Area man can’t be in London, say social media analysts

An Area man’s alleged move to London has come under intense scrutiny this morning, after social media analyists exposed a dire lack of posts and uploads proving that it actually happened.

The 25-year-old editor of a popular satire website, who would fire us if we exposed his name, has apparently uploaded very little evidence of his move abroad, doing little to back up claims that he has been in the shiny and amazing city of London since September of last year.

“It’s disquieting and crazy, but the man has yet to upload more than one perfunctory selfie of himself in front of the Tower of London, or outside a classic red telephone box, or even a mere picture of his University,” said one social media analyst, Luke Sattweets.

“We all know I had a coffee this morning, because it got thirteen likes on Instagram," he said. "We all know I went to the Coldplay concert last October, because I posted about it every day and took those fifteen blurry videos from seat 798 in row Y. I just can’t say the same for this guy. Come on, ONE status about watching the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Get the fuck out of here.”

Pull the other one, dipshit.

And he’s not the only one.

“There are no pins. No check-ins. No cheesy tourist snaps outside the Tate Modern, no poses with waxen celebrities at Madame Toussauds, no clever angles making it look like he’s holding Big Ben in between his pinched fingertips,” said another analyst, Lycan Pohsts. “How can anyone believe you’ve have an incredibly life-changing experience if there are no photos of it, no track record on social media?”

He continued.

“How can I believe he is gallivanting around London if he hasn’t uploaded a grinning, thumbs-up selfie with a pint of lager and a packet of crisps in a traditional pub? How can we really trust that he has gone over without endless selfies of him struggling to sleep in the Boeing 757, arriving at the airport in a daze and flurry of activity? How can anyone prove he has undertaken this massive challenge without pictures of him at all the tourist hotspots Nelson’s Memorial to the National Gallery and buildings of parliament? He hasn’t even posted a picture of himself posing next to the Royal Guard making fun of their Beefeaters.”

And the public is furious.

“People lie on social media all the time; why wouldn’t he?” asked one man. “It’s highly, highly suspicious: photos like these would get DOZENS of likes and comments. It’s crazy: why would you pass up such an opportunity for digital validation?”

“No, I demand that he uploads proof of this fantastic, life-changing trip,” he stated bluntly. “Until I push air out my nose, click ‘like’, and then keep scrolling down an endless wall of memes and vapid listicles, I refuse to believe that he is actually having the time of his life in London.”

Alumnus pleased to see uni debate “still as divisive, toxic as ever”

“Some things never change,” says 25-year-old with a smile as she scans the university’s Facebook page

Rhodes University alumni are pleased today, after a brief perusal of the university’s Facebook page confirmed it still contained all the vitriol, ad hominem comments and logical fallacies that hundreds of ex-Rhodents grew so accustomed to in their time at Rhodes.

According to 25-year-old Financial Analyst Jeanine Dee – just one of hundreds of students who attended Rhodes University and is glad to see the continuation of such a beloved ritual – it’s like she never left.

“I’m glad that not much has changed,” she said. “I mean, when you look at the majority of the posts, there are still a lot of people and many students who use weasel wording, among many other rhetorical fallacies.”

“And it’s not just that: I see spelling mistakes, ALL-CAPS arguments, a lack of critical thinking that fails to take into account the nuances of these complex debates, and even people just outright saying ‘oh, you’re clearly irrational and stupid, there’s no point in arguing with you’,” she said. “I’m just glad to see that a university education is still producing such excellent and thought-provoking discourse.”

And it doesn’t end there.

“There’s also that lack of a sense of humour that was so frequent in our flame-wars,” she said. “I remember when I was second year and I said ‘guys, just chill’ and then posted a meme making fun of the whole silly furore. Now, just like back then, I see people still tell these calm heads to ‘GTFO’ and explain in great detail why their attitude and comment is ‘so problematic’. I’m just glad that there’s still that good old vituperative mud-slinging that made me unsubscribe from the page all those years ago.”

However, some alumni say that it’s “so much more than it was in our time” and that this new wave of debate has “taken things to a new level”.

“Back in my day, I was never told by someone making a controversial assertion that ‘it’s not their job to educate you’, or even that I ‘should go do my bloody reading’ without providing a link or idea what these readings may be,” said 27-year-old MSocSci graduate Erin Jackson. “I don’t know why we didn’t see it before; it makes total sense. After all, they’re the ones making the argument. Why should the burden of proof be on them?”

Despite this heaped praise, the current student body has discounted the alumni’s response, saying that it’s “invalid”.

“We’re not saying that current membership to an in-group is an obligatory prerequisite to taking part in such controversial topics that affect not just our university or even our whole nation, but many many, many universities and nations across the globe...” said SRC Social Media Councillor Ray Sandgenda.

“... but seriously, do you even go here?”

Opinion: Kids these days spending too much time outdoors

Guest Writer Johan Van Eksteen is back once more, folks, with those blistering words of truth and power that move whole crowds to cheers and tears. This time, he’s stumbled upon a very disturbing modern trend that every parent should be very, very concerned about indeed.

Dear Readers, I think I’m finally getting old. This weekend, sitting at home with the curtains drawn so that the bright sun and rolling verdant pastures in front of the ocean by my summer house don’t cause a glare in my 24-inch plasma, I heard a strange, strange noise. Cracking the windows and looking – eugh – outside, I eventually managed to choke down my Gollum-esque sun-hissing long enough to see a truly shocking, disturbing sight.

Children going outside, making forts, playing games and climbing trees.

Seriously, WTF is this kak?

