while african-americans are definitely the most influential people on the planet, i can’t exactly say that everything we’ve brought to the table has been a good thing. this is particularly true when it comes to the internet, where for every okayplayer and blackvoices, there’s a couple mediatakeout’s lurking in the weeds, luring small children and stupid adults.
today, as a part of the verysmartbrothas crime-fighting ideals (and a shout-out to the champ’s second favorite television show ever), we’ve decided to bless the vsb pulpit with four reasons why they never should have given you n*ggas internet access.
1. n*ggas on facebook
while anyone could have predicted that myspace would eventually be overrun by them, the recent swarm of n*ggas on facebook has surprised everyone, proving once and for all that like liam nesson in “taken”, n*ggas will eventually find you.
i wont lie. at least a dozen of my friends qualify, and at least half of those dozen are family members.
i keep them around because you can’t minimize the mid-day comic relief of checking your friend’s status updates and seeing mundane sh*t like “john saunders is about to go on a job interview. wish me luck“, and “kim williams just landed in vegas, baby!!!” sandwiched between “rick gohardformyhood johnson why cant none of my babi mommaas act rght???? ” and “precious thebaddestbitch buddenswifey its crackin this weekend. hatas and broke ass altima n*ggas need not apply”
2. the birth of the professional urban model….
when speaking of nostalgia, most people wax poetic about sh*t like 60′s soul music, muscle cars, 80′s basketball, drive-in theaters, segregation, and when dr. dre and jermaine dupree were still alive
me? i long for the days when calling yourself “a professional model” meant high fashion, higher cheekbones, cigarettes, and anorexia, not scoring a showmag cover spread on the strength of a flickr photo album of self-shot booty pics taken in a sbarro’s bathroom during black bike week
3. …and the e-thug
because the internet is a place where people are able to anonymously espouse controversial opinions about everything from hair care to horticulture, it can be a virtual petrie dish for heated arguments, hurt feelings, and venereal disease.
a silly bi-product of this phenomenon is the keyboard thug/modem murderer, a person who not only threatens to inflict bodily harm when upset, but is stupid enough to think that their “b*tch n*gga!!! i better not ever see your ass on the streets!!!! you gettin straight clapped, son!!!” threats will actually scare anyone on the pittsburgh symphony orchestra message board.
4. conspiracy theory circulation
as mos def continues to prove, the only things black people love more than conspiracy theories and unproven half-half-truths are “lean on me” quotes and cinnamon pop tarts. its not entirely our fault, though. i mean, when you’re aware of sh*t like the tuskegee experiment and cointelpro , you can’t help having a healthy dose of american skepticism embedded in your dna.
still, that “healthy dose of american skepticism” doesn’t stop me from wishing slow and painful deaths on the people who flood my inbox daily with links from sandrarose.com and 10,000 word “factual” diatribes about how karl rove’s nephew shot tupac
did i miss anything?
—the champ
Eff it. Just gon ahead and blame it all on Jim Jones. lol
@Selah,
actually, i’d rather blame this on ben chavis
@The Champ,
i blame oprah
@BLUNTBLAZER, I blame the Wayans family (the Kennedys of coonery)
@Stuff Ghetto People Like,
Coolio did some of that isht!
i’ve changed my mind. i’m now blaming conrad murray
I think the worst part of the internet is that every little crazy late nyt idea i have used to be ended at “I’m too tired to get the encyclopedia and see if that ‘s right” Now I have every answer at my fingertips. I dont never sleep no more. Damn damn damn…
side note
They shoulda neva gave you ninjas money! You can buy a new couch, What Ima do about my legs?!
side side note they shoulda also neva gave us VH1 soul and or MTV Jams
@Blacklaw,
shoot, they should have never given n*ggas a TV license (see Black Exploitation Television: from Classy to Trashy – a Documentary)
@Blacklaw,
I think the worst part of the internet is that every little crazy late nyt idea i have used to be ended at “I’m too tired to get the encyclopedia and see if that ’s right” Now I have every answer at my fingertips. I dont never sleep no more. Damn damn damn…
this is true. cp time has been replaced by ip time
@Blacklaw,
Speak for yourself! I luh me some VH1 Soul
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave,
I agree, VH1 Soul I can live with, even BETJ. Yeah, MTV Jams can be wack a lot of the time…
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave, can’t leave the house til a wack video comes on….it is just wrong
@Blacklaw,
LOL! Or a wack one that doesnt mesmerize and stupify you in all of it’s wackness. There’s this vid of these two chicks crooning (women croon??) off beat and walking down the beach with Queen Latifah hats on. Stops me dead in my tracks. Every single time.
