"to me a recycled tweet is like a rerun"
August 18, 2013 8:44 PM Subscribe
How one Twitter user got famous by allegedly stealing comedians’ tweets. Prominent Twitterer Sammy Rhodes has been caught plagiarizing so many tweets that a dedicated Tumblr exists to track them all. The wonderful Mr. Destructo chimes in with his own take.
Yeah, the weird thing to me is how poorly ProdigalSam rewrites the jokes. All the timing is lost.
I get why he's more popular than some of the people he rips off – he's far more harmless than some of Weird Twitter, which is kind of abrasive and alienating till you get into the groove – but it's sad how he skewers some of these perfectly-turned one-liners.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:52 PM on August 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
I get why he's more popular than some of the people he rips off – he's far more harmless than some of Weird Twitter, which is kind of abrasive and alienating till you get into the groove – but it's sad how he skewers some of these perfectly-turned one-liners.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:52 PM on August 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
The last thread got me into a labyrinth of web surfing wherein I discovered how much "pro" comics steal, including some household names.
And yeah, the guy rephrases, which proves he knows it's wrong, and does it in a way that seems so tone deaf as to be some kind of deconstruction, rather than comedy.
His latest tweets are soliciting donations for a ministry. Kind of appalling.
posted by randomkeystrike at 8:58 PM on August 18, 2013
And yeah, the guy rephrases, which proves he knows it's wrong, and does it in a way that seems so tone deaf as to be some kind of deconstruction, rather than comedy.
His latest tweets are soliciting donations for a ministry. Kind of appalling.
posted by randomkeystrike at 8:58 PM on August 18, 2013
Related: A closed letter to myself about thievery, heckling and rape jokes, also @PattonOswalt outweirded/became King of weird twitter yesterday. Sort of.
posted by dabitch at 9:00 PM on August 18, 2013 [9 favorites]
posted by dabitch at 9:00 PM on August 18, 2013 [9 favorites]
dabitch: "also @PattonOswalt outweirded weird twitter yesterday. Sort of."
I'm embarrassed by how long it took me to figure that out.
posted by Apropos of Something at 9:04 PM on August 18, 2013 [9 favorites]
I'm embarrassed by how long it took me to figure that out.
posted by Apropos of Something at 9:04 PM on August 18, 2013 [9 favorites]
I took a job as a personal trainer to The Kinks and I have them do workouts. You could say I'm working out...THE KINKS!
You know how they have a fake Santa Tracker at Christmas and also there's a Dominos pizza tracker that's real? What about if you used the pizza tracker at Christmas to help stop suicide, because of all the lonely people?
I was driving the car with the kids in the back and they were talking and I said that if they didn't stop talking I would drive right into the wall.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:09 PM on August 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
You know how they have a fake Santa Tracker at Christmas and also there's a Dominos pizza tracker that's real? What about if you used the pizza tracker at Christmas to help stop suicide, because of all the lonely people?
I was driving the car with the kids in the back and they were talking and I said that if they didn't stop talking I would drive right into the wall.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:09 PM on August 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
I just realised that people with no arms can't hug and that's made me sad for a bit. I'll be back later I need to sit down and have a cry.
posted by awfurby at 9:12 PM on August 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by awfurby at 9:12 PM on August 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Horse walks into a bar. Just more evidence of how poorly our local liquor laws are enforced.
posted by clango at 9:21 PM on August 18, 2013 [7 favorites]
posted by clango at 9:21 PM on August 18, 2013 [7 favorites]
Apropos of Something, it took me several blinks too. Then oh how I loled.