When I was a kid we never had such luxuries. We had to be content to sit indoors all day, staring for hours at a time at a flickering screen, our necks craning downwards into glowing screens. Hell, if I even so much as mentioned spending a few wasted minutes out in the sun and air, my parents would have given me the most massive hiding, or at least left a downvote on my Reddit post.

And yet those were special days. Who could ever forget the magic of getting your first 30 likes on one post? Which of us don’t warmly cherish all the lols and rofls we had with our family? These are the things that make childhood the magical period of innocence and wonder and reposting it is.

All this gambolling and frolicking can’t be good for you: in fact, I think it could be destroying this country’s morals. There is so much life happening in the palms of our hands, and there they all are: outside, breathing in pollen-heavy, insect-infested air in the garden. God, yesterday I had to confiscate their soccer ball and then send them to their rooms with the door locked and shades drawn just so they’d say a perfunctory ‘lol’ to the memes I posted on their walls.

Nature:  a truly revolting, dangerous wasteland brimming
with spiders, disease and all kinds of horrors.

How are you supposed to make friends without adding them online? We need to do something to stop this scourge on our children’s innocence and wonder before it kills it altogether. How will our children ever be able to cherish these special, magical moments without a selfie or status that gets 23 likes and 15 comments in just 15 minutes?

Worst yet are these insufferable books they’re constantly reading. You look up from your iPad at the dinner table and the little vacuous snots have it right on their lap – they can barely go two minutes without looking down at it. And it’s not even a goddamn Kindle; what could be so interesting about paper and ink anyway? It seems that every two seconds I’m telling my kids “geez, Frikkie and Johan Junior, put that bloody thing away”.

We need to take a stand: these balls and games and frolicking in the untouched splendour are creating a generation of hyper-active, anti-social-network loners who don’t even once take part in conversation with their friends and followers; and all the while their iPads and Gameboys and Playstation 4s and Facebook accounts gather dust, forgotten and unappreciated.

In fact, I could go one step further and say that these so-called “physical sports” are warping our kids’ brains and teaching them to be violent. Every day, after my daily stress-unwinding LAN session of ThroatSlit MurderKings 5 I sit back in creeping, overwhelming terror and think about how my kids might be outside, rugby tackling each other, stomping on each other’s’ fingers and hands in that “ruck” thing, or sitting in giant stadiums at school yelling blood-thirsty war-cries at another bunch of kids whose only difference is that they go to some other school.

I know that my own grandparents thought I was spending “too much blerrie time on that blerrie computer thing”, but this is obviously a totally different situation. If we do nothing, we stand to pay the worst price of all: we could end up with a generation of children who think that they should empathise and try to understand that their own children might have their own personal interests and passions that are vastly different to theirs.

Or – God forbid the thought – that they shouldn’t tell their kids to do something just because they did it for years on end. What kind of mad, insane world might that be?

Johan is a guest columnist at Muse and Abuse. Widely renowned for his non-nonsense approach to controversial topics, Johan shines a blinding light of truth on subjects like the hideous scourge of immigration, why white people should vote ANC, why Blackface isn't the real racist problem in SA, and how Black Privilege is an ugly truth that no one wants to admit. He also thinks gay marriage should have been outlawed years ago.

Turning topic into race, gender issue “exactly what was needed”

True progress showed itself on Facebook today, after an innocent, inoffensive status was immediately turned into a racial and gender issue.

The post, which was a harmless joke about the Springbok’s match last weekend against New Zealand, only lasted 12 minutes before being skewed and twisted out of context and proportion to become an embittered flamewar about racism and sexism in the white-supremacist-capitalist patriarchy of televised sports culture. In just one day it attracted thousands of comments and arguments from incensed online commenters.

The status’s author, Jake Hendersen, now says that he’s glad they’ve started a “conversation” around race and sexism.

“You know, when I posted my status I just wanted to poke fun at New Zealand friends about this weekend’s match and say ‘springboks r the best lol all blacks are so useless’, not knowing my awful spelling would cause a digital meltdown,” he told reporters this morning.

“But now that hundreds of people are typing out ALL-CAPS hate speech, racial slurs, ad hominem attacks and demands that the idiots on the opposing side go read a fucking book, I’m glad to see a ‘discussion’ has started. This is just the first step one a long, arduous journey to a future free of racism, gender-based hatred, and harmless humour.

The post, which now stands at 21 485 likes and 11 792 comments, has been called “just what we all needed” by Human Rights advocacy groups.

“This is how we change the world: by getting people coming together, talking, discussing, and calling each other 'total retards who haven’t even read a book in their damn lives',” said chief researcher for Rights For All, Nelson King Jr. “You know, a lot of people might say, ‘oh, Nelson, but completely misunderstanding and detracting from the simplistic comedic value of the original post and embroiling the entire internet in a foetid clusterfuck of ad hominem attacks and fallacious, shallow arguments littered with faulty logic or emotional jabs will just divide and separate us all,’ but that’s where they’re wrong,” he said.

“This is how true progress is made: by just putting everything on the table, showing our cards, and turning every internet user against each other in a horrible, embarrassing hate-thread that everyone tires of in just minutes.”

However, internet analysts now believe such a peace could be all too brief.

“People have the ability to overcome great barriers and create a better, more tolerant future of peace and prosperity devoid of casual humour,” said web expert Hilby Bloggin.

“But come on, this is the 21st century. How could there ever be lasting peace when every ten minutes we have something like Caitlyn Jenner or Cecil the Lion to hate each other over?”

Study finds something that can’t be easily turned into clickbait

Confusion abounds today, after a ten-year scientific research program found something that can’t be oversimplified or easily turned into clickbait.