@Blacklaw,
I also find myself googling random shyt not only at night, but throughout the course of the day. This actually started my addiction to my Blackberry.
@Monk, word. the internet is like a gateway drug or somethin
@Blacklaw,
hell yea info at ya fingatips aint no excuses now
@Blacklaw,
side side note they shoulda also neva gave us VH1 soul and or MTV Jams
VH1 Soul warms my heart…on the left ventricle *swoons*
@K to the…, lol at the left ventricle
I gotta say the blog.. I mean for every Very Smart Brothas, there is a very dumb ninja talking about bullshyt being unnecessarily verbose and using words all Nas like… just cause they rhyme ninja dont mean they fit in that sentence……
and dont get me started on the multitude of wack a$$ ninja and the poetry the link you to on their live journals, or myspace or facebook status’….
@shay_d_lady,
multitude of wack a$$ ninja
this was actually the original name of…wait. nah, lol. i’m not going there
@The Champ,
Please get your e-thug on and go there. Just this once.
@Cheekie,
no
@The Champ,
*pouts*
They shoulda neva gave us Negros BlackPlanet.
Those overbusy profiles with emblazoned wallpaper (see: Reasons why I also can’t stand MySpace). A fully loaded BlackPlanet page could induce someone into an overstimulation-induced seizure. Trying to load a Blackplanet page took at least 5 minutes with the music and glitter used to crash my computer (especially since Dial-Up ruled the world).
Not only that, but BP was a black hole of unholy intentions. Folks would post their Magic Photo portraits, with just the right amount of ultraglare and ish to drown out their awkward features and whatnot. You know, the pics where they’d be perched on a column with their fists under their chin. Shoot, they just KNEW they looked good. Tryna find a boo and whatnot. Who knows how many hookupswere made on Blackplanet? Someone oughta do a census survey. I’m curious.
@Luvvie, ahhh blackplanet…I remember it well.. that is where ghetto folks migrated from the local chat lines and learned how to cut and paste codes and started calling themselves web designers…
@shay_d_lady,
everybody in the hood is a web designer. or–lest we forget–a photographer.
@charli skipper,
This is true as hell.
@shay_d_lady,
…learned how to cut and paste codes and started calling themselves web designers…
YESS! My friends had me designing their pages for them. lol
@Luvvie, Man BP was this ish back in the day!!! I remember staying up late at night chatting it up…SMH!!!
@Luvvie, My kid brother still uses Black Planet, and he does alright for himself with it. Women are still hooking up on it, and because it has fallen out of favor there is an element of anonymity that is missing from Facebook and whatever remains of Myspace.
@Legendary Dash,
“My kid brother still uses Black Planet”
U seem proud ’bout this
@Luvvie,
7,324,210,210 Hookups were a direct result of BP, with about 3/4 of those resulting in multiple births.
@Dante_Alexander,
in 2001 i watched as one of my teammates created a page, bagged a chick from buffalo state university, and got her and her girl to come through all in a 3 hour span
@The Champ,
This forced me to google Buffalo State University. Wow the largest SUNY and alma mater of congressman Brian Higgins. The more you know
@Dorian G.,
lol, if you ever visited that campus, you’d probably want to know less
@The Champ,
lolol tha shii happend wit aol back in tha days it was like chick-delivery service
@Luvvie,
you know, i cant remember a time when black planet wasnt hood. its like they launched that sh*t in cabrini green
@The Champ,
Don’t insult cabrini like that…
@Maximillian,
cabrini deez
*This might be a rant*
Nothing on the internet grinds my gears more than e-thugs. I’m seriously supposed to believe you runnin your block but you stay on line 18 hours out of the day trying to scare me and every other screen name that pops up on your monitor. Why even make threats you and I both know you can never make good on because we will never meet, and on the off chance that we did meet we would have no idea who each other was online.
