Hello Island Guests! In just under two months I will turn 21 for the 14th time in a row! I do not feel like a person who just passed the double threes in legitimate age definition. However there is one thing that makes me old.. and that is a part of the current geek but also world culture… and that is memes. Then there is also this lingo and these commonly accepted things and humor that go over my head. I often find myself wondering.. why is that supposed to be funny? Where is the craft in that? So today we sit in a rocking chair, wiggle our cane and wonder if my Island should not be a retirement home already! Today I look at things prominent in geek culture that I do not understand.
What the Heck is G-Fuel
Back in my day gamers would keep themselves up with a Red Bull or quite a bit more popular Monster Energy Drink. A company I worked for twice hosted gaming events in the country with Monster as one of our main Sponsors. I wasn’t a huge fan of the energy drink hype back then but I also feel it was a much more silent thing. It was more like “Pinkie is AFK getting a drink” and people would be like.. Monster.. and then you could go “Monster!” and they would ask what colour. Then all of the sudden there was G-Fuel and it was everywhere. Yet nowhere?! I see people constantly talking about G-Fuel which I would assume stands for Gamer Fuel? I am so not sure?! Why are people going this crazy over it? I see people shout G-Fuel .. in their name on twitter or Discord or whatever but why would you do that?! Why would you want to walk in clothes of that?! Okay I see people walk with Redbull shirts or Monster shirts as well.. but when it’s Redbull it is mostly due to the formula 1 fandom and not the energy drink itself. Monster has pretty much died out since the ban on young people came.
So G-Fuel turns out to be a powder.. I thought it was an energy drink but it isn’t? Is it like a protein drink or is it caffeinated powder so people can sell it to kids?! Do we need to be that jubilant for people finding a loophole to sell us what medical people think.. might not be very good for you? I mean I get why it’s nice to have something you could no longer have.. but I just don’t get the fandom around a drink. I like my drinks carbonated and I like the feeling of drinking from a can . I like a glass as well but with powder mix I usually get dust everywhere, I never get the consistency right due to how different all glasses are and why would I go for a drink I need to make instead of one that is ready to pour?! I only liked Nestle Quick when mom made it for me! Are they THAT delicious?! If so why isn’t it available then?! I never found it in any store?! I do not get the appeal! Then again I never liked any energy drinks except for the classic Ginseng Monster one.. and only when I was really hungover because I liked how my throat got prickly?! Please let me know the appeal! Or what it actually is.. or what the G stands for. If it stands for G-Fuel maybe I should make A-Juice.
I Stan and Simp makes my ears or eyes bleed
I Stan the Anime Man, I stan Laura Bailey.. it sounds so ugly! What is so bad that the word love isn’t valid anymore? I mean sure I get that it is a different form of love and it sure is faster to say than Idolize but it sounds so ugly. I stan Irina .. I could barely type that without chunks of G-fuelless vomit coming up my throat. Why do we need to butcher the english language like this?! Just because it is “hype” to get an entry on Urban Dictionary?! I get that language evolves over time but 95% of these words die out within the year they are invented. How do I keep track of what is active lingo and what is not?! There are a few YouTubers I actually do NOT understand without looking at Urban Dictionary regularly. It doesn’t mean I disapprove of all the words. Pog is something I still find very ugly but I get the need for that to be a word. Chats on discord go fast so POG instead of nice play my man.. is a lot faster.. but love and stan isn’t different in length nor in pronunciation. Why is it fun to use fashion words if you know they will die out soon, it will only make you look uncool after the word has died out. I could still say I love Foovay instead of saying that I stan her and no one would think I am weird.. but if I Stan Ospreyshire in like three months people think like.. wow nobody uses that word anymore it is so uncool. So why make yourself sound like your vocally handicapped for those few months.
Another one of those words that I hate is Simp. While I do not mind the “intended’ meaning of the word.. because it is so popular that meaning the “threshold’ ‘ for what it takes for someone to be a simp has been lowered that now it has no meaning and is just an annoying word. A simp should be someone who follows someone in an uncomfortable way to the one being followed. …Well at least this post is nice for training my abs. Someone who desperately follows a person in the false hope of establishing contact. Yet now you are already a “simp’ for following or commenting on a girls blog or twitter. That would make Raist and Indigo huge simp’s of mine and I do not think they are. I would simp Irina and Summer. So even IF you even use a memy word people use it so much it loses all its meaning. Take “Okay Boomer” for instance. That was trendy a few months ago. Now you are a Boomer for being old enough to “know this was a meme” how old do these people think they are?! Did the G-fuel disable their long term memory, so they can’t even remember what happened last month?! I really don’t get the language rules of this day and age!