According to researchers at the Centre for Galactic Astrophysics, who have been looking into the nature of blackholes and how they interact with space-time, the results of their study, while incredibly important for the advancement of astrophysics as a science, cannot be easily turned into an image-heavy and arbitrarily-numbered list of things that will totally blow your mind or leave you speechless.

“We’ve been looking at the results, and we must say that we’re conflicted,” said Dr Theo Reece of the CGA. “I mean, the data really does change the way astrophysicists look at the complex equations and science of spatio-temporal interactions between objects of astounding mass, but when it comes to telling Buzzfeed readers that ‘These Scientists Have Been Researching Blackholes – And What They Found Will Completely Blow You Away’ we come up totally empty-handed. I mean, what good is scientific advancement if it can’t be completely reduced to an overly simplified misinterpretation for idiots to share on the ‘I Fucking Love Science’ Facebook page?”

CGA researchers now say that they are back at work searching for four more facts in their massive study that will fill a 10-item, 150-word listicle.

“It’s going to be a difficult task – like finding a needle in a haystack, or original content on Buzzfeed,” said Reece, “but we’re confident that, by early January at the latest, we’ll have found something dull and uninspired enough to get you through the last four points on the list so that you can read item 10 and do your obligatory reshare on Facebook and ‘lol’ comment.”

However, “writers” at the social media viral sites now say that they’ll probably just go ahead with the article anyway.

“We’ll just churn out the listicle anyway,” said Killean Jurnlizm, section editor for the sciences beat at the viral website. “I dunno, maybe there’s something on Reddit we can just steal and paste in… Besides, since when did our readers care about scientific accuracy anyway?”

Woman’s profile pic not fooling anyone

A woman was declared “obviously not attractive” today, after the internet came to a general consensus that her profile picture isn’t fooling anyone.

The black-and-white airbrushed image, which was carefully framed, lit and chosen out of four dozen other photos taken at around the same time, was uploaded yesterday evening to 26-year-old Megan Jenners’s Facebook profile – and all her friends agree that “this shit isn’t fooling anyone”.

“Yes, it’s a pretty photo. Yes, to the untrained eye that hasn’t seen her in real life, you might be fooled into thinking she’s attractive and then swiping right,” said the guy who follows her every update but hasn’t spoken to her in four years, Vuyo Rystic. “But let’s just admit the facts here: it’s a top-down, filter-heavy selfie that has clearly been put through the Instagram-photoshop wringer.”

Friends and followers of Jenners– even those on Twitter – have agreed.

“For me, my suspicions were raised when I saw the angle. I mean, it’s top-down and is filled with her face,” said one friend Jake Henderson shortly before liking it and commenting ‘omg so pretty u stuning babe’. “Why else would you want a full picture of your face as your profile picture unless you had a disgusting, corpulent and revoltingly grosteque mass underneath it that you wanted to hide no matter what?”

Others agree.

“No amount of BW correction and careful balancing of exposure and saturation can hide how much of a soulless, blackhearted skank Megan is,” said another friend, Erin Blakey, before hitting ‘like’. “I’ve read her statuses. She’s vapid and completely irritating and full of herself. Maybe I should post a passive-aggressive status about her?”

She followed this by adding “no, on second thoughts I shouldn’t” and “the two-faced bitch might realise who I was talking about.”

According to online researchers, much of the anger stems from its inherent insincere dishonesty.

“When it comes to Social Media, I think we can all agree that the most important, central tenet is honesty and truth,” said media analyst Eric Henderson. “So when she posted these quasi-blurry, pseudo-artistic selfies of herself and tried to pretend she was someone she wasn’t, she broke the cardinal rule of the internet: never lie to people.”

“In their eyes, this publication of a falsehood is a deep and hurtful mockery of the thought-provoking articles, provocative philosophical debates, and cat pictures they share,” he explained. “To the untrained eye, it might seem like all these people commenting on the picture think she is, quote, ‘gorjuz’ and ‘totes hawt girl’, but we all tacitly know what they’re really saying.”

However, not everyone agrees.

“Oh, I dunno, bro,” said one man. “I mean, I would still definitely bang her.”

Facebook to distribute likes to cancer victims

Social media giant and philanthropic website Facebook have announced that, starting today, they will now be distributing the accumulated likes, shares, and statuses aimed at ending cancer.

According to Head of Facebook's Charity wing, Sharon Lyks, the decision has been a long time coming.

"Ever since that first photo of a small girl smiling sadly at the camera, her bald head shining tragically in the little-girl-hating, cancer-giving sun, we knew we had to do something to stop this awful illness," she said in an interview with Muse and Abuse this morning. "Of course, we all know that the best way to end the combined pain and suffering of the victims of disease is to like and share photos of the internet."

The response, said Lyks, has been amazing.

"Since sharing that photo and putting it on everyone's wall, the picture has garnered over 4 billions likes and 18 billion comments," she said. "We're not sure, but we're pretty sure that's gotta be worth a lot of Internet Money."

Lyks and the Facebook team intend on taking these likes and comments to the Internet Monetary Exchange Bank later today.

The secret to its success, she said, was in Facebook users' tendency to repost the picture again and again, even if they know other people had seen it before.

"That's how much they cared about this campaign," said Lyks with a big smile. "They'll share it on all their friends' walls, even if that friend is a cancer-loving douche who replies 'oh, it's a hoax' and 'you should check these things to see if they're real, or just donate to a recognised charity', the cancer-apologist arsehole."

Facebook first shared that seminal photo in early 2003, but have now extended their charitable goodness to other worthy causes.

"World hunger, poverty, water shortages, homelessness... These are just a few of the things on the list of tragedies we are eliminating, one mouse click at a time."

