Perfect solution to crisis “totally misspelt, irrelevant, stupid” say Grammar Nazis

A well-thought-out and technically viable solution to the issues of socioeconomic inequality, access to education, and world hunger was declared “totally irrelevant and stupid” today, after Grammar Nazis found it lacked the spelling, grammar and punctuation that made it a suggestion they should even read, let alone take seriously.

Citing the potentially world-changing proposal’s several spelling errors and bad grammar, the organisation’s leaders described the online suggestion as “utterly worthy of scorn, contempt and derision.”

“As soon as I saw that his [Micheal Burnell’s] 2400-word, in-depth, well-researched plan to end world hunger and repair the flawed education system hadn’t used the Oxford comma and – worse yet – had spelled it ‘independance’, I just shut my laptop,” said professional commenter and English literature major, Erica Speltjek. “I mean, why would you read anything that contains a spelling error?”

“He talks about restructuring international debt and introducing more punitive regulation for banks, as well as reworking the capitalist system to favour increased spending on education initiatives, health care, and medical research, and then he uses a split infinitive,” explained Speltjek. “He’s obviously an idiot who should be ridiculed and derided with the utmost contempt. Who cares if his plan is feasible, or if English is his second language?”

“And let’s not even talk about his syntax,” she added. “It’s like I’m talking to Yoda.”

However, many international think tanks and policy groups have reacted in an apathetic manner to this reaction, saying that the post's lack of brevity warranted the disdainful turning of a blind eye.

“Too long,” they said in a joint statement this morning, “Did Not Read.”

Men willing to overlook most women’s flaws, finds dating study

The common perception that men are judgemental partners was shattered today, after a ground-breaking new study found that the majority of men were “more than willing to overlook most of their potential mate’s flaws and faults”.

The study, which has examined thousands of cases across the globe, found that nearly 95% of men would “definitely not care if she had some kind of a personality flaw”.

“Racism, bigotry, a hugely irritating laugh, an unpredictable temper, contempt for everything you do and say – these are just some of the thousands of things that men are willing to turn a blind eye towards,” said the head of the research and development team. “In fact, often their only criteria is that the chick be stunningly beautiful with a great rack and amazing body. Turns out, men aren’t as picky as we think.”

And the data confirms this hypothesis.

“The media paints men as these judgemental, shallow, ultra-choosy dudes who want the perfect woman,” said data analyst Fin de Pattens. “But really, the statistics show that they’re really accepting and tolerant.”

“Take this case study, Mike, for example. Most people would say that his lingerie model cross-fit obsessed girlfriend is a Super-bitch who despises everyone and everything around her; most people would say ‘yeah, Jessica is gorgeous, but she hates Muslims, thinks homosexuality should be a crime, and believes that homeless people should be rounded up in camps and shot’ – but not Mike. He accepts her flaws as a part of who she is: a size-zero, flat-stomached, double-D’ed human being.”

Scientific research now shows that men will accept women like
Jessica (above) despite their numerous personal faults.

Her testimony backs this up.

“When I first met Mike, I was terrified that my bigoted opinions, my contempt for his dress sense and taste in music, and my obvious spite for his family and friends would chase him off,” she said in an interview earlier this year. “But not Mikey. He took one single look at me and accepted me for who I was - perfect ass, platinum-blonde hair and all.”

The study has since been confirmed by similar research – meaning that men could be even more accepting and non-judgmental than we think.

“There have been hundreds of case studies where the men – who, for some godless, incomprehensible reason – are dating women who are not physically attractive, have terrible personalities and are also prejudiced, unlikeable cretins,” explained De Pattens. “This new data suggests that men own Christ-like quantities of acceptance.”

“Megan isn’t that great,” said one case study. “She’s short, overweight and is a staunch anti-vaxxer and geocentrist, but hey... the sex is pretty good, so what can I say?”