posted by dabitch at 9:22 PM on August 18, 2013
posted by dabitch at 9:22 PM on August 18, 2013
Patton Oswalt's joke format trusts a lot of people to get scared and check his feed to see what happened.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:27 PM on August 18, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:27 PM on August 18, 2013 [4 favorites]
I HAVE MADE A MUSCLE-TRAINING FLEX-SYMPHONY FOR THE MUSIC-KINKS. IT COULD ALSO BE SAID BY HUMAN-LIPS THAT I AM FORCING OUT THE PROBLEM-KINKS WITH REPEATED BODILY CONTRACTIONS. WE ARE MAKING THE LAUGHING SOUNDS
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:34 PM on August 18, 2013 [12 favorites]
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:34 PM on August 18, 2013 [12 favorites]
Since the Patton Oswalt jokes will probably vanish within a few days, here they are on Storify. And now back to Sammy Rhodes, a good Christian who believes in all nine commandments.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:45 PM on August 18, 2013 [20 favorites]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:45 PM on August 18, 2013 [20 favorites]
I get why he's more popular than some of the people he rips off
Lowest Common Denominator. Twitter is a mass medium* and the masses are asses.
Horse_ebooks walks into a bar. That was where Twitter started dying for me.
Weird Al should sue everyone involved with "Weird Twitter" for damage done to his good name.
Oswalt's Twitter Trolling just demonstrates the harm caused by long-term use of 140-character formatting. In more ways than one. To me, it was the last nail in Twitter's coffin.
*I don't call it "Social Media" anymore; it's all just herding people into groups and categories to be delivered to advertisers for efficient exploitation.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:50 PM on August 18, 2013 [4 favorites]
Lowest Common Denominator. Twitter is a mass medium* and the masses are asses.
Horse_ebooks walks into a bar. That was where Twitter started dying for me.
Weird Al should sue everyone involved with "Weird Twitter" for damage done to his good name.
Oswalt's Twitter Trolling just demonstrates the harm caused by long-term use of 140-character formatting. In more ways than one. To me, it was the last nail in Twitter's coffin.
*I don't call it "Social Media" anymore; it's all just herding people into groups and categories to be delivered to advertisers for efficient exploitation.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:50 PM on August 18, 2013 [4 favorites]
*I don't call it "Social Media" anymore; it's all just herding people into groups and categories to be delivered to advertisers for efficient exploitation.
No different to network TV shows or blockbuster movies, then.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:08 PM on August 18, 2013
No different to network TV shows or blockbuster movies, then.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:08 PM on August 18, 2013
Defining a medium by how it tries to make money is perverse. The biggest social media sites have all kind of sucked at making profits, and the ways in which they make money are universally the worst parts of their sites.
The good things that form on networks have to do with people, and the ways in which they're permitted to interact. Your cynicism is wonderful and we are all very proud of you, but a lot of brilliant writers have, at this point, gotten their start on Twitter and parlayed that into writing gigs/book deals, and very little of that had anything to do with advertisers.
posted by Rory Marinich at 10:17 PM on August 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
The good things that form on networks have to do with people, and the ways in which they're permitted to interact. Your cynicism is wonderful and we are all very proud of you, but a lot of brilliant writers have, at this point, gotten their start on Twitter and parlayed that into writing gigs/book deals, and very little of that had anything to do with advertisers.
posted by Rory Marinich at 10:17 PM on August 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
Is onefellswoop wrong though? Just because people get their start on Twitter doesn't mean that Twitter and every other site on the internet isn't just a personal data vacuum that commodifies every click and eyeball to sell to advertising firms. It's like, "Whoa dude, those bloodsucking leeches are draining you dry." "Yeah, but it's really helping my career." Which, now that I think about it, is a pretty good description of the entertainment industry in general.
posted by runcibleshaw at 10:54 PM on August 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by runcibleshaw at 10:54 PM on August 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
because people get their start on Twitter doesn't mean that Twitter and every other site on the internet isn't just a personal data vacuum that commodifies every click and eyeball to sell to advertising firms
Actually, that just makes the statement not true. Believe what you will about the purpose of Twitter existing, but that doesn't mean that it is just that. TV is about selling ads, but there is also great TV being made. The same is true in this case too.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:58 PM on August 18, 2013
Actually, that just makes the statement not true. Believe what you will about the purpose of Twitter existing, but that doesn't mean that it is just that. TV is about selling ads, but there is also great TV being made. The same is true in this case too.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:58 PM on August 18, 2013
If Twitter was made as an attempt to attract advertisers first and a social platform second, sure, he'd be right. But Twitter was originally an in-house doodle by the people building Odeo that they released to the public because they found they were enjoying it a whole ton. Then they raised funding on the back of "hey we think this could be huge", went years and years making no money whatsoever, and only recently have been working out "how can we turn this into a thing advertisers pay lots of money for."