Everything is a Meme
Why is James May putting cheese on a table ,and the rest of the video being cut out, a meme?! Why is it funny.. it’s just a man saying Cheese. Why is Micheal Fassbender looking for the real something funny? Usually it is just three pictures. Ricardo was a meme as well .. this buff guy with a six pack.. why is showing his picture in certain situations funny?! I mean I do edit some pictures and put in some other elements to make it “funny” but usually a story goes along.. without context those would not be funny.. and neither are 90% of the memes. Not to me at least. I am super happy people can enjoy it but I often wonder if there is something broken inside me that I do not find that funny. One of the cringiest meme formats I almost never like is that anime guy with his butterfly and then the subtitle IS this?…. I sometimes see something clever in that format but usually it is just someone putting in a quote and making the guy say the opposite. There is no content and it almost always feels unearned.
I do like meme characters in general. I enjoyed Bowsette being a thing , I enjoyed Ugandan Knuckles and I liked Ultra Instinct Shaggy but that is because they break the status quo we see a character do something they are not supposed to do. Oftenly blown out of proportion in fairly extreme ways. It is a fandom for something coming alive. That is why I also really love Devil Artemis YouTube Channel.. I like that level of randomness.. but on the other hand we have the Dio joke.. Which can be nice when well times.. but in the world of memes that joke is being made every second so in the end it is just another guy who put Dio’s head one someone else.. or blames Dio for Covid or whatever. That would be the same as me posting a picture of a ringing telephone and then placing the “run forest run” scene. A flyer for some kind of Marathon .. and then placing run Forest run.. or whatever situation you might want to run from. The guy who did it first is clever but those who repeat it don’t do anything special. There are so many situations that apply that it’s not clever. Most memes follow that format.. I do sometimes like simpler memes like that as well but you need to cater them to a niche because then it hits hard. When you try to gain as big of an audience as you can.. your meme will be super generic and I think it is the humor that requires the least amount of effort.
Tommy Wiseau being Thanos Snapped saying Bye Mark I find funny for example, well at least I found it funny when it first came out. Then there is the Drake stuff. Then there is the completely random stuff. I saw a meme recently that was “Why are there so many demigods?” Followed by an image of Zeus be Like.. and showed him in a few poses. To show he is feeling awkward.I get what is trying to be said but I don’t really get why it’s funny.
You could call it observational humor but a big pet peeve of mine is judging one’s actions through the changed perception of time or forcing our perspective upon everyone. Not everything needs to be judged by our current standards. These kinds of jokes have already been made by Monty Python as well as well. I just do not think we have to put EVERYTHING into that mold of memes! To me at least it goes stale real fast and you can really tell who forced something to be a meme. The creatures that I said I liked earlier, like Bowsette, Ultra Instinct Shaggy and Ugandan Knuckles.. more or less originated naturally.Then there is the LOSS meme.. which can be funny when someone experiences actual loss.. but why is it fun to see it in mario shells?! Forced!
Every Opinion is a Fact
Finally, why has the internet collectively forgotten the definition of an opinion. I can say I ship Cocona and Yayaka from Flip Flappers. Or Mimi and Joe from Digimon. If I do it on WordPress I might even get an interesting article on it but if I do it anywhere else I probably will get some toxicity from it. I would get explained in facts why it is not the writer’s intention to set them up, there is only so many minutes of interaction during the show, the colour palette shows the political nature of the author and from that I could have realised it would never happen if I wasn’t a total idiot who gave the fan base a bad name. When I was a kid in the schoolyard and I said I liked the Pink Power Ranger other Power Ranger fans would tell me their pick is the best ranger and would listen to why I like Kimberly. Nowadays when I say stuff like that people say I should pick Billy as my favourite ranger because David Yost was gay and he was bullied on the set but stayed so long, or Tommy because he can face Goldar on an equal level and thus is the stronger ranger.