Instagrammer comes to blindly obvious conclusion, quits Instagram

Gut-wrenching feelings of shock and betrayal persist today, after 18-year-old Instagrammer Tay Kasselfey came to the self-evident conclusion that Instagram is “contrived perfection made to get attention” and deleted her account.

Kasselfey, who had to this sudden and utterly self-apparently epiphany this weekend, has slammed Instagram, saying that despite the social media platform's devilishly misleading realism, the service is actually built on “carefully constructed lies that didn’t eat that morning and also had to suck in their belly”.

“Instagram might look totally real. If you scroll down it and see all the glossy, filtered and yet also hyperrealistic photos of coffee and stunningly attractive, thin woman dressed and made up to perfection, you could be easily tricked into thinking, ‘yeah, this is a totally realistic and accurate representation of the daily lived experience of every human being currently alive’,” she said. “But – brace yourself – it isn’t.”

She explained at length.

“Look at this photo of myself. Now, from this photo alone and no other information, you might easily think that I study in a skimpy bikini in the sun with books of different subjects all opened at the same time and strategically placed and turned to random pages while I pose in a super-uncomfortable yet sexy angle that accentuates my butt, flat, toned stomach and boobs,” she said. “But what if I told you that it was totally posed and took several dozen shots and careful post-editing to capture? It’s shocking and incredible to hear, I know, but that’s the truth.”

“And looking at any of the millions of photos on Instagram, you might think that every woman currently alive is a smokingly gorgeous perfect 10 with abs and boobs – but that just isn’t true. I mean, how is anyone supposed to figure that out on their own?”

And the disappointment doesn’t stop there.

“All those hashtags that we all think are there to accurately label and classify the images into neat categories that allow users to easily find content that suits their tastes and search criteria?” she asked. “Well, I hate to be the one to break this awful news, but actually they are just abused and piled up to try and get as many views and as much reach as possible, and often don’t even describe in any logical way at all what is in the photo.”

“I mean, I once used #goals #life #future #books #intellect #nerdy #dreams #workhard and #college on a selfie of me wearing glasses and holding a science textbook. How could anyone possibly have known that none of those tags actually meant anything?”

Kasselfey – who in real life is an overweight 42-year-old man who works in IT - has now sworn off the “narcissistic, self-obsessed, egotistical” Instagram, and has started a new campaign to try and create a more meaningful world that cares about other people.

“My new campaign features hundreds of photos of me in sexy poses that expose how shallow the whole thing is,” he explained. “We should care about things that truly matter, and not try to force the world to obsess about themselves or flood their spheres with endless pictures of themselves.

But despite this selfless awareness drive, public reaction has been mixed.

“I simply don’t believe it,” said one man. “You’re telling me that the vast majority of women aren’t oversaturated-colour-tinted models constantly wearing clothes that leave little to the imagination, and that all those photos weren’t taken in one spontaneous, off-the-cuff snap and hence don’t give a realistic depiction of real life? PSHT. Pull the other one.”

“I think it’s fantastic,” said a woman. “I’m not a size-zero supermodel, and so when I say that Instagram is fake and constructed, people just think I’m being a jealous, insecure hater bitch. I’m just glad that there’s someone much thinner and more beautiful than myself and thousands of other women who people will actually listen to about how women don’t look like that.”

But not all of the public is positive.

“She’s obviously lying,” said one angry commenter. “I mean, there’s no way it’s fake. Why would thousands of people spend hours on hair and make-up and positioning their Pina Colada very carefully on the edge of the table to get a perfect snap of the sunset, and dozens of minutes choosing the perfect filter to best exaggerate your image’s qualities? So that they can assuage their insecurity? So that they can garner more followers and possibly get asked to shoot a sponsored post that earns them thousands of dollars just to drink a cup of tea?”

“No ways – how gullible do you think I am? Next thing she’ll try to tell us that Wrestling is fake.”

NASA pledges $100b program to find intelligent life on Earth

Citing the age-old adage that “you can’t run before you’ve learnt to crawl”, the National Aeronautical Space Agency has today announced their suspension of the multi-million dollar program to find intelligent life out in space - in favour of a multi-billion dollar program to first find intelligent life on Earth.

