Yeh, so it’s been about a year… That’s probably long enough for a siesta. Maybe more like a hibernation, but that’s the way we roll here, we who are onlineandbored. We’ve stirred our jowls, our bowels and our minds, in an extraordinarily effusive manner – actually, we’re being quite spritely, considering the rather droll dullards we most comfortably accept that we are. Out of our slumber and into the bright light of a way over-active world.
Ok.. so this is NOT us. This person is way too good looking to be us. But you aren’t going to want to look at us in the early stages of rousing ourselves from extended hibernation. No siree. So you have instead, this great (and free, ’cause that’s what the folk at Unsplash do) photo, taken by the famous photographer Bruce Mars, and we have now suitably visualised a rousing from a deep sleep. You’re welcome.
And what do we see? We see the end of the world’s loudest, proudest, most powerful, most wealthy, and most self-congratulatory, self-flagellating empire. What a spectacle.
Golly Gosh! So many highly motivated, irritated, angry, terrified, excited people. How do they all find the energy? Now it should be noted—this is an AI image. So it’s probably copied from some poor sucker’s work, hidden in twisted code no one can untangle. Ergo, said sucker remains suckered, unpaid, and artistically violated. Which counts, when you fundamentally disagree with the idea of effort..
While news outlets and coffee shop wannabe political analysts frown and berate each other, we rub our eyes and pause to see if staying still will make the noise stop. ?. ?. Nup. Ok, we’re gonna have to participate. Unwillingly. Grudgingly. Badly. But we’ve just woken up, so we’re ok with that. Maybe you are? Maybe you aren’t? It’s too big a job to work that through, so we’ll just have to ask you to tag along, while we try and navigate this very different world.
Anyway, we’ve convinced AI (or HAL, or the next-gen Terminator – we’re not entirely sure what moniker he/she/it/they are known by) to lend us a sliver of its all-consuming brilliance to make a button for you to push. Yes, we do care. We’ve grudgingly added our dismal effort, and come up with a task for you Button-Pushers guaranteed to provide enormous fun. So much fun.
That’s probably enough fun. More than enough fun. If you feel deficient in the fun-stakes, perhaps try pushing the button again. Or not. It’s up to you, because we’re now a little sleepy. So much effort.
Looking out of our hovel, it does appear that the Great American Dream has been reset just a tad. As in – it’s been lifted up, eviscerated, shredded, diced, roughly sauteed, doused with salt, charcoal-grilled and finally, smothered with some evil-smelling sauce. Ooohhh. Nice.
Remaking the Great American Dream, Gilded Age 1890’s style. What fun. There’s so much to be gotten rid of, when we return to the Good Ol’ Days of child labour, massive inequality, oppression of workers, and a boom-bust cycle that would make a Ukrainian drone operator proud. Surely all those hiccups are mere side issues to a wonderful industrial flourishing,
Only to be born again in a bright new, freshly scrubbed reincarnation of ‘The Gilded Age‘ of those untidy late 1800’s. Although some folk don’t see that as necessarily a good thing, those folk are probably from the demographic that were on the receiving end of the Gilded Age’s less savoury social imperatives. Whingeing beggars! A country can’t get great again without a few workers falling under the wheels!
As difficult as it has been, to rouse our majestic form out of a state of virtual perpetual slumber – we’ve managed it. You’re welcome! Part of the impetus for this incredible display or monumental effort, has been the realisation that something called “artificial intelligence” (more on that later), can actually do most – if not all – of the work for us. Gosh. That’s one hell of an incentive to get to work. And here it is… generative ai’s version of an appropriate opening paragraph (which is, of course, now the second paragraph.. but we’ll never let facts get in the way of a good story. Or even a dull one. Any story, really). Take it away, Ai!
Imagine a world where the race to lead one of the most dynamic, innovative, and youthful nations on earth looks less like a sleek, high-speed drag race and more like a leisurely game of shuffleboard at the retirement community. Yes, folks, the upcoming U.S. Federal election is shaping up to be just that, with favored candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden gearing up for what can only be described as the political equivalent of deciding who gets the last pudding cup in the dining hall. In one corner, we have Trump, whose tweets are as fast as his golf cart rides, and in the other, Biden, who promises a return to a time when politics was as calm and predictable as his favorite pair of aviator sunglasses. Buckle up—or maybe don’t, you’ve got plenty of time—it’s going to be a race that reminds us all that age is just a number, especially when it comes to the spirited task of running a country that’s always ready for its next TikTok challenge.
Oh yes, we’re supposed to put in a heading. Or a Heading.
Donald Trump vs Joe Biden Showdown
Go us. Yes, really. Pretty well done on our part. A Heading. Now to back it up with an image. And yet again, Ai is there to provide the artistic muscles we simply do not have. Nor do we have the drive to use them, even if they were to magically appear.