I never said I thought the Pink Ranger was the strongest, nor that I respected her most.. I just said I liked her. Favouritism and love are an irrational thing as they stem from an opinion. Just because I love you all doesn’t mean there is not a blogger out there that thinks that the people at IGN or Kotaku are the real bloggers! I am sure the bloggers at IGN get paid more and that Kotaku bloggers have a wider reach, but that doesn’t mean they have found factual proof I should love you less?! So why do they do it?! What is the fun of talking trash about others’ opinions?! Why does one need to validate oneself by trashing another. If I think Goku can beat Superman in my headcanon that is what happens. I could release math on it, but a battle is not just numbers. Fictional characters have this flexibility to give us a story we want. If we apply logic the villains would always win as they always start off stronger than a hero. Frodo would not win in a fight against Sauron.. yet he did end up winning. Fantasies are our own and like movies they do not always need a rigid logic. There have been times where I wanted to make a top 5.. but I looked at other peoples opinion as well to be more correct! That’s pretty insane! Yet I am pretty sure others have done this as well. Which is kind of insane! Even if I like the things people hate, that doesn’t make me wrong! I can’t be wrong because I can’t be right either! And yes that does mean you can’t be right either! No one can! It’s amazing! But when I am online that doesn’t appear to be the case.
It seems the younger people are the more factual their opinions are. The more inclined you are to play Fortnite with peers or your age, the more inclined you are to be one of those people. Yet being part of a fandom also helps. The console wars going on are quite annoying to me. “The xbox series S is so inferior to PlayStation’s budget model..for 100 bucks more you get a more powerful device” FACT!.. Well yes… but that’s the whole point. Microsoft was like, well some console gamers do not care about the amazing graphics, if that was the main selling point they would most likely be pc gamers. So why not save you a ton of cash instead of just 100 bucks.. by building a lite version.I think that is smarter than the no disk version that only allows you to buy games at PlayStation store prices. I am not wrong..but the guy saying I do not buy physical anyway..probably is right as well. I honestly prefer my switch above both those next gen consoles. I can safely say that to my friends.. but when I say it on twitter I am dumb for preferring a device that has less power than a PS4… Well I do not care, I acknowledge you care and good on you.. but we all have different definitions. In fact when I say something is good, not only are the points I base that on NON factual.. even the terminology is subjective. For someone good might mean enjoyable for others, it has not a lot of faults and for others it would have at least an average of 7/10 when tested on 5 different testing points. Yet on the internet.. The only opinion that is right is that of the biggest influencers that talk about that topic. I do not get that.
Pinkie's Paradise 
I’ve long past the point of trying to understand modern internet culture. I grew up in the dial up era, and the only memes we had were All Your Base and Homestar Runner. Most of the people making memes now weren’t even alive back then 😅
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Most Meme makers could be my kids! But yeah I don’t think I will ever get modern internet culture! I guess.. we have reached the point that we are retro!
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I’m always behind on the hip new terminology. I only learned about “Simp” recently and, while I know what “stan” means, I’ve never used it in a sentence.
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Before writing this neither had I! I really find the words ugly! I am not very hip! It’s funny because if I am following my Pokétubers everyone talks G-Fuel and simping.. but on WordPress apparently almost nobody does!
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Lately I follow a channel on Youtube where this guy from Denmark plays call of duty mobile each night with a live chat. It’s a nice way to spend a few hours, and it’s also the first time where I heard the word simp. I had no idea what everyone was talking about, so to now be called a simp here is erm…well progress?😂😂
I think Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon said it perfectly: I’m getting too old for this sh*t😂😂
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You are not a simp, just in the eyes of some people tweaking the word into something it is not but yay I made everyone feel old ! XD
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I’m sitting here nodding and giggling and thinking I’ve been feeling this way about internet geekdom language for damn near twenty years already. Every generation goes through this, really, the words that were cool when I was a teen – okay, let’s not even talk about the Dark Ages. It’s a thing, like a Thieves Cant lingo in D&D, that sets some people apart as their own special little group so they can ridicule and dismiss people who aren’t part of their group. Hubby and I have sat and heard a conversation on the public bus here, and once the people got off, looked at each other and asked each other, “Did you understand a word of that? Was that English?” It’s all well and good as long as you are talking with people who are part of your “IN” group. Whatever. They’ll grow out of it. Or not, which is even sadder. Just be aware that when you are speaking to the public, you won’t be fully understood by some people and a lot of us are not going to go look it all up in Urban dictionary because WE JUST DON”T GIVE A FUCK about being part of your little group.