Facebook's essentially the same way, only with some loftiness about changing the face of the world and changing how people connect to each other thrown into the mix. And Tumblr was a guy saying "there's this new way to blog that one random guy, maybe there ought to be a platform to do that on," and then they made zero dollars up until the point where Yahoo paid them a lot of money.
At some point advertising becomes a part of a platform, not out of cynical "haha SUCKERS" mentality but because the other option is to charge people money for the platform they use. And on a social platform, limiting your audience like that means the platform is less effective, which means there's less of a reason to pay, on and on and on. There are social services which charge users instead of advertising to them – app.net is the paid version of Twitter, essentially. But they're by no means as mainstream, for the reasons listed above.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:01 PM on August 18, 2013 [4 favorites]
Facebook's essentially the same way, only with some loftiness about changing the face of the world and changing how people connect to each other thrown into the mix. And Tumblr was a guy saying "there's this new way to blog that one random guy, maybe there ought to be a platform to do that on," and then they made zero dollars up until the point where Yahoo paid them a lot of money.
At some point advertising becomes a part of a platform, not out of cynical "haha SUCKERS" mentality but because the other option is to charge people money for the platform they use. And on a social platform, limiting your audience like that means the platform is less effective, which means there's less of a reason to pay, on and on and on. There are social services which charge users instead of advertising to them – app.net is the paid version of Twitter, essentially. But they're by no means as mainstream, for the reasons listed above.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:01 PM on August 18, 2013 [4 favorites]
(I realized that that last comment comes off as a bit too excusatory for the shitty-shit that Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr have pulled. I didn't intend it that way: many, many social media companies, in trying to keep themselves afloat, end up violating their users' rights and then claiming that because their products are free, everything's fair game. That's a crappy mentality. But it's more a retroactive shittiness in the name of trying to keep a good thing going than it is a ploy to sell eyeballs to the highest bidder.)
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:08 PM on August 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:08 PM on August 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Since the Patton Oswalt jokes will probably vanish within a few days, here they are on Storify.
I'm not entirely sure what this thread is about, but this is hands down the funniest thing I've seen in years.
posted by phaedon at 11:08 PM on August 18, 2013 [5 favorites]
I'm not entirely sure what this thread is about, but this is hands down the funniest thing I've seen in years.
posted by phaedon at 11:08 PM on August 18, 2013 [5 favorites]
Gotcha. Best intentions and all that. TV was supposed to be an educational tool too. The difference is that if the guys running the ads want to know what people are watching, they have to ask. If Twitter (or anyone, since it's all public by default) wants to know who you're following, that kind of tracking is invisible to the user (yes, I know there are all kinds of fun tweaks to stop that sort of thing, but I don't know what they are). Of course you could say, "No one is forcing you to use Twitter." No, but if I want to stay engaged in that part of the culture, then I don't have much of a choice. If I wanted to watch TV, they didn't force me to install a Nielsen box with my purchase. So, despite their best intentions all these companies just end up being consumer data trackers. I really would much rather see straight-up ads in my timeline, like a TV commercial, than wonder what they're tracking and who they're selling it to.
I mean, if Twitter were bought by the NSA, we'd all be freaking out right now, right?
posted by runcibleshaw at 11:16 PM on August 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
I mean, if Twitter were bought by the NSA, we'd all be freaking out right now, right?
posted by runcibleshaw at 11:16 PM on August 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
I mean, if Twitter were bought by the NSA, we'd all be freaking out right now, right?
Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free under court order?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:36 PM on August 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free under court order?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:36 PM on August 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
Some things are better handled in the private sector, some are best handled by the government, which in this case would be hard-pressed to justify an effort to overtly get involved in the OSINT collection-through-social-media business, especially in a budget-neutral/profitable way by selling the data in addition to having access to it / giving access to it, so it's best to leave that to the pros who are cool.
