The Starbucks Thing Is Even Dumber Than You Think

If you're at least semi-literate and have an internet connection, you've heard the accusations about Starbucks joining a huge list of other companies in the "War on Christmas." When I first saw the stories in my news feed, I mostly ignored them, assuming this was a case of one Fox News fan complaining, one blogger realizing the clickbait potential and writing about it, and every horrible site on the internet picking up the story like a South Park gnome who just found a pile of underpants. Then last night @midnight played the original Youtube video that supposedly started the whole thing and I realized it was just too dumb to ignore.

I'm not going to link the video (because screw that guy), but after the expected rant about how Starbucks doesn't love Jesus because they didn't put any snowmen on their coffee cups this year, he shares his brilliant plan for punishing Starbucks' blasphemy: everyone should go to Starbucks, buy a cup of coffee, and tell them your name is "Merry Christmas," effectively forcing Starbucks to acknowledge the holiday at dumbpoint.

The idea of threatening a company with what amounts to the opposite of a boycott is so seemingly counterproductive that I have to wonder whether the whole thing is a joke or a well-planned marketing campaign by a company cynical enough to suspect that support of the--"buycott," I guess?--from Bill O'Reilly or Sarah Palin or some other wingnut would mean tons of Chick-Fil-A diners and Hobby Lobby shoppers who've never even been to Starbucks suddenly showing up to demand that the barista sell them some overpriced coffee with "Merry Christmas" written on the cup.

I think it's even more fascinating if the real-life Paul Blart who made the video is completely sincere. If he's serious about this, there are some really odd assumptions that he's got to be making. For starters, he's got to believe that the Starbucks cup is a deliberate attempt at Grinchery. The "War on Christmas" meme is so steeped in the dumb that that one's kind of a gimme, so let's move on to his plan to get back at Starbucks by buying coffee under the name "Merry Christmas." This part of the scheme seems to suggest that forcing some Starbucks employee to write "Merry Christmas" on a cup and then maybe say it out loud when the coffee's ready in some way harms or humiliates the corporation. Well, these are people who seem to honestly believe that bacon affects Muslims like holy water affects vampires, so maybe he's under the impression that making Starbucks say "Merry Christmas" enough times will send them back to the Fifth Dimension or something.

Of course, even if you accept that the words "Merry Christmas" in some way hurt or annoy the Starbuck's company, it's kind of a stretch to assume that the probably minimum wage employee behind the counter is going to give much of a shit what name they write on the cup. The only thing about it that might bother them is the fact that the whole "name on the cup" thing is so everyone knows which cup goes to which customer, and having 15 idiots calling themselves "Merry Christmas" could cause confusion. Hey, maybe that's it! He's going to disrupt Starbucks' business with the confusion caused by a lot of of customers using the same name! Eat it, Starbucks!

Unfortunately, that plan's pretty dumb, too. Let's face it, people who work in the service industry spend most of their time adapting to new forms of customer stupidity, so it's not going to take them long to come up with a way of dealing with multiple customers named "Merry Christmas." Maybe they'll add a number, maybe they'll add your actual name after the greeting, but they'll come up with something. Even if you don't give them that much credit, there's still the problem that, based on my (admittedly limited) experience with Starbucks, any bottleneck the confusion might create would be in the wrong place to hurt business. Any store that's busy enough for the plan to affect will probably have a dedicated register jockey, and the bottleneck would form where people are waiting for their coffee, not the line. Unless the confusion locks up the process so badly that people don't have anywhere to go after paying for their coffee, the register line's going to keep moving and few people will leave. The slowdown only affects people who have already given Starbucks money. And for that matter, it's the customers who mostly have to deal with any confusion caused by a restaurant full of "Merry Christmases." All the baristas have to do is call the name and stand there until somebody figures out that "Merry Christmas 37" is them.

Long story short, the whole "make Starbucks call you 'Merry Christmas'" scheme is a way to give money to a company that's doing something you don't support and to mildly annoy some poor son of a bitch who's already stuck working at the mall during the holidays. That seems like kind of a petty, dickish way to celebrate a holiday that's at least theoretically dedicated to a guy who was all about peace, love, and forgiveness.

If this post offends you, support me on Patreon. It's the only way I'll learn my lesson. 

Social Justice Warrior Is An Insult? Really?