Facebook's early estimates now state that homelessness and poverty are a mere 43 243 likes away from not existing.

"When it comes to creating a perfect utopian world of wonder, we believe that Facebook is right up there with those other bastions of social change: you know, email chain letters and online petitions on Change.org.

Facebook introduces new revolutionary new features

Social media users should brace themselves for a whole Facebook experience filled chock-a-block with features set to revolutionise the way you live in the online world.

“We’re changing everything,” said head of the R&D team at Facebook, Cody Compyler, “and not just the colour and logo font.”

“Facebook forces users to go through their entire lives, photos, opinions, thoughts and personality, and choose only a tiny fraction of a percentage of what is true to impress the people around you,” he said, “but most of us got Facebook when we were 16-year-old morons who thought liking a page called ‘Beer and Cigarettes’ made us look like rebellious bad boys. How can you pretend to be cool on Facebook if there’s over three years of evidence to the contrary that you can’t delete for fear of making it look like you joined Facebook this year, like your grandmother?”

This issue, says Compyler, is expounded only by its corollary.

“Then, when your mother or grandmother or someone close to you goes on Facebook, they judge you or start worrying because the only photos of you are taken at parties or trance festivals, making them say they’re worried about your ‘drinking problem’ when actually you’re not even that much of a lady-slaying party animal.”

In light of this, they’re introducing two new features: the ‘Real User feature, and the ‘Make Me Cool’ feature.

“Let’s see these features in action. If we go to my friend Jake’s profile, we can see he has photos of himself in the gym, at the beach with his really hot girlfriend, and driving around in his badass car. All of this makes me feel pretty inadequate. So if I press the ‘Show Me The Real Jake’ button over here, Facebook immediately shows me pictures of his girlfriend in a Onesie without makeup on, and here it gives us some really embarrassing childhood pictures, and here we have a collection of desperate and awkward messages to his grandmother and his ex-girlfriend who he apparently still loves to death. This is great, because now I know that Jake isn’t as cool as he seems, and also that my life isn’t that shit in comparison.”

“Now, if I go to my own profile, we can see that I have over 2943 photos and six years of likes, comments, posts and shares. I can’t possibly go through all of this and sweep all the embarrassing stuff under the carpet – that would take hours. So I just click the ‘Make Me Cool’ button and voilà! Thanks to Facebook’s coolness algorithm, I no longer liked ‘Beer’ and ‘Fast Cars’ and ‘The Hangover’ when I was 16, but instead I liked ‘The works of Noam Chomsky’ and ‘Psychodynamic analysis of postmodern literature’.”

The R&D team now report that they are working on a feature that will half the time it takes to ignore, trivialise or mock people on your newsfeed.

“It used to take as much as an entire hour to entirely debase someone’s existence and being, but we’ve cut down that time to as little as sixty seconds,” they said. “Hell, the only thing it doesn’t do for you is groan, roll your eyes and moan ‘how fucking retarded are some people?’”

Facebook's lawyers destroyed by simple status

Facebook’s legal team is in stunned silence today, after their seemingly airtight, carefully constructed and extensive 134-page Terms and Conditions legal agreement was undone and nullified by a simple Facebook status.

“When we first started this company all those years ago, we knew we would have to have legal safeguards in place to control content, oversee copyright management, and provide a general set of user terms and conditions that apply equally across our user database,” said the legal team in a lengthy statement this morning, “but how were we to know that a twenty-something-year old in South Africa would have the legal genius to undo all our care and work in one simple ten-sentence status? It was sheer brilliance.”

Facebook now says that, despite their document’s apparent legal strength and imperviousness, this new disclaimer, containing just twenty lines of text, was like kryptonite on an Achilles tendon made of glass.

“It hit us like a sack of bricks,” they said. “I mean, quoting the Rome Statute – a document usually reserved for outlining a court’s jurisdiction, structure and internal processes – was just, wow, incredible. We never saw it coming.”

The creator of the post, who is amazingly neither a law student nor legal expert in any way - says that beating the system like he did requires nothing but clever manoeuvring.

“When you sign up for Facebook and tick the box that says you have read and understood their terms and conditions of service and use, there are all kinds of nasty controls put on your photographs and all your user information that you upload,” said Andy Vokate, whose work has gone on to protect many thousands of enlightened, seasoned internet users, “but when you stumble upon some very clever legal arguments that some companies don’t want you to discover, you’ll see that these contracts are not worth the .txt file they’re written on.”

These legal arguments are incredible, say legal experts.

“We know this argument will be very powerful in court because it’s filled with all kinds of law words and legal phrases like ‘articles’ and ‘hereby’ and, geez, ‘tacitly’. Oh, and ‘foregoing’!” said legal counsel Eric Manders. “And an even more hard-hitting part of the argument is citing UCC 1 1-308 – 308 1 -103 and codes L.111, 112 and 113. Personally, I would quote paragraph 123 subsection a1 of L ACB 123456 or the infamous precendent of Hugh Justin v. May Dissup, but this is as good.”

He added that most judges were amenable to arguments like “really, who even reads these long confusing things? We all know everyone just scrolls to the bottom and clicks ‘Accept’.”

“Especially if they’re an iTunes user,” he said.

However, this post may have opened the floodgates for public legal declarations and defences, with this judiciary tactic being applied to many other industries and services.

“With this new resurgence of customer legal protection, companies are now being force to issue counter legal statuses on Twitter and Facebook,” said Manders. “Pretty soon, we’ll be seeing counter-counter-legal-announcements, and counter-counter-counter-counter notices. It’ll be like Inception, but with more law and less confusion.”

