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Link: next Link: shortcut icon apple-touch-icon Link: canonical * You Might Be A Zombie! * Cracked Store * iPad App * Horror On Cracked * Write For Us * Login * or Register * Face Book Connect Cracked.com Get the Cracked iPhone reader Agents of Cracked Season 3 Videos * Articles Browse By All Articles Movies & TV Music Celebrities Tech Sex Sports News Science History Weird World Video Games * Videos * Columnists Browse By Daniel O' Brien Soren Bowie Robert Brockway Chris Bucholz Gladstone Michael Swaim Seanbaby Cody Christina H. 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Here's some ways people try to get their spamming and whining and self-promotion past your defenses: #7. Mysterious Facebook Updates Have you ever seen a friend suddenly post a mysterious, unexplained update on Facebook along the lines of "I don't know why I bother to try to help people. :-(" or "*sigh*"? Some people call it vaguebooking. Failbook has a category devoted to this. Why do they do this? Maybe they are just poor communicators who expect people to read minds. More often, this is a "teaser" statement designed to pique your interest in a boring story about their lives you would normally ignore. Some people will fall into their trap and ask, "What's wrong?" and the poster can dump his or her story on those people without feeling guilty because, well, they asked! Did you ever have to do book reports in grade school? Remember how you were never supposed to tell people how it ended? "Will the Hardy Boys manage to find the criminal before their friends are dissolved in a vat of acid? Read the book and find out!" By the time we grow up, we learn it's not good to be that transparent and say, "How did my attempt to help someone backfire on me today? Send me a sympathetic message and find out!" so we layer it under a bit more subtlety. Another from Failbook. You could just be honest and say, "I had a crappy day and need someone to talk to. Message me if you've got some time." But this approach fell flat in our focus groups, far behind more proven marketing techniques like offering to enter the listener into a sweepstakes for every minute they listen to you, or promising a surprise guest, or just vaguebooking. I, for one, would prefer a return to the more direct sensationalism of our youth. "How was my co-worker unfair to me today, and did I end up dissolving her in a vat of acid? Anyone who wants to know, please send me a message." People who don't want to hear your story don't feel obligated or manipulated, and people who do will also get an exciting fictional epilogue about a close call with acid, which is the least you can do to pay them back for their time. "And when I finished, this was all that was left of him." #6. Secret Socrates You probably know there's a lot of militant people on the Internet pushing for unpopular things, like white supremacy, turning the clock back on women's rights, abolishing all religion, converting everyone to their religion, being more accepting of pedophilia/dog fucking, appreciating Cars 2, etc. I was going to say Delgo, but no one's seen that. The people who push these things know they get yelled at when they bring them up, but they don't accept that this is because they are wrong and their ideas are awful and that Cars 2 was deservedly left off the Oscar nomination list. They think that it's a taboo subject that people have a "knee-jerk" reaction to, and if they just approach it a little bit sideways, and people don't realize they're talking about dog fucking or segregating black people at first, they'll be able to get them to think more "open-mindedly" about the subject, once they've cleared them of silly cultural preconceptions like racism being bad. Instead of starting out with "Don't you agree that black people have lower IQs and are best suited for physical labor?" they try to avoid setting off any alarms by framing it as a discussion about genetics and evolution, opening with "Everyone agrees that genetics have at least some effect on different traits, such as intelligence, right?" If you say yes, they hope to lead you, like some kind of Socrates, through the steps of what they believe is a clear and logical pathway toward realizing that black people should be put in a warrior caste. Which doesn't make any sense, since the Ultimate Warrior is clearly white. Or they might post a link to a new study or book and say, "This guy sure has some controversial things to say about race and intelligence. I don't know what to make of it myself! What do you guys think?" Once people start debunking the study, the original poster starts to "play devil's advocate," in a friendly way at first, saying, "Yeah, that sure is an extreme point he is making! But I think there is some truth to it and we can't ignore the whole thing. Like this part ..." As you debunk that, he will get more frustrated and eventually openly argue for whatever the article says. Keep it going long enough and he will just snap and pretty much start making Nazi salutes and reciting Mein Kampf. This person is imagining himself as Socrates, leading