I bet if the government flat-out bought something like Twitter they'd do an old-school Microsoft-style-mangling on them and be all stuffy 'n shit.
But what if they actually owned Apple, man, and APPLE bought Twitter, maaaan?
And the Apple is like, the western ideal of the fruit of temptation, man
And they're the serpent tempting us with the Apple that is all-seeing technology, man
And our Apple devices are like, recording everything about us, man, and we're like, programmed
to think we're cool. And like, the "i" in "iOS" and "iPhone" and whatever is the all-seeing "eye" sitting on a pillar of evil, maaaan
Just riffing, back to lurk moad
posted by lordaych at 12:04 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
I bet if the government flat-out bought something like Twitter they'd do an old-school Microsoft-style-mangling on them and be all stuffy 'n shit.
But what if they actually owned Apple, man, and APPLE bought Twitter, maaaan?
And the Apple is like, the western ideal of the fruit of temptation, man
And they're the serpent tempting us with the Apple that is all-seeing technology, man
And our Apple devices are like, recording everything about us, man, and we're like, programmed
to think we're cool. And like, the "i" in "iOS" and "iPhone" and whatever is the all-seeing "eye" sitting on a pillar of evil, maaaan
Just riffing, back to lurk moad
posted by lordaych at 12:04 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
I liked this blogospheroid about this, found on Tumblr comments
posted by lordaych at 12:30 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by lordaych at 12:30 AM on August 19, 2013
I just found out that Jason Bourne is avoiding people and will never hug them. Now I can't sleep. :(
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:08 AM on August 19, 2013 [8 favorites]
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:08 AM on August 19, 2013 [8 favorites]
I'm not really into internet dating, unless by "internet dating" you mean establishing how old the internet is by using radio-carbon dating methods, in which case: (a) yes, I am "into" the aforementioned activity; and (b) your use of the term "internet dating" is somewhat ambiguous, and you should take care in the future that your use of said term is not misconstrued.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:11 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:11 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
I was personal trainer to the Doors once but I got sick of having to polish their knobs.
posted by Segundus at 2:12 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Segundus at 2:12 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
All dressed up and nowhere to go: a person who is dressed up like a penguin, but who is in solitary confinement is a state penitentiary because of a history of violent crime.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:14 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:14 AM on August 19, 2013
My daughter just took a hugh "The Very Best Of Joan Armatrading" in her diaper, because she is an infant shoplifter.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:16 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:16 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free under court order?
Wait, what? Since when do they need to even get the courts involved?
posted by GoingToShopping at 3:01 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Wait, what? Since when do they need to even get the courts involved?
posted by GoingToShopping at 3:01 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
They really are terrible rehashes. He reminds me of Timothy from The Children of Dynmouth - a little boy who wants to be a stage comedian, and constantly repeats jokes without understanding them, eventually telling a lewd joke about what would happen if you were caught with a blonde to the vicar's wife. He doesn't appear to understand what the joke is, and by doing so (not doing so? I dunno, it's early) rips out everything but the punchline.
Having said that, I don't get Weird Twitter - when it comes to Twitter irony I prefer Kurt Cobain Quotes and Richard Dawkins. For some reason I can't explain, the choice of picture and the incorrect dates on the former are just perfect.
posted by mippy at 3:04 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Having said that, I don't get Weird Twitter - when it comes to Twitter irony I prefer Kurt Cobain Quotes and Richard Dawkins. For some reason I can't explain, the choice of picture and the incorrect dates on the former are just perfect.
posted by mippy at 3:04 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
This is where the magic happens: the person who invented "Magic: the Gathering", referring to the room in which she or he arranged the first game of "Magic: the Gathering," which room has thereafter been a regular venue for such games, and in which a CD player continually plays "A Kind of Magic" by Queen, but also he or she is a penguin.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:13 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:13 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
Call me conservative, but my kids will be mad when they find out it's illegal for me to track them via Dominos Pizza Tracker by hiding slices of pizza in their clothes, and also no-one will hug them because they smell like sweaty pepperoni.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:17 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:17 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
This was doing the rounds a couple of months ago as well and it struck me as those comedians who took offence being just a litttle bit precious about their jokes. Sammy is a crap joke teller, true and it is clear he's heavily ...inspired.. by what proper comedians are tweeting, but few if any of the originals were all that special either, just pretty obvious riffs easy to reinvent independently.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:28 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by MartinWisse at 3:28 AM on August 19, 2013
A campus minister enjoys jokes and re-tells them (often poorly), doesn't grok the outrage, and some internet famous people are mad.