I'm not going to comment one way or the other on the whole Quinnspiracy thing going on in the video game world right now because I'm not a video gamer and I don't have the time or the interest to try to sort out which frame is most accurate (though I do have strong suspicions based on what I've seen from both sides). If I want to explore representation and treatment of women in geekdom, I'll stick to the comics and gaming subcultures that I know. If I'm going to worry about journalistic integrity, I'm going to worry about the fact that They Daily Show is winning Peabody Awards, not that someone may have written a soft review of the latest version of Grand Theft Auto. I'm not saying these issues aren't important, just that they're not important enough to me personally to try to sort out the Springer episode that they've turned into in order to make informed comments about them.

What I am going to talk about is the use of the term "Social Justice Warrior" as an insult, because I'm pretty sure I've seen it used in other contexts (mainly by right-wing types), it seems to be becoming more mainstream (it showed up a comment on the Hex Facebook page recently), and, most importantly, because it's the most pathetic attempt at an insult that I've ever seen. As I understand it, "Social Justice Warrior" is used to describe people who argue for inclusiveness but who, at least in the mind of the person using the phrase, have ulterior motives for advocating a particular position (improving their reputation, getting laid, whatever). I'm not interested in the definition. It attacks a person's intent, which is hard to prove or disprove without a confession or very damning evidence, so whether the intended insult is accurate is a moot point. I'm interested in the phrase itself.

The reason "Social Justice Warrior" doesn't work as an insult is because it sounds bad-ass. "Warrior" is a word that rarely has negative connotations, so pairing it with the actual thing that the person (accurately or not) claims to want is basically saying "HA! HA! You fight for what you believe in!" And since not supporting "Social Justice" implicitly means supporting social INjustice, you're not going to find a lot of people who reject the overall concept (though some may qualify their support by providing a strict definition of the term). So when you call someone a Social Justice Warrior, you're basically trying to insult them by implying that they're willing to fight for something that most people support. See how that's dumb?

I suspect that the main reason that more people on "social justice" side aren't fully embracing and co-opting the term is that it just sounds too cool. Social Justice Warrior should be reserved for people who take much greater risks, like those who risk their lives and freedom by travelling to dangerous parts of the world to heal, feed, and educate people in need; or people like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning who made enormous sacrifices for what they believed in. Speaking up publicly, donating to causes, attending protests, and other common forms of activism just don't seem dangerous enough to warrant the designation "Warrior," even with the increased levels of government spying, police brutality, and targeting of activists we've experienced in recent years.

Some people might find fault with my assessment of the label "Social Justice Warrior" because it's so similar to "White Knight," which has similar meaning and is commonly seen as an insult, at least by people who spend a lot of time on the internet. The reason White Knight works is that it's evocative of both an outdated, paternalistic worldview and a kind of naivete found in the fairy tales and romances that feature the White Knight character. Social Justice Warrior fails to evoke any similar connotations.

Since "Social Justice Warrior" is such a sad attempt at a slur, I'd like to offer three better alternatives that the Anti-Carlin who came up with the phrase could have used instead that just require changing a single word.

• Social Justice Crusader: Sure, still sort of bad-ass, and "Crusader" is similar to "Warrior," but there's a subtle difference. The association with the Crusades gives this one a religious connotation that suggests zealotry and uncritical loyalty to a cause or leader.
• Social Justice Extremist: Describing someone as an "Extremist" is always a good way to imply that what they're saying has no value. "Social Justice Extremist" evokes visions of the kind of fascistic inclusiveness and equality that guys like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh have nightmares about.  
• Social Media Warrior: This one undercuts the word "Warrior" by implying that the insultee's actions are limited to complaining on the internet, thereby lumping them in with slacktivists and hashtag activism. Sure, that my not be true, but since the whole point is to discount rather than debate the person's argument, who cares? 

Vice On Slacktivism

Vice has a pretty good article ("Dumping A Bucket of Ice On Your Head Does Not Make You A Philanthropist"). It's framed by the Ice Bucket Challenge videos that have been circulating, and traces several similar pieces of hashtag activism that went viral, including the one I still think best showcases how ill-informed most of these "activists" are, KONY 2012:

The point of the film was to “Stop Kony.” Nobody knew exactly what that vague directive meant, so instead of actually doing anything, people bought “action kits” that cost $30 and came with Kony 2012 posters and bracelets. The revenue from these kits was well into the millions, but Invisible Children never disclosed where that money went. The Lord’s Resistance Army still exists today, despite concerted efforts from the African Union to hunt them down; Joseph Kony is still at large. The efforts to capture him were, by the way, underway long before Kony 2012 was made. The film didn’t stop Kony, but it definitely did make him famous.