you wisely through a bunch of questions to discover the truth (which means whatever he is pushing) for yourself. What he is actually doing is playing King of the Mountain without telling anyone else that they're playing. He gets up on the mountain and invites people to come climb because he "wants to see other people's climbing techniques." Then, as you start climbing and showing him your footholds and such, he kicks you in the face and starts knocking all the other climbers off, and they're just as surprised as you were. See, you can feel like you are "winning" an argument if you are the only one arguing and everyone else is just casually trying to help you answer the question you claimed to innocently need help with, in the same way you can "win" a fight if you ask someone to help you fix your computer and you stab him in the back while he looks at it. It doesn't make them wrong or a sucker, it makes you a dishonest asshole. #5. Bragging There is a whole Twitter account devoted to picking out humblebragging tweets, where people make excuses to brag about themselves. A couple of examples: As you can see, a lot of self-absorption can be done in a 140-word standalone remark. With access to the interactivity and length of a forum thread format, people have a lot of other options available, though. In a tweet, you can tell people you're worried you've been boning too many women, but on a forum thread, you can go into detail about the sex and about how guilty you feel that all these women won't leave you alone, copy and paste some text from a sex addiction website to make it sound like you're seriously considering this as a psychological problem and pretend you've told everyone this so you can get valuable advice from them. And if you do get any advice, you can go into even more details! "I've also noticed that 21 out of the last 22 women I've slept with have been white. Do you think I might be a racist?" On a gaming forum, you can ask for "help" beating the final boss on Legendary or Extreme or Insane mode or whatever, six hours after the release of the game. Or a car enthusiasts' forum: "The Mazda 3 is listed as having a curb weight of 2,969 lbs. but I was able to lift mine easily the other day. I'm wondering if the dealer ripped me off, and some of the parts might be missing?" I have to say that making these up can be fairly addicting. I suggest having a contest to come up with these in your particular Internet community. It can be pretty discouraging for someone to come in and try to pull it off when there's a posted fake example of the very tactic they're about to try. We had a game on the Cracked forums a while ago. This was my entry: Hey guys. My dog threw up today and I am worried it might have bulimia. I really need some advice from you guys because I don't know a lot about bulimia, since I have a naturally perfect figure. All the boys always tell me I am very good looking, but I don't know if I believe them. I feel like I'm really ugly. I bet you guys would probably think I'm ugly, too. If you go to my website here, there are some pictures of me wearing a bikini, so you can see for yourself how ugly I am! LOL! I think the problem might be that my boobs are too big. It makes me feel fat sometimes. I have thought about taking up bulimia actually, but after seeing my dog throw up today, I was so traumatized that I've changed my mind. Anyway, so my question is, can dogs have bulimia? What should I do? If it helps, I have some pictures of the dog. That's me in the bikini holding it. Sorry I'm so ugly! "And here's another picture of my dog!" #4. "I Just Found ..." Everybody's got a blog or a web comic or a Twitter account these days (or has a friend with one), so pretty much everybody is familiar with the temptation to flog your crap wherever you go. Most of us have the sense and consideration to tamp down this instinct and confine our self-promotion to appropriate times and places. Otherwise, the Internet would be filled with a million advertisements for blogs and YouTube videos, blotting out any actual content people would like to read. The more self-centered among us, however, feel that they deserve to spam their shit more than anyone else does, which means they eschew "promote your blog here" areas and try to sneak links to their terrible work into general interest areas by pretending they "just found" this brilliant video or web comic, or are "wondering what people think" about this "funny" blog article. "Pardon me, good sir! I just stumbled across a marvelous play called Hamlet." Usually, one big clue is the number of views something has. If someone links a nine-view YouTube video they "just found," it's pretty safe to say they "found" it by clicking on the link after their upload was complete. Another hint is the fresh, never-posted-before sock-puppet accounts that often follow the initial link, posting, "Great stuff! I liked (terrible part)!" Probably one of the best examples of this is a fellow known as Douche Quadbike, or Ben Ryan Metzger, a guy who was desperate to star in the new Captain America movie despite his tragic handicap of being unable