I had to laugh about the energy drink. Again, every generation has their own. My hubby drank Jolt to get through college. It’s illegal now, too.For the same reasons. I just took NoDoze over the counter pills and then switched to Red Bull when it came out. Every generation has to go through their own thing. It’ll get made illegal or make enough people sick it gets taken off the market. Never fear, as long as there are teens or college students and companies to take advantage of them, there will be some new super coolio energy drink to fuel them. Or it’ll be Ginko Bilboa pills, or Ginseng chews, or Gforce powder? Whatever. Smile, remember being young once when life is so INTENSE and move along.
Please, love me. I have no clue where stan is from or what, but it sounds a bit ugly and weird to me. As in Istanbul? As in some dorky guy named Stan? What in the world is wrong with love? Okay, I get that Americans in particular toss the word love around pretty liberally compared to say, Japanese who at best will really like something or even big like, or even favorite (ski, daiski, ichiban) and reserve love for pretty much only romantic love between a couple. So if that bugs you, we can just be OUR own little “in” group of Westerners who speak a wee bit of Japanese and use ski, daiski, and ichiban instead of love, okay? And before I get called a Weeaboo for that, I suggest you watch some J-drama or even Japanese reality shows or podcasts and count how many english words you hear them use during any given conversation. I figure if they can sprinkle English in their conversation – and it’s kind of “cool” – I can sprinkle Japanese in my conversation (and it’s always interesting to see who understands you). But Pinkie is my blogging bestie and I personally think that entitles us, as westerners, to say we love each other so there HAH.
As for meme’s, they were fun. Now they’re dumb and boring. I don’t hang at Facebook anymore anyway. Well, I check in now and then because I have good friends who still use it almost exclusively. Like I use Instagram because a few friends use it almost exclusively, and both of them are handy to share on my phone camera. Click click -okay I’ve reassured most of my gang I’m still alive – and playing Zen Koi. LOL. I personally need social interaction of greater than 140 characters and meme’s, and thus…here I am. Much of the time now 😀
I AM starting to get a little tired of people under 20 assuming that because I am clearly a senior, I am electronically challenged. Like my Credit card refused to work in a little register thingie the other day and the teenaged sacker was going to come explain to me how to insert the chip. You little dickweed, I’ve run the chip twice and it says “chip malfunction”. I used this card an hour ago at a different store and it was fine. I am NOT an idiot, and my card is FINE, IT IS YOU FUCKING MACHINE. Now get the fuck away from me before I belt you one and you have to call your Mommy.
Ahem. Yeah, that’s annoying. Kiddies just who exactly do you think invented the Internet? And computers? And programming? I suppose it was the electric fairy, just like it is the housekeeping fairy who makes your beds and picks up your room, and the taxi fairy that takes you places. Wow. This is turning into a rant. LOL. I really do try to just smile and think that (if they’re lucky) their day will come… someday they’ll BE the housekeeping fairy, or a senior with kiddies trying to tell them how to wipe their ass. 😀 smile, breathe, smile…
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It’s really funny that you mentioned Thieves Cant! I nearly used that as an example! I mean I don’t deal with enlgish speakers when out of course, but in Dutch it is less prevelant unless you move to the bigger cities or hang out in in the Dutch Hip-Hop group there is less dutch “geek” slang. So I don’t feel as strange.
The Energy drinks one is funny, one by one the end up getting banished or pull ridiculous stunts to grab a crowd. I would almost say it’s a generation thing.. but well that isn’t exactly right. Mom is part of the Red Bull generation as well.. I am not even sure we had that much energy drink before that became big. I used to prefer some brandless Black Berry one.. before I had Monster phase. Red Bull I only drank on vacation if I needed to stay up.. the dutchies weakened it down a lot really early but when we were in Portugual.. that had different restrictions.. that was an energy drink back in the days. When I visited Mallorca for the first time it allowed me to get on a plane while I was actually completely drunk and fatigued from partying all night long! I kinda want to try the pink Lemonade G-Fuel now though.. still it seems a lot of effort to make my energy drink rather than buy it in a can!
Stan came from the movie 8 Mile I think , or at least thats what Urban Dictionary told me. and sure the word Love might be used easily. but who said it had to be difficult or exclusive. I get why Japan has different words for it but for us it would still translate as love! So I am happy to use the word! I will not Stan you! It’s so ugly! I do think though using Japanese, is different for slang though. Simp has a meaning but it loses meaning because people make their own thing of it.. to make it “easier to use” So from a person who has an unhealthy obsession with a content creator and desperately tries to establish relations .. it moves to.. a guy who sounds kinda awkward reacting to a girl’s content page. It’s meaning is toned down just to use it.. Japanese doesn’t do that so I respect a Weeaboo a lot more!