Whatever controversy arises, judges and Facebook users alike agree on one very simple fact: that this definitely is not a hoax.

“This is perfectly sound legal advice,” they said. “I mean, if it wasn’t, would it really be copied and pasted by hundreds of other people? I don’t think so.“

Legal notice: by reading this you agree that I my writing is awesome and flawless and beyond reproach, and deserves some kind of a medal or something. You also agree to share this article with friends and family at least eighteen times.

“Go fuck yourself” now a legally-permissible argument

Citing the sheer overwhelming number of deserving articles, posts, statuses, opinions and stories posted every minute all over the internet, Supreme justices, advocates and judges at every level of the Legal System have today allowed full legal permissibility and support of the argument that someone should “go fuck themselves”.

According Justice Eric Secutioner of the Supreme Court, the decision was made after many hours of hard,vigorous debate, when one Justice sneakily checked her phone and saw a tweet from part-time “singer” Steve Hofmeyr proclaiming that blacks were the architects of apartheid.

The Supreme Court roll clearly records the events, showing that Justice Annabelle Torrends rolled her eyes and said aloud, “oh, go fuck yourself”, which was shortly followed by her passing around the phone. Other justices then gave various renditions of “just kill yourself” and “choke on a fat one, you fucktard”, eventually agreeing that “go fuck yourself” would be permissible as it made no allusion to homophobic slurs and did not constitute a death threat.

“It’s important to be progressive with these kinds of things,” they explained.

Legal experts now say that this “Go Fuck yourself” legal rebuttal is based in powerful legal precedent, in the form of the Reasonable Person measure.

"Look, when you post shit like this on Facebook and Twitter, it’s clear that any reasonable person would tell you to go fuck yourself,” said legal expert Lawyer. “Or rather, as we say in legal circles, ‘describe to you in graphic detail how to use your genetalia to go commit auto… autoerotica? autosexual something? Eroti… er, whatever fucking yourself is in Latin.”

People across the country have voiced widespread support for this new introduction.

“When I see a dumb post on Facebook or Twitter, I think, geez, I could easily debunk this using a rational and critically-analytical approach, showing the logical inconsistencies and rhetorical weaknesses of the poster’s argument,” said one internet user, “but what with the time and energy it would take to do this, and the likelihood of him actually reading the response with genuine interest and taking to heart my central criticisms and suggestions and ultimately changing his flawed way of looking at the world, it’s honestly just easier and saves more time and effort to simply tell him to take two Viagra, bend his cock under his balls and through his gooch-hair and stick it right up his own ass.”

Other online commentators said that the decision would be well received in the online community.

“Sorry to offend, but in my books dickheads and arseholes tend to be indistinguishable and quite inseparable on the internet,” said another. “So why not also in actual real life with the human body? Go figure.”

Pic of judge (my edit) by maveric2003

"Donate Money" challenge goes viral

Following the dazzling social media popularity and successes of infamous charity awareness drives like the No Make-up Selfie challenge, the Nek nomination and the now ubiquitous Ice Bucket Challenge, international charity organisations have announced this morning an all-new viral challenge for Twitter, Facebook and Youtube users: the Donate Money at Any Local Charity Challenge.

"It's incredibly simple," said brainchild of the novel approach to online charity drives, Charl Louw. "In fact, it requires far less effort than dumping cold water on your head or just waking up and taking a photo of your mascaraless, socially-ugly face."

According to the charity organisation, the challenge is as simple as 1, 2, 3.

"You just take a cheque book, bank deposit slip or even an online donation form," said Louw, "and fill in all the relevant details, followed by an amount of your choosing to donate to the struggling organisation. Then just upload the video of you doing this and show off to all your friends and the world what selfless, egoless, philanthropic and humble person you are."

Failing that, he said, you could just dump "a bucket of money" on an ALS victim.

"If huge amounts of cash cured Magic Johnson, I'm pretty sure it could do the same for a disease that I, like many other bucket dumpers, know nothing about - and even if we did, we probably couldn't pronounce it."

Artist's impression of the new challenge.

Media and charity experts have applauded the move as "just in time in this worsening cycle of fads."

"Think about it: these campaigns started off as really benign and harmless, but in our world, we always want bigger, better, more hectic," said Online Charity Analysis Joe Blogs. "From the No Make-up Selfie to things like the Cinnamon, Ice Bucket, and even the Fire Challenges, we've seen a steady progression into increasingly dangerous forms of philanthropy. What's next, the Loaded Gun Challenge? The Slap a Rabid Cape Buffalo Challenge?"

However, initial feelings in the online community have been hesitant and resistant towards the new Challenge.

"The other ones were really great and catchy, because they were funny and required little effort," said a girl on her Facebook status, which just shows you the quality of news you're currently reading, "and also because you didn't have to actually donate any money. This just doesn't follow that winning, scientifically-proven, life-altering charity drive formula."

"I totally agree," said one guy commenting on the above statement. "How the hell is money or financial support supposed to stop, cure or prevent any disease? Typical capitalism, ruining such heart-felt initiatives. "

Readers of this blog are hereby challenged to post this or any other of our news stories on their Social Media platforms to raise awareness of the dreadful cancer afflicting our once-fine news services and organisations.

Pic: wikimedia commons

Emergency services send teen girl help

NetCare24 has released a statement this morning, telling of their decision to send an ambulance to a 15-year-old girl's house, shortly after they realised that she hadn't updated her status in the last 5 minutes.

"We were just sitting there, minding our own newsfeeds, when we suddenly realised that we hadn't read anything about her totz amazeballs trip with her gorjus frenz xoxoxox to Balito bay last weekend," said head of the Help Centre Tay Kincalls. "We thought nothing of it for a while - sometimes these lapses happen."