NASA, which first started their SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) wing in the 1980s, says that it’s about time we found sentient, thinking, smart beings on our slice of the solar system.

“We know it’s a needle-in-a-haystack operation,” said NASA’s chief coordinator for the global search program SEBI (Search for Earth-Based Intelligence), Rocky Tjips. “Given our long and mentally-undeveloped history of race-based hatred, purposeful environmental destruction, war, ethnic cleansing, the News24 comments section and One Direction being a thing that people actively enjoy, we realise that this task may even be more difficult than scanning the billions upon billions of stars for signs of intelligent life – but we’re up for the challenge.”

“After all,” he added, “how can we possibly start looking for intelligent life out there, if we haven’t even found any down here?”

Scientists now say that intelligent life could
theoretically exist on Earth.

And while some detractors argue that human beings do show isolated, tiny sparks of intellect, NASA holds firm that, given the circumstances, these claims are exaggerated at the least and statistical outliers at the most.

“Yeah, people do throw around names like ‘Einstein’ or ‘Hawkings’ or even ‘Newton’, but honestly, just weigh that up against the billions of morons these guys rub shoulders with,” rebuked Tjips. “Seriously, we used to think that the moon was a god, and that radium was a great pick-me up tonic and ingredient in makeup,” he stressed. “These guys were just huge statistical blips, outweighed by the multitudinous nincompoops who, say, think Fox News gives balanced reportage, or think that Ebola is a real threat to anyone visiting the Southern African regions.”

The search, says Tjips, is now on, and despite initial negative results, he says they’re confident they’ll find something soon.

“We’ve gone through the comment sections of most major websites, almost all of my Facebook feed, most Instagram accounts, and thousands of celebrity Twitter handles,” he said. “Sure, it’s a tiresome process of elimination, and yes, everything we’ve found just confirms our belief that human beings are primordial, cognitively underdeveloped scum, but eventually we’ll find something. I mean, it’s not like most people are so stupid it makes you blink and recoil from your screen, right? Right?”

“You fucking racist” – the state of debate

Logging onto the internet after last weekend, I was greeted by a message from a fellow internaut. Curious, I clicked the message.

“You racist, this just shows the arrogance of white people. You shud be ashamed you idiot.”

Now, most people would feel insulted by such a message. But not me. By being called a racist, it meant that I had won.

Just one of the many reactions I got.

A bit of context perhaps: blackface fever has gripped South Africa and the internet circles I roam. There are lengthy debates, twitter furores, and at my Alma mater there are long web discussions about this subject.

Of course, me being me, I had to pitch up in this subject. But a part of me suspected something horrible about all the discussion, all the endless pages and pages of outrage and confusion and accusations. And so, I tried to tackle this the only way I saw fit.

Satire.

I stumbled across this art form in high school after a friend of mine pinning a hurtful “satirical” newspaper page on the hostel bulletin board. Slightly miffed that it wasn’t funny, I was determined to show everyone that you can make fun of teachers and hostel masters without outright insulting them. And so, the Dorm Six Voice (or the D6V) was born. Two years later, I started (read: was forced to start) a blog by our Digital Journalism lecturer. I wrote one satirical blogpost about the potholes in Grahamstown actually being Rhodes pools under construction and the reaction was enough to hook me into this subtle and incredible genre of writing.

But in all my years of serious writing (if you can call a few serious blogs like this and this, and working for the campus newspaper for years on end “serious writing”) I have noticed that online debate is mired in what I call TL;DR syndrome.

We all love so much to have our voices heard. That’s the beauty of the internet: that no matter what you believe, there is a free and endless platform for you to exercise your freedom of speech. But reading is a different matter. Anything longer than 300-words that isn’t broken up by hilarious GIF images, anything that doesn’t subscribe to a beloved listicle format, or even anything that doesn’t express our exact feelings to the letter, well… that we love slightly less.