I think memes used to be something that came more spontaneiously now it they are made to pursue some sort of internet fame and with so many youtubers and people asking people to make memes and all the subreddits it becomes more and more forced and thus not as fun anymore.
I am luckily young enough that I don’t get the internet or atm card thing. Sometimes I get that for hooking stuff up like I got an extensive explanation on how to plug in my network box for tv and internet. It has a port clearly marked as the “entrance” and 6 ports marked as exits with colour coding for tv and internet ports and other stuff.. even akll the cables were colour marked .. yet they still think I can not pull it off!
I might be a bit old fashioned that I need to look up simp..but I am not suddenly colourblind!
Thanks for responding though!
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ROFL. It seems to me that it’s only in the last 20 years or so that customer service people, and things like the instructions for your network box seem to start from the assumption that you are not quite as intelligent as the average chimpanzee. It’s probably a personal problem for me that I don’t like it when I am treated like I am stupid, I just take it as a huge insult and it makes me angry. So I suspect it’s just a personal problem.
Back in the 70s we didn’t call them energy drinks is all. I grew up with Mountain Dew, a clear soda that had twice the caffiene of Pepsi or Coke, Jolt had like four times the caffiene or something crazy like that. The last few major road trips I drove on, I got to use those little tiny bottles that are like 5 hour energy things or something. They did pretty good but who knows what kind of damage they did to my gut LOL.
But to add to that story….some years ago I worked for (shudder) WalMart as a stocker. The boxes come zooming off the truck on a conveyer belt and each box has somewhere in fairly HUGE font a number. The shelves in the warehouse area also have numbers on them. Yes, you put the boxes on the shelves with the matching number. Big leap of intuition and intelligence required there right? And I stood there with a crew of 20 people and watched as easily ONE HALF of them couldn’t figure that out and dependably do that one little job. My supervisor came up to me, leaned in and whispered “You had no idea these people were that stupid did you?” so I guess – I don’t think I’m a genius or anything – but I guess maybe there are more people out there who can’t put a box with a BIG 4 on it on the SHELF with the BIG 4 on it… so imagine them with a network adapter diagram…
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As someone who has turned 21 then times now, yeah. The internet is just so strange which leads to so many meme appearing out of nowhere from all directions in media history. I just don’t know how it happens..
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It really is funny how so many subcommunities have their own thing. Given the fairly big response I got to this to people all feeling the same.. it is weird how so many are here together in this. Meanwhile if I go to one of my Reddits, I follow it is really different! WordPress is great! I can understand people here! I might end up Pinkie’s Retirement home after all xD
The internet is an enigma sometimes!
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Even as a young person reading this post( I’m 23) I still don’t understand why a lot of kids and teenagers use a lot of the popular slang such as ‘stan’ or ‘simp’ either. I’ve seen some people my age use it too and I really am starting to give up on staying up to trending. I’ve deactivated so much social media since I hardly seem to maintain friendships or get along with anyone on those sites. I always thought it was me or that I was weird for not fitting in with these trendy people my age. I never understood the use of certain memes either, the only one I really liked was also the Bowsette one.
I think the only place where I haven’t had too many problems online is actually WordPress, this very site. Even if I’m not super active here, when I come on to read articles once in awhile like this they’re always respectful, honest, to the point and not full of weird slang or rudeness like other sites, yes I’m looking at you Twitter…
I’m starting to wonder what the internet has become…
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I have a few YT communities I like participating in live streams/shiny hunts etc but l have more and more trouble to keep up with the lingo! A girl added me on twitter to telling she was looking for Sufure! I accepted thinking i’ll ask her what that means… I regretted that
But yay for WordPress collectively not liking memes no need to do that thing PewDiePie made every blogger do with meme reviews!
Twitter I mostly keep as a communication tool myself and sometimes an image collection place
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Hmmm… 21*14=294 that’s some dubious math for sure! 😉 😛
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Oof, I am not a vampire yet, no this is but a mere ploy to use the same birthday decorations the next year and the year after, I’d rather be 294 than 33 though. Immortality is a better look on me than middle aged
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