However, they immediately flew into action when they realised there was something serious going on.

"That was when her best friend Kelly, who just left her asshole boyfriend Jake and she totally deserves a better guy a guy hu will make her feel special and we neva liked him anyway cos of his weird eyebrows, posted 184 photos of herself on Facebook," said Net24 social media watchdog, Julia Henderson.

When the girl hadn't liked a single one after a whole eight seconds, the emergency services flew into action.

"She just doesn't possess that kind of social media network selfcontrol that most normal fucking people have," said Henderson.

Normal Facebook users who don't post statuses about every goddamn thing that happens in their life who see these kinds of people suddenly falling silent can call the NetCare 24-hour emergency line at 1-800-UNFRIEND.

Dr Seuss books to be “modernised” for a new generation

The literary world was taken by storm this morning, after publishers in the United Kingdom announced that the much-loved and classic tongue-twisters of wordplay genius Dr Seuss will be remade to suit a more “contemporary generation of children”.

“These are fantastic works that anyone will remember fondly stumbling over as they tried to read them out loud,” said CEO of publishing giant Struik Publishing, Ruaan Alderboeks, “but sadly, in their original form, they just no longer apply to the interwebz-fluent midget Ritalin junkies were are forced by law to call our children.”

Struik and Random House Publishing now say that many beloved Seuss books will now be edited with “minor modifications” to make them more suited to the current generation.

As a gesture to readers across the world, Struik has given Muse and Abuse a sneak preview of the first in the modernised series, Sam-I-Spam, the contemporary tale of Sam, who now loves Green Eggs and Ham, but clogs up your newsfeed of Instagram pictures of this new foodie love every goddamn time he eats it.

“We’re sticking true to the old ways, but making it more modern, more cutting edge, more insert-euphemism-here-y,” he said, before adding that many other reworkings were in the pipeline, including Firefox in Sox (the tale about a web browser struggling to win a majority marketshare), Oh The Things You Will See (an ode to turning Off SafeSearch), and The Kitten In The Shoe, the heart-warming and far less creepy story about the internet’s most beloved animal.

Now, sit back, relax, and skim over this world first in a new age of poetry!

Green Eggs and Spam

I am Sam
Sam I am
I spam spam,
Spam I spam.

That Sam-I-am!
That spam he spams!
I do not like that Sam-I-am!

Do you like
blog posts and spam?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I will not read the reposts you spam.

Would you like them
here or there?
Via email, Facebook, Twitter -
anywhere?

I would not like them
here or there.
I would not like them anywhere.
I do not want on Facebook please,
Your religious reference to 3:10 Ecclesiastes:
do l look like a Jesus fan
that appreciates your God-based Bible rant?
And I do not want your Buzzfeed junk -
the List-icle equivalent of a dead, rotting skunk -
all collated, aggregated, uncreative,
Steals traffic from content-producers in a way that’s blatant.
If I do say so myself:
“24 ways Buzzfeed is repetitive as hell”.
The monotony you call your “clever tweets”
I will unfollow, unfriend, delete.
Your blogspot.com inane debate
has become quite boring of late.
Besides, I’m only one of eight lonely readers,
and when your words hit my brain it’s like you’re trying to bleed it;
I will not read it, Sam-I-am:
not if it were the last blog in the all the land.
The Instagram tedium you incessantly punt,
makes you look like a shallow, selfie-loving c… er… character.
You abuse too many hashtags in every single pic,
and frankly, Sam, it makes me sick.
And the comments you leave all over News24:
Well, we can see how edgy they are - they’re all ignored.
And like it or not, you know it is true,
One-word tweets even have more character than you.

But what about my pics from overseas?
Will you like them on Facebook, comment, please?
This photo of me by a Dutch house?
Here I am at Disneyland with Mickey Mouse!

I do not like them,
not one bit.
About Eurotrip photos,
I could not give a shit.
I don’t like you next to what is simply just a house.
I do not like you next to a douche capitalist mouse.
I do not like them
here or there.
Long story short?
NO ONE CARES.

I do not like
the spam you spam,
I do not like it,
Sam-I-am.

Would you retweet them,
tag me please?
There’s even a ‘share’ button
to increase the ease!

Not on a PC.
Not on a Mac.
Not on any network,
You Zuckerberg twat.
I would not share them
here or there,
disseminate your mediocrity anywhere:
Not a car;
Not a train;
Not in sun;
Not in rain;
I would not read your unceasing spam -
I do not like it, Sam-I-am.

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like
your tedious and repetitive attempts at web-based depth,
using frankly laughably inadequate and empty microblogging platforms to discuss of what are usually
complex and multifaceted issues requiring more than just a simplistic, text-focused approach
to fully critique and deconstruct,
Sam-I-am.

Facebook users concerned over Giraffe takeover

pic: wikimedia commons

Hundreds of Facebook users reportedly clogged up the Facebook Team’s complaints and queries service inbox this morning, after unanimously voicing concerns over the sudden and inexplicable increase in the number of giraffes on Facebook.

“I opened up my newsfeed this morning, and suddenly I saw that all my human friends had suddenly become giraffes,” said 23-year-old Rhodes student and hater of stupid fucking reposted riddles about what you would open first if your parents came over to your house at 3am, Derrick Anderson. “What is this bullshit?”

The complaints threw the Facebook investigative team into immediate action. However, the scale of the mystery has left them stumped and dazed.

“Right now, we just don’t know why this is happening,” said Head of Complaints Resolution for Facebook Ree Pears. “It could be Black Magick, transamorgraphying them into animals by way of voodoo and the dark arts. Or it could be a sophisticated hack. It might even be some sort of transcendant expression of our users' inner animal, the power of forgotten gods and ancestors making themselves known in the most public way possible.”

