Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Shrines, Cesspools and Photo Captions

During my daily read of Boing Boing, I ran across this comment from a reader named Mypalmike. He was responding to a post about a YouTube video made by a (probably drunk) young man calling for Obama's impeachment because he advocates banning flavored chewing tobacco.

In response, Mypalmike wrote:

My theory about the internet as being composed of shrines and cesspools is reinforced.

Boingboing is a shrine.

Youtube is a cesspool.
Oversimplified, of course, and an exaggeration about the great breadth of material on YouTube, but it resonates with my experience of much of the web. Reading comment threads on our local daily newspaper sites is definitely part of the cesspool.

I was curious about who Mypalmike was, and found his website, where he runs a photo caption contest. It's worth checking out. Here's a recent sample:

Man with two ice picks protruding from his cheeks
"Damn! Just my luck. My insurance only covers me if I get impaled with one pick!"
(By Tim H.)

1 comment:

Ms Sparrow said...

Some people will do anything for attention! It's kind of sad that adult males will still be seeking macho acknowledgement when there is so much else to do.