Is it a deliberate joke or an incidental one that he ends up doing the same thing he's complaining about?

I am pretty sure it is deliberate.

Oh, okay. Well, I haven't seen to much in the way of song lyrics, but there are plenty of pictures of celebrities with self-important poses, being quoted as saying "Everything the guy who posted me thinks about politics is right." (That's a paraphrase, the actual wording varies.) I suspect a lot of the quotes are made up, paraphrased themselves, or mish-mashes of a lot of things the person said or should have said.

Here are the three most recent examples of the "counting-on-the-title-to-sell-it" syndrome in my feed:






None of them make the slightest bit of sense unless you click the link. Pretty typical stuff, except that the first three come from a guy I knew in college, who's frankly, brilliant. And he's a Methodist minister, so it's not like he's not used to expressing thoughts in words.

Now, here's another one:



Perfect. I've never even played Star Trek Online, and I know exactly what I'll get if I click this link. And I've got all the information I need to know whether or not I want to click it. It's really that easy. So, why is it so hard for some people to say anything?

Here's a good one from today:



I usually gripe about posts having no content. This one has content, all right. The same way "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" has content. But does it really stand on its own? Isn't there supposed to be a book or something backing it up? Could Dickens have just published that sentence and not worried about the rest of it?

I replied:



...even though I know this is far too subtle to get the point across.

As I thought, too subtle. He wrote back:



...again without saying anything about them, or realizing that he hadn't. I don't think I'll try again. This is the kind of thing where you have one chance to get the point across. If you try it twice, they'll start to think you're picking on them.

Here's an example of how people can forget they're talking in public.



Some kind of medical emergency in the family, apparently. And he's using Facebook, to give a Party Line style update to the people that he's already talked to about this issue verbally (there are no previous references to it on Facebook). But this guy has 481 friends. Some don't know who Whosits is. They're mystified. Others who do know who Whosits is are hearing about this for the first time and it's probably hitting them out of left field. I knew the guy in college, I'd be glad to write to him and express some kind of concern/sympathy, but it would be too embarrassing to admit that I don't know who Whosits is, so I probably won't say anything.

With summer here, the weather reports seem to be back in earnest. Occasionally I make some effort to point out how ridiculous they are without insulting the person who posted it. It never works, but at least I can say I tried. Here's a couple of recent examples:






Incidentally, The Weatherman has posted so much other stuff (a lot of it cryptic, of course), that I was almost questioning whether he deserved the moniker any more. He's at it in force again, but here's one that actually deserved to be posted:



I don't know the answer either, so I guess that is a good question. Only now this is going to bug me all day.

, and then just a link that goes to a title about an armoured car robbery, but that's it. Just a title and an invitation to send your thoughts. Least you could do is link to a news story that explains what happened.

Then there was one that did just that. But other than that, no idea what happened. Internet is sporadic and I couldn't find out. Finally did and turns out a pick-up truck smashed into the back end of a school bus [heart sinks]. But no children on board, driver of bus okay, driver of pick-up with non-life threatening injuries, and no-one one else involved.

How is that a "horrible crash" for anyone except the idiot (early 20s, male) who wasn't paying attention and drove into the back of a stopped bus?

Yeah, that's inconvenient, but a crash where nobody is hurt doesn't count as "horrible" in my book. Just like in aviation, isn't any landing you can walk away from considered a good one? Don't scare me by making stories sound worse than they are.

I remember a time when I was like 7 years old, in the car, during a really heavy rain, and looked out the window at one of the concrete bayous by the road. They were usually empty, or maybe had a little water in them, but this time the water was like 20 or 30 feet deep. But not overflowing, or even close to it. It was maybe half full. Still, I'd never seen it with even that much water, so I gasped. My mom was annoyed. "Don't scare me like that!" She probably thought from my reacion that the water was coming over the top and we needed to go home and build an ark or something.