Yes, they're all nonsense, but they're fun nonsense. This one wasn't fun; that's why the whole thing bothered me. The very slickness set my teeth on edge. I couldn't figure out what the point was. Now I know.
Teresa Neilsen Hayden did a nice summing up of the annoyance element, even setting aside the spam question:
"Writing an application that could analyze prose style would be a real achievement. Writing one that compares vocabulary (and probably a few other characteristics like sentence length) is trivially easy. I’m not saying I could do it right this moment; I’m just saying it’s not hard.
Foo. Wanted cool; got balonium."
When the meme was in full sweep, I saw a lot of people inclined to take it seriously, and that bothered me also. I was seeing good people having their guards pulled down by the earnest flattery. I've had too many friends fall victim to con artists to feel relaxed or comfortable when something like that happens.
I also remember a Gay Pride some years back. The frothing fundamentalists always show up waving God-hates-you signs; it's part of what you expect. But this year, for the first year, the signs were high quality, professionally printed. That made me worry -- I didn't like seeing them applying more money, time, effort and competence to that activity.
So give me cheerful memes with transparent motives, driven by sloppy websites, and I'll play with them and not wonder if they're trying to steal anything more than a few minutes of my time. This pissed me off.
no subject
Teresa Neilsen Hayden did a nice summing up of the annoyance element, even setting aside the spam question:
"Writing an application that could analyze prose style would be a real achievement. Writing one that compares vocabulary (and probably a few other characteristics like sentence length) is trivially easy. I’m not saying I could do it right this moment; I’m just saying it’s not hard.
Foo. Wanted cool; got balonium."
When the meme was in full sweep, I saw a lot of people inclined to take it seriously, and that bothered me also. I was seeing good people having their guards pulled down by the earnest flattery. I've had too many friends fall victim to con artists to feel relaxed or comfortable when something like that happens.
I also remember a Gay Pride some years back. The frothing fundamentalists always show up waving God-hates-you signs; it's part of what you expect. But this year, for the first year, the signs were high quality, professionally printed. That made me worry -- I didn't like seeing them applying more money, time, effort and competence to that activity.
So give me cheerful memes with transparent motives, driven by sloppy websites, and I'll play with them and not wonder if they're trying to steal anything more than a few minutes of my time. This pissed me off.