to act. Before coming up with the strategy of making a video of himself as Captain America, a brilliant idea that would take years to formulate, he went at his goal by making a video where he rode an ATV and pushed around some tires and bales of hay to spell some woman's name for some reason. Hey, he's an actor, not a writer. He visited about a million forums and posted this same exact post: The funniest part is that no human being would be moved to tears by that video, except maybe tears of laughter. Unfortunately, after being laughed at by the entire Internet, he finally took the video private, but you can see the whole thing here, with a better soundtrack by Sanchez: [EMBED] And here's the techno remix: [EMBED] * Prev * Page 1 of 2 * Next * Stumble Upon * facebook * reddit * twitter * Fark Recommended For Your Pleasure * [IMG] Subliminal Messages Hidden in Everyday Life 606,324 views * [IMG] The 5 Most Annoying Banner Ads On The Internet 683,396 views * [IMG] The 15 Most Annoying Video Game Characters (From Otherwise Great Games) 1,453,349 views * [IMG] The 8 Most Obnoxious Internet Commenters 1,295,961 views * [IMG] The 7 Most Unintentionally Creepy Places on the Internet 2,665,932 views _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 933 Comments Recent Votes | Show Profanity 1. [IMG] sowen 02/07/12 11:23 PM * +1 * 1 * 0 Great article. +10 for the closing, lol. Reply Replying to sowen _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 2. [IMG] skim172 02/07/12 10:52 PM * +2 * 2 * 0 The Captain America video is hilariously painful. Terrible acting, hilarious script, stilted speech, completely nonsensical plot, and it manages to be both unintentionally and intentionally racist and misogynist. And, though it hardly seems necessary to say so, the guy seems to have no clue what actually happened in World War 2. As a bonus, his video description seems to think the reason why people hate the video is because of Kanye West, but it's okay, because black people aren't all like Kanye. Reply Replying to skim172 _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 1. [IMG] OnoSendai 02/07/12 11:50 PM * 0 * 0 * 0 Thank God... 3. [IMG] Von_Boner 02/07/12 10:48 PM * -2 * 1 * 3 This article need a warning like the one found on a box of laxatives. Reply Replying to Von_Boner _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 4. [IMG] TheAdditional1 02/07/12 10:48 PM * -1 * 1 * 2 I didn't read your little story in the end because I saw NO mention of cats. JK! That's a crazy coincidence Christina! That's ridiculous, how'd you find the pattern? I'll send you my credit card number immediately. :) --- Nah, I joke, but good article though. There's way too much of that crap all over facebook and...and, well and 9gag. Reply Replying to TheAdditional1 _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 5. [IMG] DamoclesSword 02/07/12 10:27 PM * -2 * 2 * 4 Christina, I am dissappoint, no "top 7 stories about my cats"? Reply Replying to DamoclesSword _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 6. [IMG] TheBlackKatana 02/07/12 10:26 PM * +4 * 5 * 1 I absolutely despise...vaguebooking girls. It's like a "who has had the worst day ever" contest on Facebook everyday. Spewing quotes/song lyrics...men-bashing...overall bitching. *sigh* Reply Replying to TheBlackKatana _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 1. [IMG] kellysassafras 02/07/12 11:31 PM * 0 * 0 * 0 "Ha! u datin him now??? have fun with my leftovers!!! lmaozzzz" I want to strangle the stupidness out of my laptop every single time. 7. [IMG] Iamjack18 02/07/12 10:21 PM * +2 * 3 * 1 I Vaguebooked along with one of my buddies just to troll. Posting stuff like "that just happened" to which he replied something along the lines of "I know I can't believe it!" and eventually other people would just join in. Reply Replying to Iamjack18 _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 8. [IMG] kya88 02/07/12 10:11 PM * +2 * 3 * 1 My card number is 46382596877353. Security code is 565. Brownie points to anyone who gets this. Reply Replying to kya88 _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 9. [IMG] goatpunch 02/07/12 10:09 PM * -6 * 2 * 8 Christina I have read a lot of your articles because the titles are always too much of a lure for me to not read them. Either you became ten times the writer you were in your last article, or someone helped you. Seriously this does not even seem like your crap ass writing style. If it's all you though, I say congrats on your first decent article. I actually almost want to share it Reply Hide All See All 5 Replies Replying to goatpunch _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 1. [IMG] Iamjack18 02/07/12 10:27 PM * +2 * 5 * 3 Christina has actually been consistently writing good articles for several months now.... 2. [IMG] kellysassafras 02/07/12 10:41 PM * +2 * 5 * 3 I'm not usually this aggressive but f**k you, goatpunch. I'll punch your freaking goat next time you try slander Christina H's good name. 3. [IMG] Von_Boner 02/07/12 10:50 PM * 0 * 1 * 1 This article was terrible. I have read better material on a nowhere blog. If you think this was good you have bad taste. 