Internet | Rani Baker Digs You.

Archive | Internet RSS feed for this section

#Wikileaks And #AltRight Annouce Plans To Build Reaganbook 2.0

It gets boring hiding in a foreign embassy all day, I’d imagine. Not exactly sure what crawled up the ass of rapist/webhost Julian Assange this morning, but he decided to throw one of his periodic racist tantrums on the Wikileaks twitter. Previous tantrums he’s thrown mostly involved piss-crying everywhere about Black Lives Matter, but this time he had a martyr. Twitter’s permabanning of some white supremacist twink well past his use-by date has got a lot of the most repulsive creatures on the internet bothered, Assange is no exception. After pestering the CEO of the company over it, because disallowing private companies the ability to refuse service is a libertarian cornerstone all of a sudden, he made a proclamation of “creating a new service”. Cool, go for it.

Wait a minute. A far-right anti-gay racist-friendly cesspool social media site with administration that is absent and/or incapable to handle trolls and other internet dregs? Turns out one of those already happened; it was called Reaganbook. And it burned to the ground within a week of launch almost exactly two years ago.

To be fair, Reaganbook was just the latest in a line of similar experiments. Preceding it were sites you’ve totally heard of like Tea Party Community, Social Postup, and FreedomTorch. Reaganbook was founded by Ohio Republican Janet Porter, from the activist group Faith2Action, in protest of Facebook’s acceptance of the gay community. Steeped in Republican Christian persecution complexes, she considered her rights violates somehow and strove to create a safe space for conservatives to gather.

To make sure things were as free as possible, there was no moderation to be seen and no verification for new accounts. Because freedom. A lot of folks found this hilarious and decided to join and watch the trainwreck, myself included.

It started out mildly entertaining for the first couple sessions. Lots of ironic usernames and groups and folks taking the piss out of each other. And watching the actual conservatives trying to use the site and getting flustered was amusing.

Before long the feed was swamped with beastiality porn, surgery videos and photos of gore. Just trying to make funny posts seemed pointless so I logged off for good. Within a couple days the website shut down completely.

They’ve later relaunched as Freedombook, but that site hasn’t exactly been booming. Interested in seeing how this new far-right troll coddling site turns out. Maybe it’ll last two weeks? Anyone wanna start a betting pool?

Tags: alt-right, julian assange, reaganbook, wikileaks

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Acts Of Bloggery, Internet, Libertarians/Tea Party, Politics, Religion, Religious Right

Sorry Shitnerds, Twitter (And Other Social Media) Is Not A “Public Forum”

25 Jan

First sentence in, I’ll acknowledge that yes Twitter is public, in a sense.
Second sentence in, I’m going to point out this has nothing to do with my premise.
Doesn’t matter, however, because all of you dipshits have already forgotten me saying that three sentences in. Anyway, you can’t throw a rock on Twitter without beaning some creepy entitled fuck undulating up into a stranger’s mentions to assert that “Twitter is a public forum /platform“.

Let’s see, there’s a Gadsden flag, an anime avatar, a generic knight… all this needs is a Gamergate hashtag and…

YAHTZEE

Anyway, we were talking about “public forums”. First of all, a “public forum” as a concept only has meaning in relation to the First Amendment in the United States Bill Of Rights, which surprise surprise isn’t international law. A judge in Canada declaring that “Twitter is a public forum” in a court transcript means jack shit. He could have declared Twitter a “First Amendment Naked Pool Party” and it would have carried the same weight legally because Canada is not the United States. Trust me, I’ve googled a few boring as fuck law school PDFs and I know I my shit here.

The concept of public platforms was established in US Federal Law to allow political demonstration, rather than to bolster the sad fragile egos of sneering manchildren surrounded by cumstained anime figurines that wanna yell insults at women and minorities about video game politics. As defined by US Constitutional law, there are three types of public forum:

A closed public forum, like a jail or military base. Typically not open to public expression, but political and religious views are still protected to an extent.
A limited public forum, like a meeting or organization hall or public theater. Much more freedom of public expression, but you can’t exactly yell “FIRE” in the middle of it.
A traditional, open public forum. These sorts of locations are set aside by communities or the government expressly for the purpose of public expression. These are places like parks and street corners.

