We love the Internet. Except when we hate it. Every week, Jordan Valinsky bottles the angst of his Millennial generation and finds something to despise about the Web.
With the official start of the Olympics still one long day away, I am getting overstimulated and over-excited with anticipation.
For those 17 days, I want to sit on my futon, cheer wildly for Team America in whatever sport they’re playing, and become the antisocial person that I was born to be. There’s no talking, no spoilers, and no changing the channel from an NBC-owned network. (Thank god Bravo is in the family.)
I have the fridge stocked with food, because I would rather roll around in pile of razors soaked in Sriracha sauce over my open wounds then miss a single minute of the synchronized swimming competition just to get food. You only see that magic happen once every four years!
My tradition of staring blankly at the television and only getting up to go the bathroom has been in full force since I was younger. With 23 years of practice, I know I could nail a gold medal in indolence if challenged.
However, with this year being the “social media Olympics,” I figured I should change up my militant viewing habits up a bit and become “social.” It sounds like this is going to be the worst, but we have no choice but to let it happen.
So, here’s how the Hater is going to watch the Olympics using this weird thing called “social media.”
Twitter
Combined with the time difference, and everyone on Twitter being a life-ruiner with their instant snarky reactions to every little thing in the world, Twitter will kill the suspense of Olympic results for me. I could stop looking at Twitter for two weeks, but I am too addicted to do that and too lazy to unfollow people.
I am going to utilize Twitter in a different manner and just follow the shit out of everyone in London and/or talking about the games. Since the Daily Dot ignored my request for paid time off for 17 days in a row, I am going to pretend I am there and read every tweet about the Olympics ever.
Those clever “me irl” tweets with a GIF of a foreign athlete making a stupid face? Yes, love it, keep it up, so funny. Also, all those tweets with hashtags like “#olympics” or “#USA” really help me keep track of what the hell you’re talking about, so those are great.
Tumblr
My Tumblr feed is filled with glossy pictures of expensive home decor, Lana Del Rey looking sad, and more GIFs devoted to Community than the number of people who watch it. I suppose that will change during the games, and it will just become filled with memes and striking, world-changing photographs from the last five seconds of a track race or something.
So with all the photo opportunities the Olympics provide, the Summer Games seem like Tumblr’s perfect storm-scenario. For 17 days, I will be refreshing the #olympics tag to see what pictures are coming out of London. Also, Tumblr users get double the points if it’s a dumb Instagram-tinted picture of the Tower Bridge with those enormous rings on it. I’m sure we won’t see that enough on NBC’s coverage, so thanks for blogging a picture of it.
Facebook
Aside from bringing up old pictures of your drunk friends, Facebook isn’t too useful for much of anything. I mean, I guess there’s SimCity Social? That’s kind of cool.
But since I need to figure out a use for Facebook somehow, let’s all just laugh at NBC’s Olympics page. Let’s judge the annoying ways they try to interact with fans with caption contests and awkward pictures. We can stink eye at them widely as they try to make memes but couldn’t pronounce the word meme if they tried, and look at those dumb puns. With all this clapping and hand-waving, it’s like they’re trying to be the cool very-American mom at gymnastics practice that you would rather have wait in the Dodge Caravan.
Pinterest
I just opened my Pinterest account and saw five pictures in a row of the perfect “soft side-swept bun,” so I think I will just continue my ban on ever using Pinterest. And on a related note, please don’t spend the time you could be watching the Olympics on making a video on how Pinterest “inspired you” to get access to its summer party. Then not only are you anti-American, you’re just terrible.
Photo via Hashgram