But modern culture has instilled an incomparable rapidity (vapidity?) in our dealings with content. Any long, worthwhile discussion of a topic can inspire comments and “debate” that is fervently and fixedly a two-sided game of binaries that won’t shift. We comment, but we don’t think. We say what we feel, but do we really get the message?

When I posted my piece on blackface, Why Blackface is okay - the Plague of Reverse Racism, I did it to highlight this problem. I wrote it in a way that aspires to Poe’s Law complete with a (fake) guest writer’s name and a serious click-bait headline that was designed solely to grab attention and anger those who saw it. The content, however, is so obviously satirical (the post itself appears just after one about the Top Ten Sexiest Dictators of all time) that anyone would be immediately reassured of my sentiments towards blackface.

But that was not to be.

You see, the moment I was called a racist, or told that “omg blackface is wrong u need to change your mind” (and some even going so far as to say that they can’t believe this could be a legitimate opinion) my point was proven.

When discussing anything – be it blackface, abortion, women’s rights, (insert controversial hot topic here) - we must try as hard as possible to shove away our emotional knee-jerk tendencies. Even if we are disgusted by what we read or see, disgust alone is not enough to say whether or not it should be permissible. Gay Marriage, women’s rights, miscegenation (i.e. mixed marriages) – these have all been thought at some point in history (even today) to be disgusting or an affront to moral value.

Any subject should be balanced on critical reflection and relative merits, ethically and open-mindedly. Immediately taking one side and blowing down anyone who speaks a different tune is tantamount to hegemonising opinion. What if some people legitimately don’t understand why blackface is wrong? What about blurred lines, where it isn’t so much blackface but someone wanting to respect and honour one of their favourite characters in fiction?

This is why balanced, reasoned debate is important.

However, the issue with modern debate goes beyond this, because many of the comments I received showed that my post had not even been read before they blurted out how much of an idiot I am. The fact that some of these comments were deleted after it became clear that it was all jest just proves my point.

In today’s world, where whatever clarity or information you seek is just one internet tab away, we should be able to seek out the full story before condemning or deriding. This inability to see beyond our own preconceptions is indicative of why “discussions” like that of Gamergate can be such ugly battlefields. The problem with online readership is beautifully summed up by this social experiment done by the NPR and aimed at highlighting this exact problem.

We need to read. We need to inform ourselves before we swing the stick of judgement. To succumb to internet culture and immediately lash out in outrage and righteous vengeance because someone had the gall to not have our opinion is not the answer.

But hey: TL:DR, OP is faggot, amirite?

Russian hard diplomacy could threaten illegal downloads, mail order brides – America Political Analysts

Thousands of anxious Americans packed the streets across the state capital this morning in an act of widespread protest against hard-ball diplomacy against Russian leaders, after Political Analysts realised how this kind of foreign diplomacy could influence their ability to illegally download the latest episode of Game of Thrones or order a wife over the internet.

“We’re all worried,” said local placard-waver John Wilken. “This move by our government has us all worried about far-reaching political and social repercussions, like how I’m supposed to get my next fix of medieval porn-drama-fantasy that is filled with absurd amounts of characters, strange made-up languages and full-frontal nudity.”

He added that “I just really need to know when that piece of shit Joffrey is going to die. I’m not an HBO subscriber, and if Obama’s policies cut me off… well, I don’t know what I’ll do. Lose my mind and shoot up a school most likely. At least it’s still easy to buy a gun, Praise Jesus.”

However, protesters said that these worries were “among the most trivial and smallest”.

“The real issue here isn’t as flippant as downloading HBO episodes of fantasy dark-ages political murder porn,” said protest organiser Jerry Halfords, “but rather about what is going to happen in the new season of Suits, or Homeland.”

Political experts have agreed that the protest’s worries are valid.