Christ, what a bunch of assholes.
posted by frijole at 3:52 AM on August 19, 2013
Christ, what a bunch of assholes.
posted by frijole at 3:52 AM on August 19, 2013
Santa Tracker is depressing because for 364 days of the year Santa is the Jason Bourne of being Santa, a feat he accomplishes by dressing like a penguin and having nowhere to go.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:54 AM on August 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:54 AM on August 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
Mr. Destructo: "Allow me to say for the record that, if this man really does have a special-needs child, my heart goes out to him." ... "Sammy Rhodes, @Prodigalsam, is a scum-sucking piece of shit who should die of a lingering disease."
THAT ELEVATORED QUICKLY
posted by oulipian at 4:01 AM on August 19, 2013
THAT ELEVATORED QUICKLY
posted by oulipian at 4:01 AM on August 19, 2013
I just realized that turtles don't need hugs, so they can't post to MeTa
:(
:(
:(
:(
and so on...
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:11 AM on August 19, 2013
:(
:(
:(
:(
and so on...
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:11 AM on August 19, 2013
I took a job as a personal trainer to The Kinks and I have them do workouts by delivering pizza to my kids while dressed as penguins. However, they will not hug me, because I did a shit on a copy of "The Kinks Greatest Hits". I maintain, however, the toilet was illegally occupied by Jason Bourne, and I literally had nowhere to go.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 4:14 AM on August 19, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by the quidnunc kid at 4:14 AM on August 19, 2013 [4 favorites]
...gotten their start on Twitter and parlayed that into writing gigs/book deals, and very little of that had anything to do with advertisers.
Other than the fact that this sentence sounds like it was written by an advertiser for advertisers about how to win at advertising.
posted by DU at 5:07 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Other than the fact that this sentence sounds like it was written by an advertiser for advertisers about how to win at advertising.
posted by DU at 5:07 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Totally should do a tweet week on MiFi.
We could call it New Adventures in Mi-Fi!
bitterTWEEEEEEET me
posted by oulipian at 5:15 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
We could call it New Adventures in Mi-Fi!
bitterTWEEEEEEET me
posted by oulipian at 5:15 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
For my money, twitter is the apex of the Internet thus far. Our own Mathowie deserves as least a tiny little smidgen of credit-- as one of the original employees of Pyra Labs, which begat blogger, which created the possibility of Odeo which begat Twitter.
Subscribe to what you want. Unsubscribe anytime. Find links, trends, photos, art, revolution, weirdness and anything else from all over the world in real time. Ive learned more from Twitter than I have from anything ever save Wikipedia. Truly it's a marvel of the medium and focusing on the negative aspects is like focusing on the negative aspects of water, or land. Unfortunately you can't unsubscribe from a flood or an earthquake.
posted by chaz at 5:16 AM on August 19, 2013
Subscribe to what you want. Unsubscribe anytime. Find links, trends, photos, art, revolution, weirdness and anything else from all over the world in real time. Ive learned more from Twitter than I have from anything ever save Wikipedia. Truly it's a marvel of the medium and focusing on the negative aspects is like focusing on the negative aspects of water, or land. Unfortunately you can't unsubscribe from a flood or an earthquake.
posted by chaz at 5:16 AM on August 19, 2013
I should start copying classics of literature into my twitter feed. I'm sure no one will notice when my toast updates start ruminating on the human condition, 140 characters at a time.
