Dear Chain Letter Sender

Someone sends me a chain letter. I reply.

Text reads:

Subject: This is freaky

This is freaky!!!! But ......:)

Supposedly The Phone Will Ring Right After You Do This.

Just read the little stories and think of a wish as you scroll all the way to the bottom. There is a message there then make your wish. No attachment on this one.

Stories........ I'm 13 years old, and I wished that my dad would come home from the army, because he'd been having problems with his heart and right leg. It was 2:53 p.m. When I made my wish. At 3:07 p.m.(14 minutes later), the doorbell rang, and there my Dad was, luggage and all!!

I'm Katie and I'm 20 and I've been having trouble in my job and on the verge of quitting. I made a simple wish that my boss would get a new job. That was at 1:35 and at 2:55 there was an announcement that he was promoted and was leaving for another city. Believe me...this really works!!!

My name is Ann and I am 45 years of age. I had always been single and had been hoping to get into a nice, loving relationship for any years. While kind of daydreaming (and right after receiving this email) I wished that a quality person would finally come into my life. That was at 9:10 AM on a Tuesday. At 9:55 AM a FedEx delivery man came into my office. He was cute, polite and could not stop smiling at me. He started coming back almost everyday (even without packages) and asked me out a week later. We married 6 months later and now have been happily married for 2 years. What a great email it was!!

Just scroll down to the end, but while you do, think of a wish. Make your wish when you have completed scrolling. Whatever age you are, is the number of minutes it will take for your wish to come true (ex. you are 25 years old, it will take 25 minutes for your wish to come true)

However, if you don't send this to 5 people in 5 minutes, you will have bad luck for years!! Go for it!!!

STOP!!!

Congratulations!!!

Your wish will now come true in your age minutes. Now follow this carefully....it can be very rewarding!!!! If you send this to 10 more people, other than the 5 that you already have to send to, something major that you've been wanting will happen.

Kelly

---Ends.---

I reply.

Text reads:

Dear Kelly,

Thank you for your not at all guilt-tripping, fear-exploiting email. Where most people would probably hit the ‘reply all’ key to tell not just you, but every single person who has so far played a part in this email arriving in their inbox, to strongly consider going and fucking themselves with the largest blunt object at hand, I’m not most internet idiots.

Alas, I am an idiot in one sense – I ignored your warning. Like a stubborn child who thinks he knows better, I sneered at it and hit ‘Mark as Spam’. And so, this reply is somewhat an apology – having restored it to its rightful place in my Primary Inbox and Starred and Highlighted as “Crucially Important DO NOT DELETE”, I want to say you were right.

First of all, I want to say that your chain letter holds much, much power. It practically drips with the bad luck of Ancient, Dark Magicks Now Forgotten by Man – in fact its power is so considerable, so life-impactingly terrible, that the surplus of bad luck attached to it retroactively went back in time and affected most of my life before the moment I opened this email.

How was I to know that that horrifying, unbroken 18-year dry spell of No Sex At All that I went through just after my first birthday could be tracked down (or perhaps forward?) to the moment I hit the ‘spam’ button? This goes double for my string of failed relationships up until this moment. Lots of people might try to explain away this as “purely coincidental” and “a part of life” and even “because also you’re an insensitive moron” but I think we both know why this unerring string of bad luck has ruined my life: the Dark, mystical and ill-fated Convocations and Shadow Magic of the Gods of Unforwarded Chain Mail, who know no mercy and shew no forgiveness.

You know, unless I was horrifically cruel to a variety of small, defenceless kittens in a past life. I dunno, maybe I like squished their eyes out with a stick or something.

However, given the prevailing climate of viral media – where people will forward the entire planet a picture of a dress just to argue pointlessly about what colour it is – you really need to up your game.

In our modern age of ubiquitous social media it is very difficult for old artforms like this to compete against the vapid garbage that gets spread around faster than measles at Disneyland, or Government bailout money at an SABC Board Meeting.

We see death, disease and war on the news every day. People have become desensitised to these old passive chain letter threats. You need to ramp up the guilt. You need to ramp up the fear. You need to up the ante, elevate the stakes: give the people something to lose, something to fear, and you’ll see millions of shares.

Well, that, or just put a spelling mistake in the Subject line.

And so, I’ve taken the liberty to rewrite your email to be more contemporary.

--- Chain Letter 2.0 ---

Dear Kelly

This is freaky, but…..

Suppose your entire family will be murdered by Ebola-infected ISIS extremists while global warming drowns every person you’ve ever loved in a sea of blood and oil if you ignore this email?

Just read the little stories and think of a wish as you scroll all the way to the bottom. There is a message there then make your wish. No attachment on this one.

Stories........ I'm 13 years old, and I wished that my dad would come home from the army, because he'd been having problems with his heart and right leg. It was 2:53 p.m when I ignored this email. At 3:07 p.m.(14 minutes later), the doorbell rang, and there my Dad was, in a coffin, his head on stake with the words “I never loved you, you whore disappointment” smeared on my favourite dress in his blood and excrement. Then I got beheaded by ISIS, roughly ten minutes after I succumbed to the dreaded Ebola virus.