“Most seeders and film-rippers and camcord owners are Russian,” said Head of the Department of Politics at Rhodes Unversity Dr Mally Satthews. “Just think how this will affect the supply of hot, sex-hungry young brides, or people to screw with on public DOTA 2 servers? If relations between these two powerhouses – East and West - become any more tense, Americans might be forced to marry each other, or yell hateful diatribes about being ‘Feeder noobs’ at Spanish or Chinese people.”

The international Russian Brides industry, which is reportedly worth over four billion dollars globally, has in the past taken massive knocks due to internet paranoia, and industry experts are now worried that the trade might be stopped entirely.

"Last year bride suppliers in Russia reported stunning financial losses," said Industry analyst and Economics lecturer Prof Eits Ahndloss. "If the same happens this year, we might see a future where women aren't shipped around the world and sold like animals into church-sanctioned indentured servitude. God forbid that dark day should come."

In spite of all this, Obama remained steadfast in his attitude toward the “commie pricks”.

“I urge all Americans to support me and your country in this endeavour,” he said, before adding that if you wanted to know what’s going to happen in GOT, you should just read the book or something.

"I mean, would paying for a song in the iTunes store every once in a while really kill you?”

New Rhodes campus newspaper causes stir

The boring campus news scene got an injection of fresh blood and excitement last week, after a bunch of first years who do journalism kind of put their heads together and worked long, frustrating hours to increase the number of student-driven publications that all students can ignore or make fun of by one.

The hotly-debated newspaper, which has been lovingly dubbed “the Regressive”, has been described by many students as “an exciting paper” that “gets the stories we want to read, with all those juicy, saucy details you never see in other newspapers”.

“We just love it,” said one student who got all the way to the second page of the newspaper, a campus record. “Most other papers just concentrate on water crises or boring student stuff and miss out on the important issues. Also, it doesn’t have lots of boring, distracting pictures to draw your eyes away from the insightful, cutting-edge news analysis and commentary. One picture per page and a whole A3 of five-column, font-size-12 text: just what newsreaders love to pieces!”

pic: Flickr.com, Saaleha Bamjee,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/saaleha/6871692605/

The newspaper has since been lauded by Journalism and Media Studies lecturers at the Africa Media Matrix journalism school as “the controversial pioneer of a new kind of post-traditional journalism.”

“Most other newspapers tend to lose traction in hard-hitting reportage because they abide by so-called and overrated ‘news values’ and ‘journalistic integrity’, which stem from the dark ages of print publications and are still around even today,” said the paper’s editor Cherr Nalism. “They use too-fancy typography and too many pictures, which really takes away from the deeper intricacies of the stories and the hidden facts that are crucial to their reportage, like what a murder victim’s two-year old son looks like and what his name is, or why that guy from UCT was entirely justified in committing acts of violence against other people, male or female.”

Nalism added that they wanted to steer away from “media churn fodder” that is “overreported and soulless” and instead focus on the critical and localised grassroots issues that affect the Grahamstonian and Rhodent.

“Our media and the international media tend to overbloat and homogenise content to just one or two stories with no real creativity or importance,” said Nalism. “But we bring to you deeper coverage of the really important stuff that isn’t all over the news every damn day. Things like the little-known and entirely relevant Oscar Pistorius murder trial, or one particular person’s opinion on how Hip Hop is dead.”

Quality, Nalism says, is also very important.

”Things like spelling and grammar just make for a credible, good paper,” he said. “if you read ours, you won’t find a single word misspeled mispelt misspelt misspelted you won’t find a single word done in a spelling that is incorrect.”

The newspaper also carries a depth of political insight and commentary that is rivalled only by established and lauded Political Science reference works, like See Spot Run or the world-famous International Politics analysis The Faraway Tree by Blyton, E et al.

The campus publication is now set to go into its second issue, and already it is making a dent in other papers’ readerships.

One such newspaper that is already feeling the brunt of this new and superior form of Journalism for Public Interestingness is the famous and established Coppie-Paste, which has been run by smug self-loving writers since making fun of your grammar was cool.

