and done: Unintended Consequences

There’s a long-standing belief that someone basically said there’s never going to be anymore new stuff. That one may be a fallacy (you figure it out, snopes.com), but people have made a lot of incredibly retarded statements about new inventions. You’ve probably said some stupid shit, too, but now you won’t own up to it. A lot of you reading this have at least an undergraduate or technical degree, are currently attending college, or have a vague idea of university life from watching the movie Road Trip. So you’ve probably had at least one idea that would change the world. Well, you were wrong. You can’t change the world no matter how many Facebook causes you join. That kind of slack-tivism gets you nowhere, especially when there are people out thinking shit up right now that you will pay money to own. Although, some of these creations have unintended, if not sinister, functions that their creators never really considered.

1.) The Internet

We can start out simple here and the Internet is low-hanging fruit. Most people are fully aware that the Internet was not invented by Al Gore and that he never actually said that, anyway. It was, however, created in response to Soviet scientific advances like Sputnik, which is still a pretty fun name to say. Back then it went by such monikers as ARPANET and was pretty much strictly for government use. It got some other names too, like MILNET, NIPRNET (which sounds totally dirty), and NSFNet. The damn thing was even designed to survive a nuclear strike, which is pretty cool because not a lot of things can do that. I included that link so you can read all about, but you won’t because you don’t fucking care. Know why?

It’s pretty much exclusively used for crime and boobs. That’s it.

This is what the Internet looks like:

Did you click on that picture to enlarge it? Go do that now and really try to take it in. And every single one of those lines ends at a thief or a titty. Sometimes both. It’s kind of like the best rat maze ever. Some crazy illegal shit goes down on the net. We’ve all come into contact with a Nigerian prince at some point, but it gets way worse. Fraud and extortion make sense, OK. But drug trafficking? You know things have really changed when you can use your Dell as a coke mule.

Where do you jam the condom full black tar heroin?

Murder is a serious WTF, though. Cannibalism or consensual murder is pretty fucked up. Never before have cannibals been able to have a little man-eating sewing circle from the comfort of their living rooms and that scares me to death. One in thirteen of you have thought about eating a person at some point in your adult lives.

I just made that shit up but you're totally thinking about it now.

And I can’t use Google Image for five minutes without encountering some level of nudity. When I was growing up, we had to work for our naked chicks. Kids had to steal their dads' magazines or be content with staying up late to watch the scrambled Spice Channel. If you wanted porn before, you had to walk to a creepy store with blacked out windows and avoid eye contact while purchasing your smut. Unless you live in Europe. I hear that everyone over there is pretty much naked all of the time.

2.) Cell Phones

Obviously these things have changed our lives hugely. Chances are you feel naked without yours. I know I’ve parked my car and run back into my apartment when I’ve left it behind. And I don’t do that with most things.

"Shit, did I leave the stove on? Did I leave the stove on with a baby on top of it!? Meh."

Most people use them completely in place of landlines. They damn near do everything and we depend on them for our very lives. Sometimes citizens with camera phones are the first to capture news events. Or whatever hilarious hobo they just saw.

Actually this is funnier than any hobo image I could find.

We’ve worked them into our lives so much that we’re developing completely new neuroses just for them.

Bitch, can't you wait five fucking minutes?

So what’s so bad about them? Fucking everything! They take all of the Internet’s problems and put them right in the palm of your hand. Don’t worry, though, they come with a whole new slice of horrible problems. Sexting, talking/texting while driving, electronic waste, gambling, the legality of recording by civilians, location tracking, and all kinds of photography issues are all part of that rich bouquet. “Blackberry thumb” sounds like it’s for pussies, though. Kids have killed themselves because embarrassing photos of them have spread like Ebola monkeys.

I’m not saying Outbreak is worse than child suicide, I’m just saying it fucking sucks and you should go to jail if you pay money to see it.

What’s worse, next time you’re in a public place like the mall, subway, or public restroom, look around and see how many people are on the phone. They’re all talking to someone, but not each other. I can’t even remember people’s phone numbers anymore. Nobody really wants to interact with anyone else anymore. Not if it isn’t through some weird digital medium. Which is fine, because I fucking hate people and their stupid voices.

Another major concern is that before we had cell phones, we had no idea how fucking greasy our disgusting faces and fingers are.

Seriously, it’s like you’ve got KFC strapped to the side of your head.

3.) The Mii Channel

Most of us have played the Wii and had a good time drunkenly creating the most retarded Mii possible. The Mii Channel is basically social networking, if you took out the communication, most of the social aspects (because they almost always need to be in the same room as you), and all of the networking. I don’t care that your Mii shows up on my console. It’s pretty much just an inoffensive avatar that I can beat to death in boxing, if I can get my character to even throw punches.

But here’s the rub: there are plenty of people on there that I don’t want anymore. Facebook can be the same way, but you can immediately unfriend someone when they update some bullshit status.

“OMFG I totally just did some underachieving, mundane minutia! Give me a goddamn prize!”

With cell phones it actually makes sense to keep some of the people you despise in there because a.) drunk dialing is totally hilarious, b.) you can screen your calls/messages.

“If my fucking son calls me one more time I’m going have him killed by yakuza thugs.”

But the Mii Channel is different. I’ll kick on some Wii Sports or whatever and play a game of tennis because I haven’t accidently thrown things at my TV in a while. Or maybe I want to play some baseball. Boom. The trap is sprung. Suddenly I’m forced to compete with or against all of the stupid “friends” I intentionally lost contact with and every fucking ex-girlfriend that I can't stand the mention of. That is not an OK thing. I hate these people and I’ve said some vicious shit about a lot of them.

“Get out of my goddamn life, fuck-slaw!”

And I can’t immediately do anything about it. I have to stop my game and go to the special channel where they live. Then I have to track them down while they actively try to walk away from my cursor. I will admit that it’s fucking awesome to snatch them up by the head, watch them flail wildly, and then throw their body into a garbage can. It’s like being some guy in the mafia that everyone calls “Tiny” or “Bulldozer.”

So the Mii Channel has become this cursed realm for me, inhabited by woeful, malevolent phantoms. I feel like I need to go on a Stalin-esque purge just talking about the damn thing. It only succeeds in making me feel rage, shame, and disgust. And that’s a combo meal that you normally can only pick up from a dominatrix or Taco Bell.

“I always order the #3 Meef Chewbacca with Queasy-ritos, and I regret it every single time.”