I'm Katie and I'm 20 and I've been having trouble in my job and on the verge of quitting. I made a simple wish that my boss would get a new job. I ignored this email and then immediately contracted Ebola and smallpox, which before now was widely believed to have been completely eradicated. Not only that, but my boss fired me and hired ISIS agents in their place. Their first job was to be behead my children. Believe me...this really works!!!

My name is Ann and I am 45 years of age. I had always been single and had been hoping to get into a nice, loving relationship for any years. While kind of daydreaming (and right after receiving this email) I wished that a quality person would finally come into my life. That was at 9:10 AM on a Tuesday. At 9:55 AM a FedEx delivery man came into my office. He was cute, polite and could not stop smiling at me. He started coming back almost every day (even without packages) and asked me out a week later. We married 6 months later and now have been happily married for 2 years. However, right now he is holding a machete against my neck and forcing me to write this. Having tricked me into thinking true love exists, he wishes to show me the error of having ignored this chain email. Allahu Ackbar PS my children have ebola and got autism from vaccines.

Just scroll down to the end, but while you do, think of a wish. Make your wish when you have completed scrolling. Whatever age you are, is the number of minutes it will take for your wish to come true (ex. you are 25 years old, it will take 25 minutes for your wish to come true)

However, if you don't send this to 5 people in 5 minutes, you will have bad luck for years AND DIE A VIRGIN IN AN ISIS TERROR DEN WHILE WATCHING EVERY HUMAN BEING YOU’VE EVER PASSED IN THE STREET SUFFER A PAINFUL AND POINTLESS DEATH. Go for it!!!

STOP!!!

Congratulations!!!

Your wish will now come true in your age minutes. Now follow this carefully....it can be very rewarding!!!! If you send this to 10 more people, other than the 5 that you already have to send to, something major that you've been wanting will happen.

Matthew

---

Please immediately send this email back to me so that I know you haven’t been beheaded.

In the meantime, I’, going to visit a Sangoma who promises me that, by just drinking his secret magic potion every night before bed, burning a special herb to chase away the Tokoloshe, and sleeping with a secret rock of the ancestors under my pillow, I should be clear of bad luck, financial troubles and relationship woes by Sunday.

That should go really well with the massive penis he promised I’d have.

Yours sincerely and apologetically,

Internaut, believer in lost dark gods, soon to be 18-incher

Matthew de Klerk

Name changed because people will know who I'm talking about if I use her name.
Jen.

Not that you know her of courseWINKWINK

Next Hunger Games novel “will be set in South Africa”

South Africa will be placed in the international spotlight next year, after world-renowned author Suzette Colins has made public plans to set the recently announced fourth and final installment of her famous Hunger Games series in South Africa.

“For some time now, we’ve seen undeniable thematic links and locational similarities between the fictional world of Panem and South Africa,” said her publishing agent and PR Manager Mark Kinjay. “The book is set in segregated districts, much like apartheid South Africa was, and even in more modern times we see starting parallels between the brutal, murderous police force that kills protesters, and the SAP.”

The similarities were so numerous that Colins found it “the only course of action” to put South Africa in her books.

“In her books, the protagonists and downtrodden people of the land fight against the forces of darkness, much like we do with Eskom every day,” said Kinjay. “There’s dire social inequality. There are corrupt, power hungry leaders who will do whatever it takes to cling to power. There are the hedonistic elite. There is even the national obsession with pointless games and competitions and massive waste of public funds to build elaborate stadiums to host their beloved entertainment when obviously the money could be better spent elsewhere. How can this book not be set in South Africa?”

The plot, Kinjay says, is sure to be intriguing.

“The novel is set about 30 years after the events of the third book, after Katniss has taken down the evil government and restored peace to the land. However, the people who followed in Katniss’s footsteps betray her legacy and start recreating the hateful, exploitative and corrupt demeanour of those they unseated,” he explained. “In this troubled new age, it is up to the young Katrien Eevyndag and her best friend Pieter Meerlagt to win an oppositional majority in a cutthroat political battle royal in her district and expose the evil President Jacorneliab Snuma. Will she succeed? Will she choose Pieter, or finally be together with her true love Gheybriel Heythiern?”

He added that the book would go on sale sometime in January early 2016.

“Basically, it’s going to be as exciting as the 2014 elections, just with happier ending.”

Dear Nigerian lawyer overseeing my dead unknown relative's will

A kindly lawyer in Benin informs me that my recently-dead uncle has left me millions of dollars. I bite.

Text reads:

Dear Klerk.

I am Advocate David Amaugo. A personal attorney to Eng. Michael H. Klerk (my client), from your country who was Director of engineering consultant here in Republic of Benin. On the 5th of March,2010, my client lost his life as a result of Brain cancer, at Benin Medical Center. Since the death of my Client, i have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives until now, so i decide to contact you and need your urgent Assistance to present you to the bank so that the proceed of my client's fund valued about $10,7M (Ten Million Seven Hundred Thousand United Dollars.) can be paid Into Your Bank Account immediately before the funds will be confiscated by the Bank here.