Trump vs Biden
First to the lectern gets to plug in their pacemaker!
That’s about the story, actually. Only it’s not a story, because everyone already knows it. The U.S. of A. has sent heralds throughout the hallowed halls of power of every institution in the land. They’ve interrupted board meetings of every powerful organisation, they’ve investigated and interrogated the capabilities, track-record, preferences and aspirations of every man, woman and child of the U.S. of A.’s 336,085,637 population… and decided the two people best suited to represent this amazing nation are …… Donald Trump and Joe Biden! How the crowds cry with absolute happiness!
What percentage of the U.S. of A.’s population want Donald Trump vs Joe Biden as an election choice? Not really sure… but some folk are suggesting 60% to 70% don’t want either gentleman to run for election. Not that either is going to be doing a whole heap of running. Nor jogging. Probably quite a bit of stumbling. And falling. Hopefully more of the former and less of the latter. For everyone’s sake.
Cue Ai for another image.
There’s no likeness here. Not because it’s not possible. Just because it’s likely to take a lot of effort. Even with super-amazing-clever Ai doing the legwork. It seems that even the tools that are going to take our jobs away from us, still require us to work for them doing all our work for us. Go figure.
Hey Ai, what’s a suitable wrap-up? We’re due somewhere to do nothing.
Donald Trump vs Joe Biden Slowdown
As the curtains close on what could only be described as the geriatric Olympics of political showdowns, let’s remember that democracy, in its infinite wisdom, often resembles a family reunion dance-off: unpredictable, a little awkward, but ultimately a testament to the enduring spirit of competition and the belief that age, indeed, is no barrier to ambition. Whether our next leader is more at home in the Twitterverse or prefers the comfort of a good old-fashioned town hall, one thing’s for certain—the United States is about to choose its next commander in shuffleboard. And as the dust settles on this electoral saga, let’s not forget to cherish the spectacle of it all, for in the end, it’s the lively debate, the spirited discourse, and yes, even the occasional meme-worthy gaffes, that keep the vibrant heart of American democracy beating.
But you know us – or at least, someone does. Somewhere. Hope they like us. Nah. Trawling for sycophants is too much like freaking hard work. We’ll entertain you with another image instead. Curtesy Ai, of course.
.
That’s Ai’s version of us. Sitting there, glued to our seats and screens, wondering which candidate will successfully make it to the lectern for the entire election race.
God Bless Americans, who at least know what all this is about. This election thing-y. The rest of us are told it’s a monumental event of historical proportions. It’s hard to yawn more than we are right now.
Time to slump back into our hibernation. See you when the seasons turn, at which time you can tell us all about the excitement we missed.
There’s billions of bored people out there, trending #covidandtheselfie as a lock-down stress-relief. Covid and the Selfie are a dangerous mix. Bad Covid – you’ve caused a fair bit of social grief. And way too many selfies.
Home is where you are locked in
Because of you, we have billions of people trapped in their homes. That’s OK if your home is a mega-yacht, but for the Great Unwashed ‘home’ is a pretty average place to have to spend a lot of time. For most of us, ‘home’ is somewhere to eat and sleep in while planning more important activities. It’s not a great place to spend a lot of time in.
Staying at home means more time to pause and reflect on who we are. That leads to questions that shouldn’t be asked outside of a philosophy lecture theater. Who am I? Why am I here? What have I done with my life?
These are dangerous questions for the (usually) milling masses of humanity. One of the key reasons we humans make up a milling mass, is because milling is better than sitting still. Sitting still leads to self-reflection. And self-reflection leads to problems. We aren’t built for an extended bout of self-reflection. Our emotional make-up is a bit too fragile to be exposed to a lengthy inward gaze.
Exhibit A – Narcissus.
Yes, good ol’ Narcissus, who gave us the term for loving oneself. He pioneered the selfie back in the days when a pond reflection was considered fairly high-tech.
An image of Narcissus encountering his reflection. Poor man. It’s not good for we humans to reflect too much.
Narcissus was kept safe from his own beauty by Liriope (his loving mother) who made a career out of hiding mirrors so Narcissus would never see his own reflection. She knew that poor ol’ Narc was likely to fall in love with himself if he ever saw just how beautiful he really was. She knew this because a Seer named Tiresias told her so. And Seers have a way of knowing this sort of stuff.
