News of the Stoopid

Stoopidity of the News

gremlin.net [NotS]

Anytime you try to expose a few idiots, all the rest of the Forces of Dimness jump up and complain about it.
While a lot of EMail comes in praising News of the Stoopid, and while a lot of people IRL tell me that it’s ‘funny as hell’ and ‘spot on’ and ‘about time someone mentioned this stuff’, most of the EMail regarding NotS is hatemail from exactly the sorts of twits who inspired the whole subsite in the first place. Of course, it’s always EMail; none of the naysayers ever approach me IRL, for some reason.
Anyway, a few examples:
Obviously, there was a bit of feedback regarding The Logical Man is Not a Man of God. And I find that funny, since it was written in retaliation against an uninvited idiot who was spamming xianity at us. That is to say that, they came to us. As always.
Hell hath No Fury, which should’ve cleared up the issue, merely inspired more hatemail from dumb people. Surprise. And that led to Arrealism, which, interestingly, seems to have put an end to the death threats on the subject of gods and other cryptozoological improbabilities. Apparently, even theists can learn new tricks.
While the theology trilogy has inspired the most hatemail, it hasn’t attracted all of it.
I got hatemail over 12015 from a smoker, telling me that I shouldn’t complain about not being able to smoke anywhere.
I got hatemail over Chunkier Meats from someone telling me I should never have tried ordering a pizza since pizza isn’t healthfood and it serves me right.
I got hatemail over Cyberspace telling me how America is still the land of the free and–but it really shouldn’t be because people shouldn’t be allowed to know about certain stuff because free thought leads to anarchy…or something…I dunno; I deleted the thing, since we can’t have opinions running rampant and turning people into unibombers and all.
I actually got one over News of the Stoopid Launches out Newslessly from some idiot who was complaining about how I’d tricked him into thinking there was something worth reading behind the link. I have to wonder: what could the content of a News of the Stoopid entitled News of the Stoopid Launches out Newslessly possibly be?
Most of the hatemail I receive tries to suggest that I’m not very smart. Maybe not. After all, it tends to momentarily perplex me to see the line ‘if your as snart as you spose to be i thonk you can find a ebtter hooby’ in this modern age of EMail spellcheckers.
But if I could hazard a guess here, I think that what these people are ‘thonking’ is that a smart person would just ignore the stoopidity. I used to think that way, too.
For years, I just accepted it. Then I started giving people weird looks. Finally, I started trying to let them know what they were doing wrong.
Granted, it might be nicer to tell people what they’re doing right [and, in some cases, it might involve a shorter list] but it wouldn’t really accomplish much. See, there are some numbers involved in all this.
Only five percent of the planet have a net worth of over a million dollars American. That’s irrelevant to this, except that I find it kinda ironic, because….
Only four percent of the planet are smart enough to be bothered by Mensa. An even smaller number of us are smart enough to tell Mensa to go away. But that’s not really the point here.
Ninety-six percent of the world are functionally retarded. That is to say that, though their IQs range from ‘mentally retarded’ to ‘intellectually superior’, they’re not actually capable of surviving without someone’s help. They can’t be completely autonomous.
Interestingly, ninety-six percent respond favourably to negative reinforcement. I have to assume that it’s the same ninety-six percent.
Not that the ninety-six percent necessarily appreciate negative reinforcement, but it seems to help them become just a little less stoopid.
Four percent of the world fail to respond favourably to negative reinforcement. Because we can figure it out all by ourselves when we do dumb things.
So, while I can accept that some of these thonking people might be smarter than I am, I can also suspect that anyone who really was smarter than I am would have worked out that negative reinforcement actually helps dumb people, and shouldn’t really insult the smart people who aren’t doing the sorts of dumb things I keep complaining about. I can also suspect that these people aren’t really thonking it through that far, and are merely EMailing me to get back at me for exposing them.
I also suspect that the people sending me the tragically misspelled EMails might be overlooking something very important here.
Ever wonder why there aren’t already thousands of News of the Stoopids online? There are a few reasons. First, I actually have got better things to do; I haven’t got any hoobies to speak of, but I have got priorities. Second, I’m not a journalist–I don’t go looking for this stuff; it comes to me, usually over and over, until, finally, I give in and try to do something about it. News of the Stoopid isn’t some sort of ratings game; it’s what happens when stoopid people push me too damned far. I don’t do this for the sake of making people look bad; I do this in the futile hopes that it might get even just one idiot to figure it out. Believe me, it would be worse if I patronised people instead of insulting them. In fact, I’ll show you what I mean….
Lemee give the other half–erm…the other twenty-four twenty-fifths equal time here. Here’s a list of some of the things I’ve gotten [edited (spelled correctly) for clarity] in response to various News of the Stoopids and my warm, fuzzy, non-insulting replies:
‘How can you say god doesn’t exist?’
By pushing a controlled amount of air through my larynx, I begin by tightening the muscles at the back of my throat to produce a hard G, then I alter the arrangement of muscles to produce a short O, and then press the tip of my tongue against the roof of my mouth just behind my teeth to produce a D; I pause for a moment, then produce another D, followed quickly by another short O, and then slide into a sort of SZ sound before moving on to a short E, and the NT combination is similar to the D, but a bit further back along the roof of my mouth; finally, another short E, followed by another G which quickly slips into the SZ sound, a short I, a sharp S, and a sharp T, which is a lot like the D was, but doesn’t last as long.
‘There IS a god but you’re too stupid to find him’
Indeed. It requires a great deal of intelligence to locate a god. That’s why people who know that professional wrestling isn’t fake can believe in gods. That’s why people smart enough to realise how much cows appreciate being given names believe in gods. In fact, I’ll just bet that them there scientists know all about it, but are keeping the gods a secret. It’s a conspiracy. This oppressive, bourgeois establishment is keeping us in the dark. But the truth is out there. Let’s get together and hold a candlelight vigil and eat a few Twinkies and wait for them to make a mistake so that we, too, can finally meet these gods, just like all them smart peoples have.
‘Kids shouldn’t know about bad things like sex and violence.’
Couldn’t agree more. Sex is bad, isn’t it. And messy. And a hell of a nuisance, really. That’s why we at gremlin.net are working to perfect genetic engineering in homosapien subjects: once we’re capable of cloning humans, we’ll be able to abolish all reproductive acts without leading to the extinction of mankind.
‘It’s a sin to be a fag.’
I looked through the bible again, and it appears that you’re one hundred percent correct. We’ll have to start executing the sinners. Not just the homosexuals, but also the women who speak in church, the people who walk on the sabbath, and those who have crucifixes and other graven images.
‘What’s wrong with mushrooms?’
Mushrooms? Um…nothing. Nothing at all. Full of really yumscious flavour and protein and, erm, stuff. Hell, some of my best friends are mushrooms. What a great group of guys.
‘Does Dennis Miller know you ripped off his ranting? LOL!’
Y’know, I don’t wanna go off on a jeremiad here, but four signs that you’re an idiot are: 1) you say something, then laugh out loud 2) you type something, followed by LOL [sic] 3) you spell LoL as LOL [since the preposition 'out' wouldn't be capitalised] and 4) you use exclamation marks.
‘What do you know about English? You can’t even spell “stupid”.’
Sure I can: stoo…sto…damn; you got me.
That’s just my opinion; what do I know….

–Gremlin

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