After reading this message, reply me with your direct mobile telephone number... Your full address...Your age....and your occupation so that i can send further details to you for better understanding and also tell you how we can legally proceed the claim. Upon the fund transfer into your bank account both of us will share it 50% for you 50% for me. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through.

I am waiting your urgent response.

Yous sincerely,

Barrister David A

---Ends---

I reply.

Text reads:

Dear Barrister David,

I was heartbroken and yet grateful for your caring, kind-hearted and obviously not exploitative email. It’s a true tragedy that old Uncle Mike has passed away – to tell the truth, I never really knew him (not at all, not even that he existed, to be honest) and although we had our obvious differences (for example, our surnames) I always thought that if I’d just gotten to know him better, like what his favourite colour is, what his hopes and dreams and fears were, or even who the hell he is, we’d have gotten on famously.

Honestly, though, I was expecting this email. Just last week my best friend Eric got an email informing him that his unknown uncle in Nigeria had died of cancer, and the week before that it was my other good friend Jess. For years now, all my friends, family and work colleges have had to go through the difficult and harrowing process of getting an email from an East African Lawyer telling them of their unknown relative’s demise at the hand of dreaded cancer. Since I was a young boy, I’ve been 100% certain that, somewhere in the world, there is a family member I’ve never met who will die of brain cancer and will me, his last remaining relative, his millions. It was only a matter of time before my poor unknown uncle Mikey met this exact fate.

Of course, some idiots I know on the internet are trying to convince me that this is a scam – perhaps in a blackhearted attempt to take Uncle Mike’s millions for themselves, the soulless fucks. But we have to ask ourselves – if this is a scam, then how come you’re an experienced, trusted lawyer in possession of an internationally recognised degree that qualifies you to deal with the difficult intricacies of international inheritance laws and the complicated string of transnational tax policies that govern the transfer of wealth across national barriers?

If this is an attempt to “empty my entire bank account and leave me in crippling debt”, as these imbecilic nonbelievers claim, then how come you’re such a good, kind-hearted person who would move hell and high water just to fulfil the last will and testament of a lonely dying man. I mean, what kind of low-life, scum-eating, piece of shit, soulless asshat would take advantage of the trauma of the loss of a loved one in an exploitative, black-hearted attempt to cash in on someone’s lack of internet savvy and ruin their lives by plunging them into dire financial straits? Obviously not you.

Please find attached to this email all my personal banking details, three signed and police certified copies of my passport, identity, several telephone and utilities bills going back several few months, and my original birth certificate. No, not a copy – the original. It was tough forcing this physical copy of it into the internet, but if you can track down one man’s sole surviving relative across nearly 5000 miles, well, what is a little digital-physical barrier in comparison?

My best wishes. Please let me know as soon as you can send me the money. I’m writing a book about why Geocentrism is real and how vaccines cause autism and I desperately need money to fund my lifestyle while I cherrypick articles and discredited hack “research” to present as proof of my theories.

Yours sincerely,

Anti-vaxxer, Soothsayer, your loving friend and co-inheritor,

Matthew Klerk

Feminist agenda’s ugly truth finally exposed

“We want men to die,” admit feminists
“Holy shit, we were right?!?!” exclaim Men’s Rights Activists

The horrifying truth is out: feminists want men to go extinct. These were the exact words spoken by Leader of all the feminists everywhere, Anita Hooks.

”We’ve gotten away with so much,” she admitted in a terrifying one-on-one interview with Muse and Abuse, “and that’s because we hid so cleverly.”

Hooks outlined how feminists kept up a decades-long clever and carefully-constructed façade of equality shrouded in the false search for equal rights and pay, while paying false and disingenuous lip service to ‘seeking legislation that respects women and gives them power and control over their lives and bodies’ – and all to cover up a dark plot to enact global genocide against men.

”We were so devious, so cunning,” she admitted. “It was bold and crafty how we pretended to give a shit about the education, health, dignity and civil rights of women across the world, just to veil our secret desire to drive a wooden stake deep into the heart of men the world over. By saying, ‘listen, we’re not unreasonable demons – we just want to be treated like we’re not sex-craving, brainless sandwich-making dogs you can stick your dick in whenever you want’ we hid our evil in plain sight for years. And we would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those pesky MRAs.”

The official feminist manifesto, which is being seen for the first time by eyes outside the secret underground society of man-hating, Woolf-reading, placard-making feminazis, has also finally been unearthed. On it are many hundreds of very terrifying goals, including “Castrate and behead all men, making sure to abort all male foetuses”, “make Tumblr the only website on the internet”, “kill jokes and comedy forever with overly sensitive Politically Correct controls and trigger warnings”, “Finally establish the All-Female 1000-year Fourth Reich” and, perhaps most terrifying of all, “remove guns and bikinis and boobs from videogames”.