The thing about actual “open forums” is they aren’t private or corporate owned, because that would defeat the purpose. Twitter is very much a corporate-owned entity, signing on requires agreeing to Terms Of Service, and content is moderated to accommodate that (or at least is ideally). It could even be argued that Twitter fits more the definition of a “limited public forum” but that isn’t the way these dweebs contextualize it.

Tags: first amendment, free speech, GamerGate, online harassment, public forum, public platform, social media

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Acts Of Bloggery, Conspiracy, Entertainment, GamerGate, Internet, Libertarians/Tea Party, Politics

Seriously People, “Spooky” Is Not A Slur.

3 Oct

Before I go any further, lemme preface this with a thing. If someone tells you they are uncomfortable with the use of certain terminology around them (no matter how seemingly innocuous) and you go ahead and do so anyway, you’re a turd. Even more so if you go out of your way to do so. You’re not some brave snowflake championing FREEZE PEACH or whatever, just a jerk that gets off on upsetting people for no reason.

pictured: not you

That said, the claims that the word “spooky” (or other variants like “spoopy” etc) have roots in anti-black racism are putting the cart before the horse etymologically. We should definitely work on avoiding diminutives and pejoratives rooted in racially charged language, but the racial slur “s***k” is based on the word “spooky” rather than the other way around.

The word “spooky” first appeared in 1854, expanding from “frightening” to including “easily scared” in 1926. The word itself is rooted in the Dutch word for ghost. In the 1940s, the racial slur began to appear as possibly a reference to dark skin being hard to see at night (which led to racist US soldiers referring to the Tuskegee Airmen as the “S***kwaffe”) as well as a reference to a common Minstrel show character of an easily-frightened black man.

pictured: not that

So I definitely get why folks want to distance themselves from that sort of history, and I believe the racial slur still holds weight when used in that context or even as a pejorative whatsoever. But as far as reverse-engineering it the way people seem to do on Tumblr every year around this time just really doesn’t really hold water for me. Prove me wrong in the comments if you’d like.

Tags: racist slur, spooky, spooky racist, spoopy, tumblr, tumblr memes, tumblr spooky

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Acts Of Bloggery, Politics, Tumblr

Check Out Illuminati @MarkDice Conspiracy Theorists Lose Their Shit Over A Bag Of Chips.

20 Sep

DISCLAIMER: So, like, it’s pretty well known I’m one of the “bad”, “angry” queers or whatever. My politics align pretty close to the Gay Shame movement. I’m not thrilled by the cultural focus on gay marriage at the expense of other community concerns. I’m not a fan of Dan Savage, I don’t think the It’s Getter Project is as effective as it could be, and I get nauseous at tacky corporate sponsorships. Macklemore? I’d sincerely rather you Mackle-less please. But once a homophobe gets offended and starts pissing and moaning about the “homosexual agenda”, you better believe I’m gonna talk about all of those things like they are the second coming of Christ. With that in mind, It appears Doritos has a design promoting the gay agenda.

No, not this one, but close enough.

Anyway, why has nobody ever pointed out Mark Dice to me before? Apparently a couple years ago he prayed God to murder Lil Wayne because his music contains “gay sex satanic rituals”, which honestly makes me wish I listened to more Lil Wayne. Apparently he picks fights with Alex Jones and David Icke as well, which is exactly the kind of inter-community conspiracy theorist drama I’d love to see. Right now he’s ugly sobbing all over his Facebook page about a limited edition (as of now, completely sold out) bag of Rainbow Doritos offered with a $10 donation to the It Gets Better project like it was gonna show up at whatever new age grocery he picks up his crystal-infused non-GMO Illuminati Mind Control-free woo food:

The comments, as could be expected, are hilarious:

Admittedly, I have a perverse definition of “hilarious”

^Adding this shit to my Amazon wishlist.

I kind of want to have hella queer sex with this dude.

And then things get weird. Like, SENPAI NOTICE ME I HAVE MY OWN RIDICULOUS THEORY OF MY OWN sort of weird. A lot of this stuff goes back to GMOs somehow being the source of transgender identity or whatever and demon posession.

As mentioned above, the chips themselves are sold out, so I guess Gayluminati business returns to normal, right? I’ve gotten a little behind in the newsletters.