The Vice article points out some things that were wrong with the Kony 2012 campaign, including the fact that Kony had already been pushed out of Uganda. For some reason, though, they leave out some of the juiciest parts of the story. While they mention the question of where the "action kit" money went, they don't mention that there were questions about their financials even before that, and that even according to their own financial statements at the time, a lot of the money raised by Invisible Children went to salaries (they paid themselves $80K each), travel, and film-making expenses, mainly for the three people at the head of the group. A cynic might almost think Invisible Children was a Kickstarter for three aspiring filmmakers disguised as a charity. Vice also doesn't mention the creepy "White Man's Burden" vibe of some of their statements, or the fact that they advocate military intervention, which would involve supporting an equally nasty Ugandan government. But most importantly, at least from a perspective of sheer shaedenfreude, Vice totally leaves out the fact that Jason Russell, self-appointed savior of the Ugandan people (whether they wanted it or not), went on a naked masturbation spree a few months later. It even got a South Park (video below). After going through several other episodes of internet concern that inevitable faded away among cute cat pictures, Vice returns to the Ice Bucket Challenge with a pretty good summary of the problem with this kind of "activism":

So here we are, back at ever-contagious Ice Bucket Challenge. The videos mimic the format of neknominations (those awful dare-you-to-chug-a-beer videos) but claims that they're for a cause. Except that cause is only loosely related, if at all. Most of the videos don’t even mention ALS, let alone do anything to support ALS research. Take Martha Stewart’s video, which described the Ice Bucket Challenge as a “viral internet sensation that calls for a person to dump a bucket of icy water on his/her head, then extend the challenge to someone else.” That is, in effect, what this has become: an opportunity to show off your bikini body while doing something hilarious. Wait, what’s ALS? In case you didn’t take the time to Google ALS while you were waiting for all that ice to freeze, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a neurodegenerative disease that affects motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Over time, these neurons degenerate and die, which severely limits muscle movement. Because there is no cure for ALS, this eventually leads to full muscle paralysis, respiratory failure, and death. Only about 20 percent of people with ALS survive five years or more. If you want to make some fraction of a difference, consider donating to the ALS Association or volunteering your time with an ALS organization. And I mean, you can dump a bucket of ice water on your head if you really want—but don’t try to tell me that you’re doing it for charity.

And for those of you who want to claim that you're "raising awareness," I'd like to point out that the only time that awareness is useful is when it's something we're not already aware of. We've all known about Lou Gehrig's disease for about as long as we've known about Lou Gehrig, and unless we know someone who's got it, most of us know just as much about the disease as we know about Lou himself. And even if we'd never heard of ALS, merely being aware of it doesn't do dick about it unless we do something about it--donating to the ALS Association, for instance. And saying "I'm going to dump water on myself instead of donating" is almost an insult, especially when you're trying to pretend that by not donating you're going to somehow convince a bunch internet friends to donate a substantial chunk of cash($100) just because your randomly tagged them on Facebook--especially when they can get out of it by dumping water on themselves. Ultimately, the fact that there's a lot of Ice Bucket Challenge videos just proves that there are a lot of people who don't want to donate to ALS, especially when not donating and making a video gives them the chance to show just how concerned they are about whatever it was their video was going to solve. This video does exactly as much to help end ALS:

Did Patton Oswalt Plagiarize Mr. Rogers?

Following news of the bombing in Boston, comedian Patton Oswalt posted a short piece on Facebook that boiled down to "when bad people do bad things, remember all the good people who rush in to help." Did he steal it from Mr. Rogers?

Of course he didn't. Oswalt credits the central idea of his post to FAKE Gallery founder Paul Kozlowski and Kozlowski, whether he realized it or not, was expressing the same sentiment that Mr. Rogers expressed (on Good Morning America, I think) following 9/11 (chances are good that your Facebook feed is lousy with that meme today as well). Oswalt took the central idea and expanded it into his own mini-essay about the events in Boston.