Meanwhile, Men’s Rights Activists across the world have reacted with surprise and glee.

“I knew it!” said renowned MRA writer and admin of www.reversesexism.net, Staü Mannings, tipping his fedora and scratching his neckbeard with Doritos-stained index-finger. “I’ve been saying this for years. I mean, for a while there even I thought what we were saying and doing was merely spreading misogynistic and hateful slurs, verbal attacks, a constant stream of abuse and countless death threats, but I’m glad to see that was true, justified and significant discourse all along.”

Court finds MRA misogynist “deserved” to be assaulted, murdered

Justice has been served today, after the South African Supreme Court acquitted and released a man wrongfully charged with murder, saying that the victim’s dress sense, irresponsibility and consumption of alcoholic beverages proved that he was “asking for it”.

28-year-old Eric Manson was cleared of all charges of murdering well-known men's rights blogger and Men's Rights Activist, Andrew Hamaray, after courts looking into some of Andrew's compelling posts on the internet found that "it only makes sense, really".

”Some might consider this a sickening, heinous crime, and our judgement a gross usurpation and betrayal of the very idea of justice,” said Supreme Justice Victor Ree, “but we have to ask ourselves very important questions, like ‘what was he wearing at the time?’ and ‘why was he in a dangerous area alone at night?’ and even ‘how much did he drink before being stabbed multiple times in the chest and neck?’”.

Judges examined what was soon revealed to be very damning evidence.

“First of all, he was wearing an expensive, Italian leather jacket,” said Ree, counting the condemning proofs off with his fingers. “He was flashing around his wallet and talking openly on his phone in a risky part of town, and he had drunk a lot of alcohol before the incident. This leaves one conclusion: that he was asking to be robbed and butchered. That it was his fault.”

This judgement is supported strongly by police testimony.

“He waited almost three hours to report the crime,” said the sergeant on duty who took the initial statement. “Why? And don’t give me that ‘he was bleeding to death in a hospital’ bullshit. If this crime was so serious he would have reported it immediately, ICU life-suppport or not.”

Lawyers representing the wrongfully accused agreed, asking why the alleged victim waited so long to come forward to be slandered and discredited by their legal team.

“If they had really had a case based on facts and truth, they would have come forward to be belittled and attacked by us and rabid social media users much, much earlier than they did.”

So strong has the initial evidence been that police have not even needed to consult forensic evidence.

“The fingerprints we took from the scene and blood samples are sitting in their kit on a dusty shelf in the evidence room,” said the sergeant. “It’s clear that we don’t need any more evidence. Real men don't get robbed.”

Social media has also voiced its opinion, emphasising its agreement with the judge’s findings.

“He was an affluent manwhore prick," said one of many thousands of comments that weren't made under anonymity. "All these Men’s Rights Activists make me sick, saying men should be allowed to wear what they want and drink what they want. They should just STFU and go back to the garage repairing cars where they belong."

Family of the man have fully supported the court’s decision, saying, "we stand by Drew's words."

“Drew was always very vocal about the issues he cared about on social media, and never failed to air these exact same opinions on his twitter page,” they said. “We accept the court’s findings. Really, when you look at it closely, it’s what Dan would have wanted.”

Drug dealers to hire white Uni students as quality control

Following the widespread crackdown on low-quality or ‘cut’ narcotics, drug lords are working with white university students to launch a new joint campaign today, aimed at inspiring faith in the minds of their customer basis.

These white university students will reportedly work as quality control personnel, so as to combat the rising lack of trust by buyers and reassure loyal customers that they're getting "the good shit".

“When you think of a lot of the controversies we face – like with other unethical dealers selling coke cut with flour, or meth cut with powdered glass, or even selling aspirin and calling it X – we just don’t want to be branded with the same iron,” said 39-year-old marijuana dealer and lecturer of Ethnic Musicology Aaron Winters. “So how can we reassure our buyers that this really is some good shit? Well, the answer is simple: white university students.”

Research has indicated that many white university students – especially those who wear obscene amounts of red, green and yellow and listen to “real music, not that fake sellout shallow radio pop” – are veritable weed quality bloodhounds, able to tell if a weed is strong or good, often with just one sniff. And students agree.

“Man, I remember this one time I had a friend over to do the weed, and he just opened the bag and said, ‘oh yeah dude, this is some really good stuff’,” said 23-year-old university student Jake Henderson. “I’m really glad he was there. I know he isn’t a legally qualified chemical analyst and that he doesn’t have the decades’ long experience in trying various kinds, brands and strengths of Maria Jay necessary to make such a judgement, but without him, I probably wouldn’t even gotten high when we injected the chronic into our arms.”

The dealer-certified Post Grad student in Philosophy of Art was reportedly on top form, and upon opening the small bank baggie immediately remarked “oh man this smells good”, “yeah this is some good stuff you can definitely smell it”, “so cheesy” and “god I wanna live in here”, before commenting that the contents were “not too harsh, but not too sweet” and “would probably give you like a really mellow high”.