Tags: alex jones, conspiracy theory, doritos gay chips, gay agenda, illuminati, lil wayne, mark dice, rainbow chips

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Acts Of Bloggery, Advertising, Alex Jones, Conspiracy, Illuminati/Secret Societies, Internet, LGBT, Occult, Politics, Trans/Gay/Androgyny Agenda

Transphobic Congressional Wikipedia Vandal Also Obsessed With Alex Jones And Choco Tacos

11 Sep

This message not necessarily endorsed by Choco Taco Jesus.

Over the summer, anonymous accounts with IP addresses traced to the U.S. House Of Representatives have been vandalizing Wikipedia pages. Apparently this has been an issue for a while, according to this statement from Wikipedia itself on the subject in 2009. It’s reached a point where Wikipedia once again had to block Cogressional IPs from posting.

This in and of itself is so Crazytown it’s singing awful rap metal about butterflies, but it gets weirder.

See, most of the vandalism as of late has been regarding transgender related articles. And some of it sounds strangely… focused. Arguments about phrasing on articles about Chelsea Manning and Laverne Cox and the show Orange Is The New Black make sense because they are high-profile mainstream topics. But like, how many people that aren’t trans women or people that are deliberately antagonistic towards trans women even know what Camp Trans is? There was also some calculated attempts to insert misleading and false links between gender dysphoria and body dysmorphic disorder (a particular pet peeve of mine), insistence on referencing that godawful Gavin McInnes article everywhere, as well as complete gibberish about “species disorder” which is pretty much par for the course from the kind of folks that think Gender Hurts makes some good points.

No, it really doesn’t.

And yet it gets weirder.

The spree of vandalism came to a head with the anonymous Congressional staffer insisting they were there on “official business” of an unnamed Representative. They insisted the necessity of their mission to counter support for ENDA and rabid conspiracy theories about “the EU using neocolonialist methods to impose transgenderism on the nation of Georgia” (an obvious reference to response to a Georgia prison’s refusal of access of healthcare to a trans woman inmate). Thankfully they were finally just banned.

In the snarkiest fucking way possible.

But like, besides the “gender critical” stuff, the address contributed to all sorts of right-wing conspiracy crank stuff: Skull And Bones Society, Black Helicopters, UFO sightings, JFK assassination, Bohemian Grove, Alex Jones, David Icke, ad nauseum as well as absurd non-sequitor stuff about Bon Jovi and Choco Tacos. And like, I’m the last person to be all like “why are my tax dollars going to this”, but why exactly are my tax dollars going to this?

I mean shit, I can’t even log on Facebook at work without getting fired and some rabid conspiracy crank TERF hopped up on Choco Tacos thinks they can take over Wikipedia?

DO. YOUR. ACTUAL. FUCKING. JOB.

Tags: alex jones, black helicopters, bohemian grove, congressional aides, congressional wikipedia vandalism, david icke, gender critical, jfk assassination, right-wing conspiracy, skull and bones society, terfs, us congress, wikipedia vandalism

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Acts Of Bloggery, Alex Jones, Article Series, Conspiracy, Fear Of A Trans Planet, Feminism, Gender Critical, Illuminati/Secret Societies, Internet, LGBT, Trans/Gay/Androgyny Agenda

Flappy Bird Versus E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: Which Is Worse?

5 Feb

On Superbowl Sunday, I was at a chili cookoff at a sports bar, because why the fuck not. Thing is tho, I… can’t even try to get into the sports. Not even a gender thing (maybe) it just never did anything for me. So despite stuffing my face with near-limitless delicious spicy free food and understanding the team I was supposed to be rooting for was *annihilating* their opponent, my attention span was drifting. So, like the glutton for punishment I am, I decided to take on this game that goddamn near everyone is wailing about.

This unholy affront to God and nature is Flappy Bird, a game that’s exploded into popularity so fast even the developer is baffled and terrified by it’s success. It’s an excruciatingly repetitive afterthought of a game where you have to give a bug-eyed bird constant screen-tapping reassurance or it falls into lethal despair.

Um, bro, you seem to have forgotten how to bird.