So why ask whether Patton Oswalt is a thief in my headline? Easy. To make you click. It's called link-baiting, and usually consists of using a headline that suggests something is more controversial than it really is so people will click and share (often without actually reading) the link. This increases your page's rankings on social media sites and search engines and, more importantly, gives you traffic (and ad revenue). Unlike this post, most link-baiting sites will front-load their "stories" with several paragraphs of fluff and quoted text (which we'll get to in a minute) so you have to click through multiple pages of ads before discovering that the source for the controversial fact is some random idiot with absolutely no credentials in the subject being discussed (probably Jenny McCarthy).

Even when these sites aren't creating fake controversy, they're experts in siphoning away other peoples' web traffic by "reporting" on comments or actual journalism from other sources. These "reports" of course, don't offer any analysis or additional information, just enough of a frame to allow them to quote the original content, usually very nearly in its entirety (how many of you first saw Oswalt's comments via Huffpo?). Since these sites are optimized for social media sharing, (and since people are lazy), the site owners are fully aware that most people who see the "story" will share it rather than click a link or do a Google search to share the original source. The practice is somewhere between plagiarism and vampirism. Once you know about it, it's not hard to spot. When you see it, either don't click those links or take the extra step and share a link to the site of the person who actually wrote the content or reported the story instead of the site that's leeching their traffic. Making money off the labors of others without contributing anything meaningful is something Wall Street can handle just fine without help from Buzzfeed.

By the way, it took me every bit of one Google search and one click to reach Oswalt's Facebook post.  If you want to share what he said, link to it so he gets the credit in terms of newsfeed placement and rankings.

Google Plus Improvement Suggestion: Subscription Circles

One of the big selling points/innovations of Google Plus is its inclusion of circles. These are basically lists that allow you to organize your contacts into custom lists which are used to control who can see a particular post. Circles are great for controlling privacy (you can post pictures of last night’s party to your “Bar Friends” circle and not have to worry about your grandmother seeing them) and for controlling the signal-to-noise ratio of your news feed (people who you don’t know or who post exclusively about what they had for dinner go into the “Don’t Care” circle that you never bother to check), but aren’t very useful for targeting posts to people who you don’t know very well (or at all).

The big problem with circles as they currently exist is that they only work if the user knows what circles his contacts want to be in. This is fairly easy for close friends (Zed goes into the movie and politics circles, but since he doesn’t game, I leave him out of the RPG circle), but much more difficult when it comes to casual acquaintances (I know Ferndando is a gamer, but have no idea if his musical tastes are anything like mine). And then there are the people you don’t know, which is especially problematic if you’re a writer, musician, politician, business owner, or other public or semi-public figure (Is this guy a QAGS fan, someone who likes my political rants in the local alternative rag, or somebody I went to college with and don’t remember?).

From the poster’s perspective, a circle becomes less useful if you’re not sure that you’ve got the right people in it. When it comes to important (at least in your estimation) news, you’re more likely to just ignore circles entirely and post publicly so you don’t miss anyone, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of having circles in the first place. On the reader end of things, getting put in the wrong circle means you’re not getting the content you want and clogs up your news feed with stuff you could care less about. If a poster is consistently posting things you don’t care about (either due to overuse of public posts or having put you in the wrong circle), eventually you’re going to unsubscribe from their feed or stick them in your own “Don’t Care” circle.

Right now, the only way to know who wants to be in a particular circle is to ask them what circles they want to be in. Unfortunately, there’s no really efficient way to do that. If you use private messages, you have to do it for each new contact and send new messages to everyone if you start a new circle. If you use posts, you have to regularly announce the circle so that new followers can opt in. In both cases, you then have to manually add everyone who responds.

There’s an easy fix for this, which I’m sure somebody has already suggested but I’m going to chime in about anyway: give users the option of making circles public and subscribable. Whenever a user decides to follow someone new, give them a list of that person’s public circles and let them select which ones they want to subscribe to. To make it easy for subscribers to add or remove subscriptions later, list every user’s public groups on their profile page along with a link that allows people to subscribe or unsubscribe.

In addition to allowing posters (especially those who use their profiles to promote themselves or their business) to more effectively target their posts, subscription circles would be very useful in allowing readers to organize their feeds. For example, I might to care what my favorite author has to say about writing and what books he’s got coming out, but not give a damn about his favorite sports team. Allowing me to subscribe to his “writing” circle and disregard his “da Bears” circle allows me to cut out the noise without losing the content I want. With a few additional tweaks, opt-in circles could be used to provide a functionality similar to Facebook’s groups or fan pages, which will be important when Google Plus opens up the doors to businesses and other organizations.