“Oh, I’ve faced my fair share of scepticism,” said the quality control expert, 24-year-old Bradley Jeff Johnson. “A lot of people will say ‘you’re just saying that to make people feel obliged to share the spliff’ and ‘oh, tell us again how you’re the Heston Blumental of Skunk’, but they go quiet when I inform them that I own an acoustic guitar and am in the process of getting sick dreads. Sure, lots of people say that these aren’t really indications, but then they shut up completely when they realise I take Ethic Music Studies and African History as majors, play up to 2 hours of Hacky Sack a day, have an extensive vinyl collection of Bob Marley albums, and punctuate every sentence with ‘chill’ and ‘mellow vibe’.”

He added that he reads, like, several weed websites and regularly hands out fliers to people to show people the truth about this misunderstood plant.

The reaction has so far been positive.

“We’re really seeing some great feedback,” said Winters. “When it comes to weed, we’ve learned that white university students are like patchy-bearded white hipsters talking about 'real' photography, or old white guys sniffing a glass of wine with a ponderous, thoughtful expression glinting in their slightly-squinting, into-the-distance-peering eyes telling us which wines are good.”

Newspapers don’t publish

Newstands and paper racks across the world were utterly bare yesterday, after news organisations worldwide failed to publish a single newspaper because “nothing bad happened”.

“As we all know, traumatic, horrifying, shallow or fear-mongering stories are our bread and butter,” said News Media Expert Ngud Gnuus. “But yesterday, there was no war, no famine, no murder, no rapes, no burglaries, no car accidents… nothing. How can we make a 24-page newspaper if no one dies or does something that makes you want to draw the curtains, stay locked indoors all day or just straight-out kill yourself?”

Gnuus went on to say that, despite the ever-worsening conflict in the Gaza strip and between Israel and Palestine, deeping strife and socioeconomic disparities across the seven continents and rampant crime rates, there was somehow nothing bad enough happening out of which to make an endlessly repeating loop of controversy and stern-anchored news coverage.

“It makes no sense, we know, but nothing bad happened. Usually there are any thousands of examples which we can shock and horrify you with, but yesterday it was only good stuff. How can we possibly sell papers with that?”

However, some newspapers have decided to rise to the challenge, releasing small online reports in spite of yesterday’s paucity of source material.

“We’ve decided to put a different spin on it,” said Editor of CNN Deborah Hardings. “We have headlines like World braces itself for inevitable explosion of crime, death and Bus full of School kids will definitely careen off road into ravine and blow up tomorrow, say experts. If the news media knows one thing, it’s how to turn no story into the top story of the day. Just look at any news story where our cameras and microphones are outside in the street or at a press conference or even outside a hospital where a royal baby is about to be born. Usually in these spots, we are just waiting for something to happen. That’s news, baby.”

Muse and Abuse will keep you updated today, as more nothing happens.

New App revolutionises how we remember Huge Life Events

Life-changing experiences will never be the same again, thanks to a new App that is making huge waves in social media circles.

Insta-Mem, which has been downloaded 6 million times since it hit the App Store this weekend, automatically takes your boring, unspecial photos and diary entries from incredible experiences and journeys and converts them into a more representative and social-media friendly format.

“Times have changed, and with ever-ubiquitous modern technologies in our increasingly digitalised world, it’s about time we updated and modernised the way we remember the special moments in our life,” said creator of the application, Ian Staygram. “Let’s say I went to Naples and lay on the warm white shores of the Mediterranean, gently out my slowly-bronzing legs out on the beautiful soft sands just meters from the warm waters and taking in the simple pleasures of life in a moment that hope will stay with me until I die - how am I supposed to remember that without multiple selfies, social media check-in posts and filter-heavy shots of the local cuisine?”

Thousands have agreed.

“What, really, is the holiday of a lifetime if it isn’t posted online for your friends to like and comment on? And if you do take photos of the mountains or scenery, how am I supposed to know that I, or anyone who was apparently there, was *actually* there?” asked internet user and fervent Mem-er Jake Henderson. “I think we can all agree that, whether you’re diving in the Pacific Ocean with Whalesharks and Sunfish, or sitting on Mount Everest watching the sun rise over the distant smoky hills like a magnificent orb made from burning gold, the most important thing is that everyone you know knows that you – you, with your face, maybe your mouth curled into a cheesy grin with an accompanying peace sign or thumbs-up – were there. Everything else is meaningless.”

Social-media users no longer need to fear forgetting these magical moments, says Staygram.

“The app is so simple to use, that even a Twitter user wouldn’t struggle. All you do is take a photo of yourself, and our Smartscan technology will do the rest. All those yawn-provoking shots of the scenery and panoramic views of the island snoozefest you were staying in will now be updated to have you in them, even if you didn’t take any selfies on the trip,” he said. “Hell, if you didn’t even take pics at the place, the app just searches Google for sunsets and snaps in that area and edits those into your album. It’s not like anyone will be able to tell the difference between sunsets or check that you actually took the pictures.”

The app also automatically adds a relevant filter and hashtags.