Combine that with the actual worst collision detection I’ve seen since Master Chu And The Drunkard Hu, and you get the picture. It combines all the fun of Balloon Fight with… oh wait, Balloon Fight sucked and was the opposite of fun. Twenty years ago, a game like this would have been stuffed on a cartridge with at least 40 other abortions and had a cheetah on the cover. In this first post-Luigi year, a game like this is considered an effective standalone. How times have changed.

Come the fuck on. Are these pipes solid or not?

I’m pretty sure high scores on this game could be used as a measurement for masochism on a fetish dating site.

“Oh, does this riding crop scare you? But you reported a high score of 150 on Flappy Bird, so you obviously enjoy pain more than you’re willing to admit. Bend over.”

Aaaaaanyway…

It makes me think of the downright elusive fickleness of what counts as a “good”, or at least successful, game. Speaking of poor collision detection, repetition, and brutal, unforgiving gameplay, I found myself rethinking the Atari 2600 game E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, widely regarded as the worst game ever made. Like, millions of copies buried in a New Mexico landfill-level awful. It’s a reputation that’s never sat well with me because I always loved it since I was little. It was one of the first “quest” style cartridge games, and one of a handful of Atari games one could actually “beat”. Remember, this game was created by the badass that designed Yar’s Revenge, for fucks sake.

It was basically Zelda 4 years before the first Legend Of Zelda.

It had it’s flaws (some of which people more devoted to it than I have worked on fixing), but it really wasn’t all that confusing, especially once you’re familiar with Legend Of Zelda type games. Pre-Zelda, I was addicted to the Apple ][ version of Rogue, which is pretty much the same thing.

In any case, to be a bit more forgiving to Flappy Bird than the Action 52 comparison, it definitely resembles titles from the Atari 2600 in terms of gameplay/difficulty/replay value. I stuck with it long enough to get a personal high score I can live with, and have already deleted it. I guess my masochism has limits.

Oh my fuck I hate this game so much. Bye.

Tags: android apps, atari 2600, et atari, et the extra terrestrial, flappy bird, phone games, roguelike

Comments 2 Comments
Categories 1980s, Acts Of Bloggery, Collectible/Vintage, Games/Apps Review, Gaming, Internet Games, Phone App Games, Review, Video Games, Video Games

Lord Help Me I’ve Joined A Libertarian Dating Site.

17 Jan

Online dating is pretty much a joke, as anyone can tell you. This is doubly true if you’re a trans woman.

So when a friend posted about Libertarian Passions I figured I’d join as a joke. I didn’t expect to make it past the profile creation process, to be honest. You never know going into these things if you’re about to be dealing with Bitcoin Libertarians or Glenn Beck Libertarians or stumbling down some horrible Dark Enlightenment rabbit hole.

Oh fuck what have I done?

The site itself is actually a niche site under the Passions Network, which you’d think would be a little, um, socialist for such rugged bootstraps individualists. You’d think they’d have some sort of volunteer-run Tor network dating/arms dealership site. Still, considering I was expecting some sort of ChristianMingle with porn I was definitely surprised when greeted with one of the most progressive gender selection options I’ve ever seen on a dating site:

I’m guessing that’s a Passions Network thing, but still.

So anyway, I went through the process and honestly the only things I can complain about at this point is that the layout is hideous:

…and that they’ve taken the whole Facebook “poke” concept and turned it all sorts of creepy.

Yes, jump up and down on me. That’s a healthy way to get a girl’s attention.

Of course, I’m sure broadcasting my brand new dating profile on the internet is definitely an idea I won’t come to immediately regret.

Tags: bitcoin, dating while trans, libertarian passions, libertarianism, online dating, passions network

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Acts Of Bloggery, Novelty Websites, Online Dating

One Terabyte Of Kilobite Age, A Geocities Archive Blog.

10 Dec

kilobyteage7

One Terabyte Of Kilobyte Age is a blog project on the fascinating vintage computer nerdery site Contemporary Home Computing. It’s a regularly posted of a recovered archive of Geocities sites, posted one at a time in chronological order on the corresponding Tumblr. On the main blog, commentary and trends are noted, like this symbolical interpretation of the classic “Felix The Cat gif” and this analysis on broken image links. It’s an amazing resource of vintage internet ephemera, of experimentation and curiosity and people seeking like minds.

kilobyteage1 kilobyteage8 kilobyteage3 kilobyteage4 kilobyteage5 kilobyteage6