Just once I would like to pop up on someone’s doorstep after they run off at the mouth, not because I think I’m tough or anything like that, but just to see the reaction.
This goes double for e-racists also.
*Rant over*
@A-Town Genius,
I agree!!! There’s this guy whose status updates are all about how he’s the baddest thing since mustard gas with the “You don’t know what you’re doing when you cross me. I will annihilate you! I will finish this, cause you started it blah blah blah…” Riiighhhht. This is the same guy who got a beatdown offline a while back and when I mentioned it to my husband, he was utterly dismissive “I wouldn’t even give YOU props for giving him a beatdown.” Yup- he’s that kinda person”. Fuggouttahere with the scorched earth tactics we all know you are never gonna administer.
First off I believe that we all are for the most part disinformed. Why? Becuz the Internet is full of aim bots, chatroom operators etc etc who are paid to commit social discourse and it’s called social demorralizing or demorralization within social networks to control meaningful dialog of sharing information. Millions are spent by the government as well as china and other countries who buy some of their best censorship equipment from american companies. We should all try to learn the source of a problem before we ever play the blame game. Take a look at this link below and try googling “government censorship of the Internet and social networks including chatrooms and telephone operated chatlines. You will think I’m a conspiracy theorist even tho the proof is right in your face. Peace be with us all:-)
http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=232&catid=7&subcatid=43
@A-Town Genius,
Why even make threats you and I both know you can never make good on because we will never meet, and on the off chance that we did meet we would have no idea who each other was online.
f*ck yo couch, n*gga.
@The Champ,
I hope all the bad things in life happen to you and only you Champ!
HATE HATE HATE!!
@A-Town Genius,
Just like thugs don’t go to the grocery store….thugs don’t use the innanet. period.
@This Just In…Like Beyonce..Like Trinaaaaaaahhh,
they do in prison
@The Champ,
I always wondered, how the eff are they getting on these “penpal” websites. My uncle met his new wife while they were both in stripes (smh) using one of these. Im like how the eff yall got free intanets and Im still standing over the kitchen sink stealin my ish out the side window from the neighbors. FML!
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave, me faaaaaaail! i just saw your comment about running into my girl, i haven’t talked to her, so cute yall ran into each other! i die every time i read your name, runaway slave though? lol
ps-get on my gchat!
@overitnomore,
LOL. I just realized I dunno anyone’s real names. I’m doing an FB search for people named “Gem” and “Thuggie” and FB is like Bish, please.
I just friend-requested you so I’ll try to find everyone else through your friend list.
#Iwenttocollege
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave,
lol. i know some one who is locked up and he has EMAIL access. but he has to pay but so much per minute to use it. and it’s very weird to get an email confirmation from the federal prison system askin if you want to grant inmate 238910 access to your email.
i recently got an email saying his email privileges were revoked. *smh*
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave, overitnomore
get a room
@This Just In…Like Beyonce..Like Trinaaaaaaahhh,
Agreed
@A-Town Genius, e-racism is why they should have never given the people YouTube.
@A-Town Genius,
I’m seriously supposed to believe you runnin your block…
Of course you are…don’t you see the STACKS of $100 bills they post as their profile pics?
May I submit, BlackSingles, EbonyLove, ChocolateSwirlHookups, eHarmony, Match.Com, interracialdatinglovefest.net, findmeamateanyoldway.com… you take my point.
I’m sure everyone deserves love but if your name is Reefus and you are 52, “sangle”, living in yo mama’s garage and haven’t discovered dental floss – you don’t need to sign up to a dating site. You need Jesus.
Likewise if you are 28, fine as OhMyDamn, still living in your mama’s basement, working on your demo tape and calling yourself Trojan Horse or BigDaddy4U – you need to stick to the girlies on the block. The rest of us know, something ain’t right. And that picture of you in a leopard thong, holding up a ruler next to your private parts… that ain’t right. Matter of fact, you need Jesus too.