“When I visit memorable locations, I don’t want to have have the stress of taking periodic selfies that reaffirm that I do actually exist and am actually in Paris,” said another user Mary Marie. “I don’t want to bother with the profound hassle of picking between ten slightly different pre-set image filters, or the philosophical wrestling match of coming up with seventeen hashtags that adequately sum up the profound, life-altering trip I’ve taken. With Insta-Mem , never again will I forget that I travelled and visited the Top Ten places in Paris that I read about in a listicle."

Already, many thousands are wishing they had had this app when they travelled the globe to broaden their understanding of the myriad different cultures and peoples of our beautiful, rich planet.

“Nowadays I just sit in my chair trying to work out what I did between the years of 1968 and 2010,” said senior citizen Jerry Attrick. “We didn’t have Twitter or Facebook back then, so how were we supposed to remember those moments that changed us deeply and profoundly for the rest of our lives?”

Staygram now says they have their eyes set on video format technologies.

“Let’s say you go to a concert and forgot to record the entire thing from eighty-seven seats back in the cheap section on your 2.8 megapixel cameraphone. Well, with the app we’re developing, we’ll just take DVD-quality official footage and convert it to be smaller, blurrier, and filled with uncompressed, low-quality sound complete with barely audible songs being drowned out by the cheering and screaming. Imagine you’re bobbing for apples in a tub of Vaseline after corneal damage.”

Photos: Everest by Luca Galuzzi; Great Wall of China by Severin.stalder. Both Creative Commons.

Football “still definitely newsworthy” – BBC

It was a resounding victory for journalism today, after football, rugby, cricket, tennis – as well as many other sports codes including but not limited to curling, archery, bowling, darts, pool, rowing and professional tiddlywinks – were reaffirmed as “still definitely newsworthy and important journalism” by a BBC-funded study.

“For years now our screens have been filled with hundreds and thousands of hours of slow-motion replays, critical analysis and up-to-the-minute updates on everything sports-related, like match scores, financial transfers, or even who is fucking whose wife in the national team,” said a spokesperson for the BBC. “Today, we are pleased to announce that these events are still as important as ever, and deserve their hours-long slots just after international affairs and current events.”

The study has irrefutably proven that football – along with all sport – is still on par with disease, war, political scandals and the myriad other important current events that define our generation and necessitate ceaseless coverage and debate.

“Although football was first started as a social experiment in the 1960s to see how much a human being can be paid for doing as little and as inconsequential, meaningless-in-the-grand-scope-of-the-universe work as possible, it quickly blossomed into something as important as Ebola killing white people, or famine killing brown people, or war,” said the study. “Hence the dozens of channels dedicated to every goddamn fart Lionel Messi makes.”

The study has since been welcomed and applauded by leading institutes of journalism and media studies.

“People misunderstand sport,” said professor Rum Rogeny of the Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies. “It’s not an opium of the people designed to distract them with irrelevant and endless arguments about who has the better team or the most trophies and titles or who beat who in the umpteenth iteration of a packet-of-air-kicking-contest between two groups of millionaires. Soccer is relevant. It's the only time God ever does anything on Earth. It’s politics but with a ball. It’s war, but with better hair and fake injuries."

In spite of mounting criticism from dissenting critical voices who steadfastly claim (in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, of course) that sport is a form of ‘soft politics’ that allows you to pretend to take part in pseudo-political arguments without any of the reprisals or repercussions of holding a real political view – much like a child walking around in his father’s oversized shoes in imaginary games of ‘play-play’ – many thousands of normal people around the world have welcomed the study.

“Football is super important,” said a man counting an imaginary list with his fingers. “It has kicking. It has passing. It has tackles – some of these tackles are illegal. Some are in a grey area. These are important debates. Debates which the news tries to distract us from with news like which country is invading which country, or new about stupid so-called ‘mass protests’ in Mexico City.”

The study also definitely ruled out the possibility of think topics, debates, art exhibitions or any kind of cultural thing as ‘news’.

“Even things like massive scientific accomplishments – like a ten-year project to land a tiny satellite on a comet one hundred million miles away – are fucking definitely not news. The thing is, how many people really understand science enough to make an opinion on it? There just isn’t any controversy around these events. How are we supposed to get ceaseless heated debates, long, angry blogposts and opinion columns, pages and pages of incensed comments defiantly touting their entrenched viewpoint, and metres of print responding not just to the story, but also responding to responses - and therefore endless pageviews and unfathomable advertising revenue – out of that boring crap? That’s why we make it more about the little things. Like sexist shirts. Now THAT is news.”

Muse and Abuse would like to invite any reader who didn't understand this to form a very angry opinion about it and write their own blog on why we're a bunch of morons.

Concert are the worst. Seriously.

Do you like concerts? Well, you're either a blithering idiot in dire need of being committed to an asylum or a masochist.