He went on to add, however, that it definitely couldn’t be because of a stupid riddle.

“Correlation isn’t the same as causality,” said Pears. “We’re fairly confident that our users aren’t so mindless that they would A) fall for such a daft word puzzle and B) actually go through with changing their profile picture after failing this incredible flawed and at the same time very easy challenge.”

Meanwhile, professors studying language at Universities across the world have expressed their outrage at the events.

“We’re concerned that there will be a giraffe monopoly on Facebook,” said the Rhodes University Dean of Students Div ke Vlerk in a statement this morning. “At Rhodes, we’re total supporters of an animal multiplicity, and as such we advise students to please upload pictures of goats, lions, carnivores, scavengers  diurnal and nocturnal animals, be they mammal or reptile or aquatic, in the interest of equal representation and diversity.”

Meanwhile, professors from the English departments of various tertiary institutes have complained at the riddle.

“It’s just too flawed to consider. I mean, why the hell would your parents be coming over at 3am?” said Dean of Humanities Jay Entprix. “The only reason anyone would feasibly suggest that sort of eventuality would be an in the event of an emergency of some kind, in which case why would you offer them wine or jam or cheese? And what kind of fucking cheese comes in a bottle or jar? They’re your parents, so presumably you wouldn’t offer them the cheap squeezey-cheese? And of course, if you wake up first the answer is ‘Your Eyes’, but what if you’re lying in bed comprehending the simple meaninglessness of the entire universe as outlined in theories of existentialism or nihilism? In that case, your eyes are already open and you’ll open the door first – unless they had their own key, or you live in a house with no doors or an open-plan vista that limits private enclosure.”

He shook his head before breaking off and adding that you could probably see his point so he wouldn’t bore you any further.

“Also, what if you’re not home?” he said. “None of these potential factors are even suggested at in this over-simplistic riddle.”

In spite of all this the Facebook Team is adamant that they will get to the bottom of this.

“Right now we’re programming and ‘Automatic Friend Spring-clean’ function to Facebook that will use your webcam and microphone to track your sarcastic eye-rolls and groans of ‘fuck, come on,’ or ‘god, I hate you’ and so on and so forth,” said Pear. “Currently we’re automatically adding anyone with a Giraffe in their profile picture to that list. One click, and you’ll never have to read that shit again.”

The group of Facebook experts has already made  a page outlining these plans – a page that has garnered over 700 million likes since its creation.

“We’re sure this is a feature everyone will love,” said Pears. “Except, of course, that bastard Reggie at Toys ‘R Us.”

Jac labs user crashes the internet

A Rhodes University student working late at night in the Jacaranda labs has crashed the entire internet, says Head of the Information Technology Department John Buffer.

According to Buffer, the internet was already under immense strain even before first-year Bachelor of Commerce student Iva Lottatime logged on to the system in the greasy, hot, disgusting, overcrowded labs yesterday evening.

"Considering how the vast loads of academic work that students do in these labs requires them to check crucial posts on facebook, twitter and 9gag every four seconds, as well as scour the net for videos of their favourite pop star, - for referencing and research purposes, of course -, the internet was already huffing and puffing even before her g131234 username was logged," said Buffer.

Those logging on to Facebook were greeted by a blue and white of a different kind.

After opening a Microsoft Word document and pasting in some bullshit quotes so that she could tell people who need the computer for real work that she was actually working, she proceeded to open Internet Explorer 6.

Artist's depiction of Internet Explorer 6.

"This was when things started going uphill," said data analyst and computer systems expert Noah Kluatall, who works in the IT department. "Internet Explorer is like the bastard child of a wet paper bag and a whale's heartbeat: really slow, and really unreliable. By clicking the blue 'e', she doomed the net."

According to a user history of the session, she opened 67 tabs - a crime that was aggravated by the "environmentally friendly" recycled-paper printer.

"That printer never works, but she kept saying 'print document'. Before the 'net went down, there were 84 copies of her mostly plagiarised politics assignment queued up to print," said Kluatall.

"Eventually," Kluatall said, "the combination of Black Eyed peas songs, Nicki Minaj videos, cat pictures and 2371 photos uploading of herself pretending that she wasn't taking a picture of herself was too much to take. The internet shut down completely."

The effects have been widespread and horrific, say experts.

"Since the outage, many students haven't been able to use this single largest compendium of human knowledge, history and experience and its accompanying terabytes upon terabytes of mind-blowing philosophy, art and learning potential to update their statuses and get into flame and comment wars on Youtube," said internet expert Mauz Kilka.

Since the 'net fell, students have been reporting that they've had to talk to real people, and learn the name of the guy who lives three doors down from their res room. Also, since Google Books is no longer available to pull assignment-relevant quotes from, they've had to walk to to the library and read books.

Books were first invented in 1934 by Sir John James Edwards Bookington the 5th. They were quickly phased out when Al Gore invented the Internet in 1991.

"It's crazy," said one geography student. "My pen doesn't even have a copy-paste function. How the hell am I supposed to write essays now?"

However, it's not just work that has been affected. Since the major source of tiny fluffy animals with big eyes and cute bibs has disappeared, tensions are at an all time high.

"Someone pushed in the Dining Hall line on Cheesecake Wednesday, and there was almost a full-blown fight. It was like being in a Joburg club, just without the shit, greasy haircuts, too-tight collared shirts, skin-tight ball-oxygen depriving jeans, and too-expensive drinks," said Nelson Mandela Hall student Jean-Eric Naym.

