable Shatner once quipped on a spoken-word track with Beck.  It has progressed so far that the populace is operating under the mass delusion that everyone should and wants to know everything about everyone else.

Hey, by the way, I like Batman a little bit.

By this point, it is already trite to point out JaneyRae McStarbrite just put on her neon rainbow socks!:) is not a worthwhile status update on Facebook.  We all know people post the most inane details of their daily routines as if any other meat puppet on Cthulhu's accursed earth should care.  We're desensitized to it.  Equally irritating is Facebaiting, which receives due scorn on many an Internet "Most Annoying Trends/Excuses for Human Beings" list.

You know this asshole.

Remember what I said about painting yourself as a victim to garner attention and crappy e-cards?  The converse of this, of course, is the person who posts, "Hemorrhoids again?  Really?  Maybe I should stop mouth-hugging strangers in the NiteSider bathroom.  Are hemorrhoids even a STD, lol?"

Speaking of STDs . . .

So you have a kid.  Congratulations.  You managed to get yourself knocked up/did some knocking up.  I hear that is quite an accomplishment.  And the result is a miracle, no doubt, and in no way am I belittling your precious little crotch-dumpling (okay, maybe I am, just a bit).  But posting a new picture of said infant every 25 minutes on your Facebook wall is annoying as hell to the rest of society.  No, we don't have to look at it, but neither do you have to post it.  Before the advent of Facebook and Imgur and Photobucket and Instagram, you would never have been under the impression everyone, from closest kin to random netizens, needed to see your offspring's first successful shit.  You wouldn't walk down 5th Avenue decked out in a sandwich-board sign bearing your progeny's cherubic image (your word of the day, readers).  Remember the clichéd joke about the relative who brings over two boxes of slides and proceeds to subject the entire family to a 2-hour show nobody asked for?  That's you.

Everybody meet Zaiden Saber Wilcox!

Baby Zaiden, doing his thang . . . being adorable!

Aw, love seeing my special lil' guy so happy!!!

Flashback to six months ago!  Can't believe how much baby Zaiden's grown!

Hey, did I mention I love my child?  Because I do.  Don't all of you?

We get it, thank you.  Now please stop bludgeoning us over the heads with concentrated essence of cuteness.  I will give you a pass for the first 47 weeks or however you parents measure time, what with the novelty of the child and all.  But after that, please limit it to a few photos per month.  I don't feel I should even have to explain why people who do this same thing with their pets are operating on a whole new level of sad.

Beyond the mere irritation factor, though, some commentators are starting to point out a darker side of this trend as well.  Your child has no privacy, from birth onward, no chance to offer permission or consent before they are assimilated, Borg-style.  We love to warn our Twilight-addled tweens about the dangers of posting personal information online as we upload their younger sibling's baby pictures by the terabyte.  Their life is an open e-book for any stranger to download on a tablet reader; they don't even need to check that box that says I have read and agree to the terms and conditions of this service, which is always a lie anyway.  As they grow up alongside the increasingly-SkyNet-like web of technology, these kids will believe it normal to never have a genuine private life, because they never knew a world where that was thing you could have.

"No Facebook?  Right, Mom, and I bet the bogeyman
and Vanilla Ice are real, too.  I'm not a noob anymore."

Their sense of identity and self-worth will be measured by their friend-count and digital portrait, which gives them the freedom to construct a badass image in black leather and Ray-Bans, like the heroes in The Matrix, but also locks their fragile, impressionable minds into, well, the Matrix.  Do you really want your child to grow up to be Keanu Reeves?

This has also led to strange, unforeseen side effects outside of the technological realm, because people cannot separate areas of their lives anymore.  Reality is meaningless, so people start letting the behaviors learned online leak into their actual lives.  I am talking about this bullshit:

When I first saw this, I went all vigilante on the driver and performed a citizen's arrest, right after the less-exercised citizen's high-speed, massive-collateral-damage vehicle chase, on the assumption he was a psychopath proudly proclaiming his kill-count.  Once we straightened that minor misunderstanding out, I was even more confused.

This is, for the record, fucking weird.  And I cannot believe I am the only one who seems to think so.  Why are you advertising the size of your family?  Or the contents of your automobile?  Am I supposed to feel jealous?  Intimidated?  This may come as an ugly shock to you, but I really do not give a damn about your family.  I don't know you.  I have even seen rear windows that feature the name of each family member above their stick-person counterpart.  At this point, you are basically making a checklist for creepy stalkers and serial killers such as the one I thwarted.  Five years ago, I don't think anyone would have dreamed of doing this, but technology has brainwashed us into thinking we need to share this kind of information with the world.

It gets even sadder when single people or childless couples decide they have to follow this moronic vogue and start doing the Facebook "furry kids" thing:

Wow, you have two cats and two dogs?  Bet that fills the void for you.

These are not children, in any sense.  Stop pretending.  It's not the same goddamned thing.  In a way, I suppose it's slightly better because you are only violating the privacy of your animal companions, as opposed to future human beings.  And they lick their genitals in public, so clearly they aren't shy (the pets, not your kids . . . hopefully you break them of that habit before they start preschool).

And now, as God did to Moses in the desert of the Sinai, I'm going to leave you hanging.  Don't worry, I will return with Part II soon.

KP, out.