4. [IMG] GiveMeCracked 02/07/12 11:06 PM * 0 * 2 * 2 I've run out of downvotes but I DOWNVOTE YOU IN SPIRIT VON_BONER AND YOU WILL CARRY THAT WITH YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!! 5. [IMG] drowsyLeper 02/07/12 11:39 PM * 0 * 0 * 0 EVERYONE STOP VON_BONER HAS SPOKEN; THERE IS ONLY ONE GOOD TASTE IN THE WORLD 10. [IMG] AntiFreeze3 02/07/12 10:00 PM * -1 * 1 * 2 I just got my side-burns trimmed and now I keep rubbing where they used to be and it's f*****g disappointing not having hair there anymore. Reply Replying to AntiFreeze3 _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 1. [IMG] Ryuu798 02/07/12 10:50 PM * +4 * 4 * 0 you missed the part where you are supposed to mention how you don't mind because of your perfectly smooth skin. 2. [IMG] CircusOfTragedy 02/07/12 11:54 PM * 0 * 0 * 0 Never trimming my sideburns. Never. 11. [IMG] DerrickAdcox 02/07/12 09:49 PM * 0 * 1 * 1 I didn't read the article, I just skimmed and saw the Ultimate Warrior. I hate you a little less now, Christina. Reply Hide All See All 3 Replies Replying to DerrickAdcox _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 1. [IMG] Syn 02/07/12 10:36 PM * -1 * 0 * 1 The UW is the biggest cockless wonder in the wrld. He is a roid freak who needs to be locked up. Your hero is a cockhole. 2. [IMG] DerrickAdcox 02/07/12 11:13 PM * +2 * 2 * 0 If people went to jail for being awesome, at least you'd have nothing to worry about. 3. [IMG] CircusOfTragedy 02/07/12 11:55 PM * 0 * 0 * 0 No, Syn was pretty much right. UW has imploded, and not from roids, from stupid. 12. [IMG] ChickenPhat 02/07/12 09:41 PM * +1 * 1 * 0 That reminds me I have a really sexy pic of me I need to put on FB. I look AWESOME! Reply Replying to ChickenPhat _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 13. [IMG] lily789 02/07/12 09:21 PM * -11 * 2 * 13 hi there! An invitation of Datebi*com is offered!where for men and women looking for bisexual and bi-curious individuals to meet in a friendly and comfortable environment. It's a nice place for the people who have the same sexual orientation. Reply Replying to lily789 _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 1. [IMG] SurfaceDog 02/07/12 09:34 PM * +16 * 16 * 0 Good God, I can't tell if you're spambot or just someone making an ironic comment on this article... 2. [IMG] AntiFreeze3 02/07/12 09:58 PM * 0 * 0 * 0 It's funnier if it's ironic, but then that would mean that it's not a real website so I can't get laid in a friendly environment, so it's really just a lose-lose. 14. [IMG] SimuLord 02/07/12 09:20 PM * +3 * 4 * 1 Where regards #7, I've done that, mostly because the response from my readers is hilarious when they think the status is about them. Really reveals their deep-seated insecurities, better in fact than if I'd just asked them flat-out what's eating them. Trolling strangers on the Internet is for amateurs. You haven't lived until you've trolled your family and friends. Reply Replying to SimuLord _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 15. [IMG] SirRemy 02/07/12 09:19 PM * -1 * 1 * 1 Great article; I can easily see a follow up article in the near future. Reply Replying to SirRemy _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 16. [IMG] Sweeper 02/07/12 09:17 PM * +1 * 1 * 0 Douche Quadbike made my rainy afternoon :) Reply Replying to Sweeper _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 17. [IMG] Bluth 02/07/12 09:17 PM * 0 * 0 * 0 For a second there I read "black cock" in #6 Reply Replying to Bluth _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 18. [IMG] OhMercyMe1 02/07/12 09:09 PM * +1 * 1 * 0 A couple of months ago I had made friends with all these other sims 3 fans through facebook. After about a month of passive-aggressive status updates complaining about haters and people stealing their sims and other petty nonsense, I'd had enough and blocked them all. I'm happy with my 4 friends from kongregate and 2 people I know from school. Reply Replying to OhMercyMe1 _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 19. [IMG] VanceofPance 02/07/12 09:04 PM * +3 * 3 * 0 Was that a link to the awesome, famous 'Cracked Boobs' photo and a Community reference all in one article? Nice, very nice. With number one, I still have a great, dark joy of just prowling Yahoo answers and giving plausible, yet ridiculously incorrect responses to the kids trying to get other people to do their homework for them. Little cheaters deserve it for being too lazy to cheat just by reading wikipedia. I think I might have a problem, though, because sometimes spend more time doing that than looking at boobs, wonderfully crafted, perfectly shaped boobs. Hmmmm. . . Also if that picture of the girl and her dog really was Christina her face is looking fine. I know. Reply Replying to VanceofPance _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ [ Submit Comment ] 20. [IMG] Six-Shooter 02/07/12 08:56 PM * +2 * 2 * 0 I am so glad Cracked & Brad Neely have some sort of connection now. Especially the George Washington one. 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