Mmm...toast.
posted by jb at 6:05 AM on August 19, 2013
Mmm...toast.
posted by jb at 6:05 AM on August 19, 2013
but my favorite not-quite-serious twitter feed is the @TLFtravelalerts:
The journalist we're detaining at Bank is not being held under the prevention of terrorism act but because of a signal failure at Hainault.posted by jb at 6:15 AM on August 19, 2013
Little MetaFilter internet achievers, their cynicism is wonderful, and how very proud we are of all of them
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 6:15 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 6:15 AM on August 19, 2013
I like the playground "the tweets he ripped off weren't so great ANYHOW" defense
posted by lordaych at 6:37 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by lordaych at 6:37 AM on August 19, 2013
Is there Tumblr for Facebook page managers who rip off other people's shared links and pass them off as their own finds, and who particularly also lift text wholesale from other people's blogs to post with it? Because if there is, I have a nominee in mind for that.
posted by orange swan at 6:47 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by orange swan at 6:47 AM on August 19, 2013
Just do it here OS we want that sweet sweet justice.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:51 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:51 AM on August 19, 2013
Recycling tweets is quite standard. I see lots of tweets which seem to be re-hashed.
posted by norbi274 at 6:58 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by norbi274 at 6:58 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Lots of ministers constantly...constantly...steal stuff. Because they have to get up there every Sunday and say something.
Maintaining a Twitter feed or FB posts is only going to make that worse.
I have heard the same anecdote multiple times from different preachers, years apart. I don't know if there is an Anecdotes Weekly that they get, or what. None of them were ever specific enough that you could verify if they actually happened, which, given the whole shalt-not-lie thing, was troubling.
My favorite sort-of steal was one of the very few times I went to church with my mom as an adult. Her pastor told the story of the Origin of the Candycane (it was near Christmas), a story which, as I discovered, Snopes had already proven totally bogus.
I emailed it to her. She was annoyed. I wouldn't be surprised if her pastor was still trotting out that stupid story every Christmas.
posted by emjaybee at 7:09 AM on August 19, 2013
Maintaining a Twitter feed or FB posts is only going to make that worse.
I have heard the same anecdote multiple times from different preachers, years apart. I don't know if there is an Anecdotes Weekly that they get, or what. None of them were ever specific enough that you could verify if they actually happened, which, given the whole shalt-not-lie thing, was troubling.
My favorite sort-of steal was one of the very few times I went to church with my mom as an adult. Her pastor told the story of the Origin of the Candycane (it was near Christmas), a story which, as I discovered, Snopes had already proven totally bogus.
I emailed it to her. She was annoyed. I wouldn't be surprised if her pastor was still trotting out that stupid story every Christmas.
posted by emjaybee at 7:09 AM on August 19, 2013
I don't know if there is an Anecdotes Weekly that they get....
Reader's Digest
posted by DU at 7:24 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
Reader's Digest
posted by DU at 7:24 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
Other than the fact that this sentence sounds like it was written by an advertiser for advertisers about how to win at advertising.
If you can't parse the difference between people promoting their own work on a platform and a ompany that owns the platform targeting audiences by exploiting collected data, well, every other comment you've ever left on MetaFilter suddenly makes a whole lot more sense to me.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:35 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
If you can't parse the difference between people promoting their own work on a platform and a ompany that owns the platform targeting audiences by exploiting collected data, well, every other comment you've ever left on MetaFilter suddenly makes a whole lot more sense to me.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:35 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Put another way: I use RSS feeds to connect with an audience but that doesn't suddenly make RSS a corporate promotional ploy disguised as a communicative technology. It makes it a communicative technology that people can use to promote things.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:37 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:37 AM on August 19, 2013
My comment wasn't aimed at proving anything about Twitter.
posted by DU at 7:46 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by DU at 7:46 AM on August 19, 2013
Also, I'm pretty sure that "people promoting their own work" used to be called "self-promotion" and is generally frowned on in conversations, global or not.
posted by DU at 7:48 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by DU at 7:48 AM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
I have heard the same anecdote multiple times from different preachers, years apart. I don't know if there is an Anecdotes Weekly that they get, or what. None of them were ever specific enough that you could verify if they actually happened, which, given the whole shalt-not-lie thing, was troubling.