The SRC is working closely with the SPCA to ensure that students don't explode.

"We're handing out small kittens and puppies in cute woolen boots to diffuse the obvious tensions on campus," said SRC Cute Animals Contingencies Councillor Quewt Niss. The SRC also has contingencies in place to help students with their social media fixes. Whether or not they're going to hand out fap packages to male reses has yet to be confirmed.

"We're handing out small kittens and puppies in cute woolen boots to diffuse the obvious tensions on campus," said SRC Cute Animals Contingencies Councillor Quewt Niss.

Images like this, which originates from the Cold War era, are said to be the only thing standing between us and full-blown nuclear winter.

It's a dire situation, and one that is not set to be rectified any time soon. Internet specialists have been at their wits end with getting the internet back online.

"We had a full working backup for the internet, but we saved it online," said Kluatall. "We had it on a harddrive, but someone's need for Community season 3 and the new Game of Thrones was obviously too much to handle."

Internet mistrust causes widespread dismay

A new study has shown that internet mistrust and skepticism has caused millions lost in revenue and much personal disappointment among the net’s users.

The study, done by Rhodes University Dean of Computer Science Tom Hakker, has covered a wide range of subjects, drawing on personal interviews conducted around the world.

"Statistically, 86.57% of people believe that 91.232% of all the statistics they hear on the internet are false."

According to the study, some 400 000 Russian brides have spent the last decade or so sad and desperately lonely. “There are literally thousands of beautiful women with great cooking skills and voracious sexual appetites being ignored on a daily basis,” said Hacker, flipping through the massive thesis on his desk.

“All I want is for man to make happy long life with me,” said interviewee would-be bride Katja Kokoff, who is a five-star chef, international supermodel, and has recently been diagnosed with nymphomania. “I message many man saying I want for make marriage, but they never respond.”

Katja is one of the many beautiful, smart, talented, sensitive, loving brides who live in constant loneliness.

This trend has affected struggling online businesses too. Local online business magnate Celine Stuftouya has reported massive lost revenues.

“I have a wide variety of products and services for sale, and not even a single item is moving,” she said. “In desperation, I’ve had to resort to trying to give away free iPad 3s and huge, all-expenses-paid trips overseas, but even that has failed.”

Business expert Crun Chinumbers agrees, saying that the amount of free stuff that businesses try to give away that doesn’t get claimed is just shocking.

"People just don't believe in a free lunch anymore," he said, saying that it was probably due to rising cynicism due to Youtube arguments and News24 comments.

Other businessmen have aired similar exasperation.

"I make $5000 a day from being online,” said online entrepreneur Ian Ternet. “All I want to do is share my money-making secrets online, but everyone thinks it’s a trick. It reminds me of the time I found this life-changing penis-enlargement cream and this 100% guaranteed workout programme that gives you rock-hard killer abs in just 3 days. I was so excited that I emailed thousands of people, trying to change their lives forever, and I didn’t even get a handful of responses. Either everyone in the world is hung like Chuck Norris and is more ripped than Zuma’s arms deal paperwork, or no one trusts anyone on the internet anymore,” he said.

Even banks have been affected.

"Many of our tellers email our clients asking for their account numbers and PIN numbers. For some reason, they think it's a ruse," said head of Stranded Bank, Jane Phisher.

Even since its invention in the 1980s by Al Gore, the internet has seen a shocking downturn of trust.
Trust levels on the web are now as low as The Black Eyed Peas' originality.

Son of deposed Nigerian King and Oil tycoon, Ido Nwanashair, has also complained bitterly that he can’t share his father’s fortune.

“Thanks to the backwards Nigerian banking system, for me to clear my inheritance I need to transfer it to another international account first. It’s a dumb loophole that has caused me endless misery. I’ve become so desperate that I’ve even offered to share the billions with whoever helps me out, but even that couldn’t convince them that it was a bone fide offer,” he said.

Since the study’s publication, The Internet Lottery Association has released a public statement saying that millions of dollars go unclaimed everyday in online lotteries.

“We have run European lotteries, US lotteries, UK lotteries, and have even allowed people not from those states to take part and stand a chance to win billions. We’ve even dropped the winning odds so that they’re guaranteed to win, but still no one signs up. It’s heartbreaking,” said ILA spokesman Lyon Tou-Hevriuan.

The lottery, however, is not the only competition to be affected by surfers' skepticism. According to Jim Hussler, CEO of online competition website wanttowin.com, they've had almost zero participation.

"We do everything we can to make entering the competition as easy as possible. We make huge, flashing buttons that scream out that they've won millions of dollar and all-expenses-paid vacations on Cruise Liners, but nothing. Hell, we even changed our programming so that everyone who visits our site is the 'millionth customer'. We can't even give these prizes away," he said.

Even the global sphere of welfare has taken a massive hit.

"We've recently come up with new, technologically awe-inspiring methods to solve all the world's problems," said head of international welfare organisation "Like if you're against cancer/animal abuse/world hunger/poverty" (LIYACAWP), Tom Lykinkomment.

"Our team of quantum scientists have broken the barrier of quantum dynamics, allowing us to transfer cures from digital information. We have embedded solutions to all the world's problems into relevant pictures, such as that of a dying dolphin, starving child, or kid with no hair. All we need is a million likes," he explained.

One of the millions of images created by LIYACAWP
Source: scalablemedia.com

So far, the campaign has been fruitless.

"We've had maybe a couple of hundred thousand likes, but there are a lot of hateful, mistrusting people online who think it's all a stupid waste of time that helps no one and distracts from meaningful, real activism and awareness campaigns. It's these people who are keeping the world a sick, damaged place."