Backing away from the keyboard…
@OneChele,
And that picture of you in a leopard thong, holding up a ruler next to your private parts… that ain’t right
you weren’t saying that sh*t last weekend
@The Champ, lolol
fell on tha flo kickin and lololol n shii
@The Champ,
Thanks champ, I just splattered Crystal light all over my computer at work….
@OneChele,
so i take it you know about all this from experience????
@OneChele, so if either of these dudes had their own place, they’d be in there?
@OneChele,
dam lolololol u crazy lololol such a vivs typer
Hey The Champ! Eff yo’ blog! Eff yo’ blog! (Madame Z kicks the computer.) Cocaine’s a h*ll of a drug……
Anyway:
1.) Cats on facebook: Look, stuff has gotten out of hand when within a week my friend’s mother, my mother’s 2nd cousin and my aunt tried to add me as friends. Look, if you changed my diapers we can’t be friends on facebook. If my mother nor I have seen or heard from you in over a decade – we can’t be friends on facebook. (Which brings me to another reason we shouldn’t have gotten the internets – some family members aren’t meant to be all close & stuff. It is perfectly all right for me to not be close to my mother’s 2nd cousin she’s 10 years older than and baby-sat when they were younger. While I’m sure they have great memories – I don’t feel the need to try to keep in touch for the sake of keeping in touch. Maybe I’m a jerk but….)
2.) E-thugs:
“a silly bi-product of this phenomenon is the keyboard thug/modem murderer, a person who not only threatens to inflict bodily harm when upset, but is stupid enough to think that their “b*tch n*gga!!! i better not ever see your ass on the streets!!!! you gettin straight clapped, son!!!” threats will actually scare anyone on the pittsburgh symphony orchestra message board.”
So true, I hate people who talk mad head online but ain’t got shlitz to say when you see them in person. Even worse are people who love to spout their hatred for the White man, Republicans, Catholics, bunny rabbits and people with gardens on statuses, blogs, wherever, but when they’re in class or in a forum to discuss those ideas they can’t put two words together. I’m in an organization for Black students with this broad who has nothing to say on FB but how much she hates white folk and how we need to raise up, blah, blah, blah, or loves to get smart via text message but as soon as we get to a meeting where she can actually voice opinions or concerns she just stares into space like a deer caught in headlights. We call her the “Facebook Gangsta.” Ugh.
@Madame Zenobia,
cosign on the need to ban mothers and your friends’ mothers from your FB friend’s list. I’m de-friending someone who’s mother is an indefatigable commenter on her status. I acknowledge that I got issues, but every time her mums gamely comments on some questionable status by her daughter, to me it’s border line creepy (like those dads who stand up and talk about their daughters’ virginity. Just eeeeeeewww).
@Wanjiru,
Question. What’s up with all the defriending? I understand there are reasons for this, but it seems to have dramatically increased over the past few months. I think a lot of times people “friend” folks for the wrong reason thus having to defriend them later on. Why “friend” them in the first place?
@Monk, i just defriended somebody yesterday.
mistakes are bound to happen.
@Monk,
What’s a “wrong” reason for friending? I accept pretty much anybody that doesn’t look like a party promoter.
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave,
There’s many wrong reasons. Some people are friends of friends and they just wanna be flat out nosy and ‘in the know’ when it comes to your business. If I don’t know them like that, there’s really no need to friend them. To me, it’s not a popularity contest to try to collect the most friends..especially if you have no real intention on ever really interacting with them cause you don’t know them.
Gotcha. I guess it’s cause I have nothing interesting on my page except my wall that I don’t really care who wants to be my friend.
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave,
ebff why aren’t we friends on fb?!?!?!
@Gemmie,
Good question! Lemme go find you now!
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave,
We need to be Facebook friends, girl! I didn’t even know you had it. Hit me up at sistersoundoff@gmail.com. I ain’t tryin’ to put my real life name here right under my screename…ya know, relatively incognegro.