My dad was a Minister, mostly part-time, and he had written many sermons when he was just starting out. He pretty much just recycled them, since he preached sermons rarely enough and at different congregations, that only really long-time attendees with good memories would notice. He didn't really go in for the "unverified story" as a tool approach, though. He just reused old material for 50 or so years....
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:41 AM on August 19, 2013
My dad was a Minister, mostly part-time, and he had written many sermons when he was just starting out. He pretty much just recycled them, since he preached sermons rarely enough and at different congregations, that only really long-time attendees with good memories would notice. He didn't really go in for the "unverified story" as a tool approach, though. He just reused old material for 50 or so years....
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:41 AM on August 19, 2013
ProdigalSam is one "i" away from being an anagram of Plagiarism Rod, so my internet skepticism radar is pinging that the minister thing is a cover. He's actually a clever dog who has learned to type.
posted by RobotHero at 10:22 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by RobotHero at 10:22 AM on August 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
My stepson posts unattributed jokes to twitter and Facebook all the time. It annoys me far more than it should. But to respond would make me seem like an even bigger killjoy than I already must seem to him. So I shrug them off. Does it really matter if his friends think he wrote that joke about beating up a mime while invisible? They are all in their 20s. Maybe it's a just a given to them that people recycle other people's stuff over social media.
posted by Biblio at 10:42 AM on August 19, 2013
posted by Biblio at 10:42 AM on August 19, 2013
Nah, kids just make mistakes. You should tell your stepson to stop stealing jokes.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:24 PM on August 19, 2013
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:24 PM on August 19, 2013
I'm in my 20s and I don't steal jokes. I'm like the Jason Bourne of avoiding other people's jokes that I then would steal.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:49 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:49 PM on August 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
My stepson posts unattributed jokes to twitter and Facebook all the time.
How bizarre. I've always used telling jokes as a reductio ad absurdum argument against people hyperventilating about copyright violations: "Imagine if you couldn't tell someone a joke you heard without footnoting it and paying a fee."
If you'd said "My stepson tells unattributed jokes all the time," I'd hope people would think you were a crazy person. But because it's on Twitter, it's totally different?
posted by straight at 8:47 AM on August 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
How bizarre. I've always used telling jokes as a reductio ad absurdum argument against people hyperventilating about copyright violations: "Imagine if you couldn't tell someone a joke you heard without footnoting it and paying a fee."
If you'd said "My stepson tells unattributed jokes all the time," I'd hope people would think you were a crazy person. But because it's on Twitter, it's totally different?
posted by straight at 8:47 AM on August 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Well, frijole said above:
A campus minister enjoys jokes and re-tells them (often poorly), doesn't grok the outrage, and some internet famous people are mad.
If that campus minister gets 130 000 followers on Twitter, maybe he's internet famous now. Maybe that's how it becomes totally different? You aren't going to be just joshing around with 130 000 friends.
And twitter has the retweet functionality built in, so for at least the ones that came from other people's tweets, it's not like "Lol, retweet" would have been more work than retyping the joke with slightly different phrasing.
posted by RobotHero at 10:31 AM on August 20, 2013
A campus minister enjoys jokes and re-tells them (often poorly), doesn't grok the outrage, and some internet famous people are mad.
If that campus minister gets 130 000 followers on Twitter, maybe he's internet famous now. Maybe that's how it becomes totally different? You aren't going to be just joshing around with 130 000 friends.
And twitter has the retweet functionality built in, so for at least the ones that came from other people's tweets, it's not like "Lol, retweet" would have been more work than retyping the joke with slightly different phrasing.
posted by RobotHero at 10:31 AM on August 20, 2013
But like I said before, I'm wondering now if he's really a struggling comedian who was curious how many followers he could get in the laziest fashion possible, and he just invented this "Sammy Rhodes" persona as a cover.
posted by RobotHero at 10:34 AM on August 20, 2013
posted by RobotHero at 10:34 AM on August 20, 2013
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posted by randomkeystrike at 8:48 PM on August 18, 2013