“Coppie-Paste is by now familiar to all students on campus, because of its bold and unique brand colour choice,” said student media historian Karl Bondaytin . “Not many know this, but originally they chose the colour to represent both their editorial team and their popularity on campus: it’s mostly white and only partially read.”

Many students, however, who definitely are not me and who definitely did NOT work there for four years and are certainly not biased in favour of it, defended the paper as “still the best campus newspaper”, which is kind of like deciding which brand of knife you prefer gouging your eyes out with.

The other campus contender which has felt its readership whittled down from the all-time records to just a normal readership level (from four readers to two) was the semesterly Hacked-and-Late. Though the same students in the previous paragraph say it’s “definitely more shit because reasons and my opinion”, there were many who applauded the paper’s “lesser known and wonderful qualities.”

“Every time I spill something on the floor,” said fourth-year student Jake Hardings, “every time I need put down a layer between the kitchen floor and my cat’s turds, every time I need a protective covering over glasses: who comes to my aid but those fine ladies and gentlemen at that good paper. I don’t know what I’d do without them. “

Readers wanting to check out the news in the Progressive are recommended to think about that decision whilst reading the rest of this blog.

RU left reeling after student votes

Rhodes University has been left reeling in a state of brain-dead shock after a student reportedly voted for an SRC candidate.

Apathy has, in recent years, even become a political
tool. Why?
Who cares?

The vote, which happened sometime this morning between 7am and midday, has left student politics analysts dumbfounded and SRC Councillors flumoxed.

"We just don't know what to do," said Media Councillor Gray Tposta. "I mean, we've never seen this kind of behaviour before. Why would a Rhodes student do this?"

Many fingers have been pointed as to the cause of this behaviour, including the recent price increase of a CrackBomb. "That's the only thing that could possibly describe this level of level-headed non-apathy," said Tposta.

The SRC office has since degraded into a crazed frenzy, amidst fears that they might actually reach Quorum this year. "What if we do?" screamed Elections Officer Stoh Lenbalots. "That's never happened before!"

According to sources in the SRC, the elections run every year are just for show purposes. Plans to instead host annual poster design competitions are being considered as a viable replacement in future.

Some poster creators reportedly took over
13 hours of brainstorming to come up
with their award-winning wordplay.

"Having to vote in your leaders was all the rage in post-1994 South Africa with democracy and stuff, but over the years it's become more fashionable to be stuck with uninformed shit-for-brains idiots as your representatives," said political analyst Pritchard Richhouse. "This tendency has crept into Rhodes, but we're constitutionally bound to make it look like people are actually thinking about these votes and choosing the best person for the job."

This year's election has been the most convincing yet, with over 16 fake posters stuck up all over campus. 

However, many believe that the vote could have been a total mistake. 

"Students living in digs - Oppidan students, that is - are automatically registered and enrolled into this election, which is a course on our online student service," said systems analyst and the guy who keeps your connection to pornographic websites running Guy Holdings. Holdings believes that they saw the pictures of the election candidates and mistook it for a "who would you rather bang?" application. They took one look at the tall white guy who did that 'Umlungu' shit last year and were like, 'ya, defos babe.'"

Holdings and his team of 'net specialists have reportedly tracked down the offending voter, and have cut their internet.

"The internet is no place for such a character," he said. "The girl who cast the vote didn't even leave a racist comment afterwards. Sies."

Since the ordeal, professional counselors from the RU Wellness Centre have come forward to calm down the SRC and assuage their fears.

"It was a once-off," said practicing psychologist Sy Khohanalysis. "We're confident that everyone else won't give a fuck about the election and just watch series or something instead."

However, the SRC is taking no chances, and have since uploaded the latest episode of Suits season 3 onto all university webpages and laboratory computers.

"For over thirty years we've held this strong and proud tradition," said Tposta, "and we're not letting some... some... responsible person ruin it for us."

Students have until the end of the week to ignore all emails asking you to vote, after which there will be more elections. God help us.