Liriope – A.K.A. “mum”
But for all her efforts with mirrors, it seems Liriope ignored the danger posed by reflective ponds. Even if she did, Liriope couldn’t cover every pond in Boeotia. Or Greece. Or anywhere else for that matter. Of course, there’s a chance she could have sorted that out by luring an asteroid to impact Greece, covering the world in darkness and dimming those nuisance pond reflections – but that’d be a big call for a water nymph. Mind you, if Nonnus was right then Liriope was actually none other than Selene, the Moon Goddess and maybe she could have covered the world in a new darkness? You’d imagine a Moon Goddess could jiggle loose a piece of moon-rock and casually throw it into earth’s atmosphere as a leviathan asteroid? That would have sorted out the pond reflection issue.
Visit physics.org and like their page so they don’t get annoyed at us using their photo… www.physics.org
But we digress.
The point of all this is that we humans shouldn’t reflect on ourselves for very long or very deeply or very much. It’s just plain dangerous.
Selfie’s as a form of introspection (a random heading for SeO credit)
In a standard, busy, non-Covid world, we’d all take Selfie’s and share them around the virtual world. They wouldn’t mean much – we’d take them day after day, and never really get a chance to pay too much attention. Sure, there’d be a bit of feedback from our network of friends and connections, but nothing was ever really meant to last for more than a day. There was always some new activity or bandwagon to jump on the next day. Then along came Covid, and everything just stopped.
A quick Selfie in an exotic location, and we’ve avoided dealing with all the day-to-day problems that were present just before, and right after, that Selfie. We can tell ourselves, and everyone will agree, that you were the luckiest person on that day. Just look at that background. You’re not at home. You’re out-and-about. Doing stuff. Being grand and boosting your social status. All good stuff.
Suddenly that happy-go-lucky selfie became more important. Suddenly, there are no exciting backgrounds or exotic locations to distract from our rather average selves. There are only so many locations one can shoot an enviable Selfie in the average home. Rather than focus on the action or the moment or the location, we’re suddenly confronted by the banality of our own selves.
And so the Selfie became the tool for the inward gaze. For reflection and questions about life and what matters.
Covid and selfies, ‘n’ stuff…
The level of danger to posed by Covid and the Selfie to human civilisation is so big that we Onlineandbored folk have left our couches and donned pajamas so we can get this message out to you. Yes, YOU. We know you’ve been lured by the siren call of the Selfie. So our task is to expose the horrors of Covid and the Selfie in the hope that you will take action and bring about change for the good of our planet and the people who so lovingly mill across its surface.
Slow-moving enthusiasm
Mind you, we haven’t exactly burst a boiler with enthusiasm. And that’s not a personal analysis biased through subjective introspection. No-no, my Friend! (Gosh that exclamation mark was tiring. Almost expired putting so much weight on the capital key while hitting that damned “1” key. So much effort for so little output). No, we can absolutely assure you that very little energy has been devoted to this post because your erstwhile authors have just noticed that this post has been a draft for quite some time. Started in January 2021. And here we are in August, 2022 and…. TA–DA!!@!!! (more effort – we hope you are paying attention, ’cause this is taking an inordinate amount of our disinterest to complete).
You’re welcome. We’d work out how long January 2021 to August 2022 is and make a big deal about it – but that’s maths and nobody on this enormous, green-but-slightly-mirky-smog-grey planet would ever consider maths appropriate if you are bored and happen to be online.
Oh. One more thing..
Nup. Too hard. Will have to wait until later. Quite a bit later, if our track record remains intact.
Anthems for action. Action calls for Activity – but is it just activity for Activity’s sake? And who is this “Activity” anyway, and why should we do anything for someone that we are not familiar with?
How about.. WAIT. STOP.
There’s so much more I could be not doing. We think that this concept has been beautifully captured by Alex Michaelsen on Unsplash and given that folks don’t seem to get paid for all their efforts on Unsplash, we thought it’d be a good idea to boost Alex’s exposure through our huge diaspora of onlineandbored. Of course, if Unsplash do make gratuity payments, and it’s worth more than social welfare then we’ll line up and submit our iconic images of not much. Maybe not as insightful as Alex’s work, but.. well. but nothing, we guess. Just enjoy Alex’s work.
Yeh, there’s a grand plan for world domination. Hurry up and wait. Don’t wait! Don’t just wait – stop! Yep. That’s our version of a pathway to success. World domination should be tackled in small bites, right?
Exercise your existentialist right for angst
Yet questions of world domination do dredge up wider thoughts on life, purpose and meaning. Any serious thinker would embark down one or more of these rancid, effortful pathways prior to relieving the sofa of bottom-weight. Actually, serious thinking is pretty hard work. Maybe we’ll just leave it as a question of focus and relative value on where attention is best directed for maximum output for a minimal input.
That’s about it. We don’t want to progress too far into our efforts at existentialism. We’ve got to allow time for our slower thinkers to catch up. After all, we are above all other things, bored. Sure, we’re also online, but any such activity measurement is vastly exceeded by our inability to retain focus and interest on anything more involved than a gnat’s Friday afternoon musings on life, the universe and everything.