*shifty eyes*
@Cheekie,
Send me a Twitter DM. I dont know how to search FB for emails. (I do it from my phone…plus, I am not smart)
@Monk,
I’ve been on FB since 2004 and was still in school when I joined. I have lots of old college friends that I don’t talk to, other Greeks that I met once and folks that don’t need to know my current business. So, similiar to Follow Fridays on Twitter, my friend has started Fall Back Fridays on Facebook. I have two tests: 1) If I see it’s your birthday and don’t feel inclined to reach out to wish you a good one, we shouldn’t be friends; 2) If I never want to look at your photo albums, I’m not that interested in your life and we shouldn’t be friends. Those folks have to be removed.
Oh btw, I wasn’t feeling ATL too much, so I’ve relocated back to NYC!
@Bailey,
I can kinda understand this since you’ve been on FB for so long and there probably is a time when you just need to erase some folks from your page. But can’t this happen in one day? Must someone dedicate a day of the week to de-friend cats? That seems like you have too many folks there if every week you’re making eliminations like it’s a reality show.
@Monk,
I have over 1700 friends, and while I know just about all of them, I don’t need to have all of them as my FB friends. I don’t have time to do a full sweep, but I can eliminate a few at a time.
@Bailey,
Ya ATL sucks
@Monk,
Re the spike in de-friending- retributional defriending maybe? All it takes is one FB user in Uruguay to set stuff off, and next thing you know, it’s a global pandemic.
@Monk,
I agree. I don’t de-friend. if someone’s annoying I just ignore em and sh*t
@The Champ,
I do this as well. Or just don’t add them in the first place.
@Monk,
I think it’s worse to just let the request hang there. Since they notify you when someone confirms, then folks end up all salty because the request is pending. Even worse if they see you in real life and be all, “Um, what’s up with that friend request?”. lol
@Cheekie,
LOL!! I’m guilty of leaving the pending request. Sometimes a name may sound familiar like I know the person or went to school with them but they’ll have a photo of Michael Jackson as their profile pic. I let it stay pending thinking they may change their profile and I may recognize them. If not, they’re just stuck in the matrix of my FB page..lol!!
@Madame Zenobia,
my mom is on facebook. and after all this talk about she’s never going to join facebook becuz it’s not for ppl her age, she is friends with all my friends who she actually knows. and when i made a comment about it she got all defensive and made me feel guilty for questioning her appearance on FB. can’t win with that woman.
i have to cosign the e-thugs issue. i feel like i complain about emo facebook statuses at least once a week on this blog, BUT, seriously. i saw one of my “friends’ ” relationship with her fiance completely deteriorate over the course of a facebook status. it started with some random dude commenting to the girl’s status. then the fiance was like, “who is this guy ^? ” fast forward to the fiance’s friend’s joining in to e-threaten the random dude (who lives in another state), and admissions by the fiance to the (then) girlfriend about how, “yeah, ok. i did ask that girl if i could f**k, but now you takin it too far!!” eww. they never should have given you n**gas facebook.
plus, i really don’t like it when grown a*sed, college educated people use incorrect grammar and spelling for facebook statuses in a non-sarcastic way. (“hey! what’s happen?”) especially when they’re trying to say something deep. i should never have to see, “quiana is feed up. i will be happy wen men treat me like the fenomal women i am? ” on my computer screen. and neither should the white people…..now they askin me why your a*s is illiterate. and, frankly, i have no idea.
@charli skipp,
dead.dead.dead @ this whole comment!!
I also hate when smart people type “a women”
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave,
I also hate when smart people type “a women”
We’re here on this one…it disgusts me to no end.
@charli skipp,
the worst is when couples keep posting those vague ass passive-aggressive status messages
her “some people never learn”
Him ***listening to “domestic violence” by the rza***
her “I should have been a lesbian”
Him “some people really need to look in the mirror”
@The Champ,
Speaking of passive-aggressiveness…do ya’ll read passiveagressivenotes.com? That mess has me cacklin’ at work. It’s a great time waster
when things die down around VSB and yo still have a couple hours to kill at work.@Cheekie,
LOL. I just checked it out.
Dead @
“Pool’s closed…Due to AIDS and Stingrays (…who also have AIDS)”
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave,
“Pool’s closed…Due to AIDS and Stingrays (…who also have AIDS)”
That had me laughing for a good 10 min straight. I was in TEARS.