There is something inherently unpleasant about going to concerts that I’ve never quite understood. Whether you’re a braces-equipped red-faced screaming fourteen-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber “concert” or a sad black-shirted, jean-wearing old man dealing with his mid-life crisis by using out-of-fashion slang and going to see bands that were huge when the afore-mentioned “Beliebers” were mere protein in a nutsack, the one thing that we all have in common is how shitty the pilgrimage to see our favourite musicians in action truly is.

The journey

All concerts start, of course, with the journey. One of the problems with any sufficiently large or popular band is that it's pretty much a predetermined fact that you aren’t the only one who likes them, and no matter how advanced we fool ourselves into thinking our society is, there will always be four-hour traffic jams between our point of departure and the venue parking. Naturally, no matter how much parking the venue boasts, there will never actually be enough parking. Besides, even if you do manage to conjure up the Sainthood-worthy miracle of finding an available spot you’ll never be that fucking guy who found a Lucky Place Right By The Entrance. That doesn’t happen to people like you. Ever. And so, on top of your sanity-testing car trip or first-hand experience of what a sardine feels in a tin (read: bus trip), you’ll be forced to enjoy a ten-minute walk to the entrance.

The queue

“Well,” I hear you say, “at least the awful car trip is over. We’re at the venue – it’s all plain sailing from here, right?” Wrong. Thanks to detestable society-ruining arseholes who have nothing better to do with their lives than come eighteen hours early to the venue and set up camp in the queue like refugees escaping a dictatorial regime, you’ll have to wait. And of course, you’ll spend that waiting time standing, because who the fuck brings a chair to a concert?

Security

Having spent a considerable portion of your life sandwiched between drunk foreigners and that irritating group of girls who play the songs you’re about to hear out loud on their goddamn phones while screeching along to the lyrics, it’s now time to face the security door. Obviously, there’s a problem with your ticket. It doesn’t matter how many fucking holograms there are on it or whether you have the receipt, invariably it will become the long-lost twin of that single pocket of oranges you made the mistake of trying to buy at Pick ‘n Pay, as the booth attendant attempts again and again to scan the barcode. Having given the person your life story and repeated claims that the ticket is, in fact, legitimate, they reluctantly nod you on to the security checkpoint – or as I like to call it, the “destroy your human dignity and invade your personal space” checkpoint. If you’re a woman (I’m not), you’ll have your handbag disemboweled and upturned, the black-shirted angry huge guy in the SECURITY shirt rummaging through its contents like a druid trying to divine the future from the entrails of a chicken. If you’re a man (I am), you’ll no doubt get your nuts fondled by a security guard like he’s an enthusiastic child trying to guess the contents of a particularly large Christmas present the night before he can open it, jiggling and juggling it to and fro as he wonders “what could it be, what could it be? A gun? A knife? A penis? What could it be?!"

I can’t be totally ungrateful, however. Thanks to concerts, I now know that unopened bottled water poses a severe risk to massive crowds. Who knows what clear liquid explosive those AquaVie bottles could be holding? And cameras, god forbid, let’s not let those in. After all, we wouldn’t want you to take non-cameraphone photos that do the concert any justice, no!

Finally, you’re in – time for a drink!

Having had your basic human rights violated, you make it into the venue intact save your dignity and perhaps the overwhelming feeling of self-disgust at being publically violated. To assuage your great shame at having been felt up like a try-before-you-buy prostitute, you’ll want a drink. Well, I hope you’ve taken two jobs, because concert beer is expensive. Hell, even concert water is expensive. And I hope that second job pays cash, because there will never be a card machine. Okay, you have your beer? Down it. Have another. And another. And maybe one more. You’ll need it, trust me. Drink it all right there by the bar (it took fucking long enough to get your spot, you might as well use it to the fullest). There’s no point taking it with you to your spot in the crowd because either (A) it’ll take so long to get there that it’ll be finished by the time you arrive or (B) as you try to push your way through the unmoving crowd of sneering assholes who take your “Sorry, coming through” as a personal insult against their mother, entire family, culture and religion, you’ll spill it all anyway.

Found my spot!

Once you’ve given up on getting to the front and decide to settle for a lesser space roughly as far from the stage as your car is from the front entrance, it’s time for the concert to begin, right? Well, not quite. You see, if a concert is advertised to start at eight, it’ll start at 9.30. After all, the cynical millionaires who are profiting from your concert-going experience need time to sell crappy merchandise and overpriced alcohol, and what better way to do that than to make you wait another hour or so while the stagehands pretend to still be setting up sound and lights and all that stuff that was obviously prepared hours ago?

As you stand there, you’ll slowly become keenly aware of the kinds of people who share your taste in music. Take, for example, the man standing so close behind you that it makes you feel like you’re in your own Miley Cyrus music video. His uneven, too-loud breath will waft down your neck in a warm, fetid wave of air you can’t ignore. The smell of it, however, is what really gets you. It’s a stench that can only be described as “fascinatingly awful”, a kind of olfactory car crash you can’t tear your nose from. Imagine old, musky honey, mix it with the bile-raising smell of wet leaves that have been lying in a mouldy drain too long, and blend this with the unforgettable tang of the unwashed, sweaty skin between the thighs of a fat person wearing tight nylon pants. It’s like staring into the sun, but with your nose. The first few sniffs are of awe –‘Can I really be smelling that?’ you wonder, ‘Could a smell so horrific exist, and from what Nazi biological weapons laboratory did it escape?’ As you waver between vomiting and laughing and going insane, all the time sniffing more and more deeply in sheer incredulity (maybe I’m not smelling it right?) you’ll wonder what kind of determined, ceaseless commitment it took to get breath that bad. What kind of insane devotion did this man put into his obvious lack of dental hygiene to muster up what can arguably be called a valid reason to commit suicide in a public place? Pity you don’t have that bottled water. You could have blown yourself up.

It gets worse, though. There’s always some tall prick standing in front of you. It doesn’t matter how tall you yourself are (I’m over six foot, a fact that earns me worse death-stares than a war criminal on trial for genocide when it comes to being in a crowd), there is always that one fucking guy who is that much taller. And if you’re that guy, then the guy in front of you will put his girlfriend on his shoulders. Added to this delight, you’ll be rubbing shoulders left and right with two couples who are obviously addicted to the taste of each other tongues. I get it, people. This is a date. I just wasn’t aware I was invited to play such a personal role in it.

Finally, it begins

After the unknown tiny opening act ceases their warbling slew of unknown, inaudible lyrics, the real concert begins. And this would be a veritable pleasure if it weren’t for the rest of the fucking hellhole collective of Twitter-obsessed imbeciles we are dictionary-bound to call “society”. As you look over the sea of heads toward the act you’ve paid a generous portion of your monthly wage to come watch, you’ll slowly realise the extent to which social media has ruined this short, painful journey we call life. The concert will framed by a box of glowing iPhone screens as the masses simultaneously convert this cherished, special moment into low-resolution, crappy film complete with uncompressed sound, uncontrollable hand-shaking and ruinous digital zoom to be shared and never watched on Youtube. Basically, imagine bobbing for apples but instead of apples you’re trying to watch a screen, and instead of a tub of water you’re dunking your head into a tub of lard and Vaseline.

As Mr Tall’s head weaves left and right, intermittently blocking your restricted, smart-phone filled view of the stage, he starts to dance. Well, I say “dance”, but that’s generous. The problem is, he’s old. And he’s white. And he has a ponytail. To make matters worse, there’s a faint scent of weed in the air. As he jerks and spasms in time with every 13th beat in the music, and as the Breath Guy pokes you in the back and comments on how tall you are, could you move aside a bit please, you bite down on the urge to commit hideous crimes against humanity.

“It’s not fair,” you lament, and slowly you realise that there is no god, there never has been. It was all a lie made to make you think this chaotic, unjust world of darkness and cruelty had some kind of order and fairness to it. You slowly begin to understand that you used to think you knew what hate felt like – but only now do you grasp that that was a mere heart-warming fable of hatred. True spite, the festering worm of rage that chews down all the way into the core of your being, is something you are only now beginning to appreciate. This feeling grows and grows, and just when you think the burning wrath of a thousand supernovae exploding with incomparable loathing in your soul cannot get any worse, you spot the Golden Circle fans dancing and cheering and having a good time. All a mere arm’s distance from the musicians you’ve obsessed over for years and years, they cheer and sing, untroubled by the worries and qualms of those too poor (lol!) to afford a good spot. As one of these rich fucks gets pulled on stage (probably some fucking girl who had the ticket bought for her by her stacked boyfriend, and she’d never even heard of the band until today) you remember that one day you’ll die, we’ll all die, and all our accomplishments will die with us, forgotten and meaningless in the void that awaits all of mankind.

And it doesn’t even matter

But that’s the ironic thing about concerts. Like with any terrible metaphor that doesn't quite describe what I'm trying to say, it's always darkest before the dawn, and after (perhaps because of?) all the suffering, all the hardships and irritation, you actually enjoy yourself.

Who doesn’t have a concert moment like when Bruce Springsteen played an acoustic version of “Down to the River” and I stood with my arms around my family, remembering how that song and its profound lyrics defined a time filled with uncertainly and hardships, and you all cry and sing along in unison because that moment represented the beginning of a better tomorrow? Who doesn’t have a story like when I went alone to a Rodrigo y Gabriela concert after six years of obsessing over their every move, buying every album on the day they came out, even going so far as taking painstaking months of slow, ham-handed practice to learn how to play the guitar like them - and after all that waiting, you finally get to see your heroes in action? Concerts – be they your of favourite band or where you are dragged along to watch your knows-no-better daughter shriek as a hormone-overloaded teen scrapes the barrel of talent for the very dregs left in the primordial scum of originality and excellence – are moments in our lives where, for a short while, we are able to escape the mundane routine of our everyday lives. And as we look up to our heroes rocking the shit out of that guitar, we realise that it’s special moments like these which are worth all the difficulties that precede them.

Except maybe the nut fondling. Let’s skip that next time, please.