@Cheekie,
thanks for the link and sh*t
@charli skipp,
I forgot. Another thing I hate is ppl who dont respect the prompt that clearly reads:
“Me Fail English? is… ______”
..and post some incoherent grammar-racist bullisht like…
“Me Fail English? is ….y’all betta don’t not cop that new Fab album. It’s GWINNIN!”
Fcuk yo mama, punk! And I dont even be on FB like that.
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave,
*dying* @ grammar-racist.
I HATED when Facebook only allowed passive-as* verbs with the auto-filled “is” prompt. Because it was so limited and I was forced to always up “-ing” at the end of my verbs so it was grammatically correct. Glad you have a choice now to get rid of the “is”.
@charli skipp,
” i will be happy wen men treat me like the fenomal women i am? ”
This just made my eyes cross and my head hurt.
@charli skipp,
This is terrible & awesome at the same time. Terrible for the parties involved, awesome for everyone else. I’da grabbed some popcorn & pulled up to watch the drama unfold
How does “sketpicism” work?
Dare I say nigras should have never been given access to the intrywebs due to:
-not only for bad web design habits (due to BP and the Space) but… -gassing up ugly people in the name of getting some chex mix and…
-proliferating bad grammar/spelling/typing in the name of looking cool/hard.
-plus everyone thinks they deserve to be on as a rapper, singer, beatmaker, and more.
-and Naijas pretending that they’re royalty with millions ready to give to you the lucky stiff in West Bubblef*ck, Montana.
-finally you should have known ninjas love “free” sh*t…so bootlegging (e.g. stealing music) exploded as a result.
-dare I forget all this ghetto *ss pron now in circulation?
Actually that’s a benefit.But yeah, your 1 and 2 are on point.
@Stuff Ghetto People Like,
Sketpicism deez
@Stuff Ghetto People Like,
Pertaining to the images which look like cell phone pics on your site- Sincerely, Do you ask people for they’re permission to photograph them?
I have been conflicted with this idea since black people don’t like to be photographed and will give u a shot in exchange for a bright shot, in the words of Jeezy ‘WE CAN SWAP IT OUT’, get my drift.
1.I am quite sadden’d that I can learn more about a person from their myspace or facebook page, then by talking to their funky a$$ in person. Nothing pisses me off more.
2. how about every loser that becomes a damn superstar on the internet, I could careless how good you think you rap or sing…Because you dont have the testicular fortitude (Farrakahn blessed me with this word phrase…dope, right. I know) to pursue your passions in the real world
3. I cnt start good conversations with negroes either because the internet breaks all the good news and gossip, before I can even say “Did you know…”, then they reply “Naw bruh I already knew that”
4. The Internet is bad for black folks because you don’t wanna make a mistake and find your momma’s freaky a$$ myspace page.
***winces and nearly vomits at the thought***
5. Paid journalist get all their damn sources from twitter pages, lazy sob’s
Thats about it for tonite.
@The Hallway,
Your number 1—I concur…lol
@The Hallway,
Number 5 really gets my goat! Ok, so TMZ got the drop on you. Better news source should STILL be held to higher standard of journalism. Like… I dunno…maybe FACT CHECKING!!! Buncha effin yokels.
I blame this festering degeneration of journalistic ideals for the rise in people who cant put two words together calling themselves “journalists”. Ho, just cause you report Kelis’ latest child support judgment, don’t make you Ted Koppel.
@Me fail english?, the runaway slave,
Fact checking is for suckas
@The Hallway,
You know, your number 1 doesn’t bother me that much. In fact, I think its one of the best things about the internet. You can filter people out without actually having to speak to them, lol
@The Hallway,
#5 is the truth. every thime i turn to CNN, they’re going on about what people are saying on twitter. give me the d@mn news, i don’t care what random twitter people think about the news.
@N.I.A. naturally,
I’m not gonna say that twitter is skynet, but if the internet decides to declare nuclear war on us, I know twitters gonna have something to do with it
@The Hallway,
#4: I always trip when i holla at a chick find out she gotta myspace page and i check it out /investigate her life and find out her daughter gotta page too. WTF is wrong wit you why u allow ya kid to have a myspace page? aint there a age limit? dont you watch dateline: how to catch a predator?