Modern coffees hops don’t exactly scream out ‘Anarchy Cafe’, do they? Where do folk go these days, to share insightful thoughts on the impending Revolution and the overthrow of the bourgeoisie? Mayhaps it’s a more appropriately styled venue to reside in whilst pondering the meaningless of life? But then again, Mayhaps not. Another wonderful image from unsplash.com. This time, from bckfwd-ifkd981FUdM, which may or may not be a real human being. Although we’re dubious of any surname that starts with ifke and ends with UdM… Regardless, all hail bckfwd’s efforts on composition and light.
It’s not that we’re just disinterested or out of our depth or mildly catatonic or helplessly inefficient or randomly incapable. None of that. We are Bored.
Is being online and bored actually doing something?
Online and bored. And that’s a harder version of bored than that which existed in days gone by. Didn’t know that, did you? It’s a massively underappreciated fact that modern boredom exceeds past boredom thresholds by multiples. True fact. There’s a study somewhere that proves it. Probably.
Looked at from a wildly different perspective, we can conceive that sometimes, there is no perspective at all. Life can be quite random like that. Here’s an example…
Were you to be bored in the times of your grandfather then you would simply run down the street to a friend’s house or wander off to the local park or playground. If you were older then there would be the local stream or river or hill lookout. Older again and you would head off to the local watering hole for a refreshing bevvy or six.
At the least, no matter what your age, you’d track down a cigarette and have a puff. Just because you were bored. Well, you might have been wanting to impress friends or annoy teachers or show a bit of rebellion to your parents but puffing on a cigarette was a way of dealing with boredom.
But it is not earlier times, and we know that if you smoke you’ll get cancer and die or some such thing, so smoking is out.
Alcohol is supposed to be used responsibly, so you can’t drive home from the local bar or pub so there’s no point going there. For some reason employers don’t like drunk employees representing them to the buying public, so you can’t hit the bottle at work. You could hang around the work kitchen or water fountain or photocopier but let’s face it, you work with those people already – they ceased being exciting quite some time ago.
But what will i do?
Let’s start with the obvious. You are online, and you are bored. Well, so are we. We’ve been sitting here, trying to think up clever and witty entertainments and whimsy but frankly, we’re bored too.
And we are also online. So no matter how bored you may be, we share your pain.
Power to the Online and Bored, brother!
And sisters. No such thing as a gender gap or glass ceiling the world of online boredom. It’s a pretty equal world we inhabit in our bleary-eyed state of boredom.
Do something you’ve done before.
It’s easier. Minimal need for creative thinking and maximum output per joule of energy expended.
To shine the pathway to your glorious future of prodigious output, we present this post. Ta-Da!
Sharp-eyed and anal retentive readers will notice that this post looks rather similar to a page that once inhabited this site. Said page is now a post, and Voila!
Bigger output for minimum input. If you’re going to be doing something, do less of it. That’s our motto – or it would be if we had one, which we don’t.
In fact, we’re thinking that repeating past notes is pretty darn effective, and we’ll be doing it again. Later. Some time. Not now, of course. One day. Maybe.
Do something about grammar
Not really. We don’t care. But it is fun to look at how a post, such as this one, fails most of the tests for being good social media fodder. There’s no obligation to do something, but it’s fun to see what you should be doing, when your aren’t doing it. In an effort to boost our word count, we’re going to include the Analysis results for the post so far..
Analysis results…
Consecutive sentences: The text contains 3 consecutive sentences starting with the same word. Try to mix things up! Subheading distribution: 1 section of your text is longer than 300 words and is not separated by any subheadings. Add subheadings to improve readability. Passive voice – use active counterpart.
Nup. Of course, we’re not going to do any of those things. It’s perfectly fine, just the way it is. After all, if we make it too good then more people might read it, leading to questions and suggestions and stuff like that. Ewwww.
We’ve covered this whole SeO business before, of course. Reduction in energy expended requires that we have. Yet, SeO remains a force for good – maybe – so we’re including an internal link as well. Just because Master SeO tells us to.
Here’s a link to an earlier post on the avoidance of SeO imperatives. We make no warranty as to its suitability or quality or accuracy or even attractiveness. We certainly make no claim as to its suitability upon which to base the ending of a post asking you to do something. That would just be plain wrong.
Pointless and unrelated Image
We couldn’t express our existential angst better than Dan Gold has, here in this wonderful exposition of the art of doing nothing, in a place so full of its own existence that it imparts an air of doing something. That’s quite a feat, and something that we’ll look into one day. But not today. Maybe another day that is much later than today. Thanks Dan! Here’s an attribution for our guilt at using Dan’s amazing stuff for free… Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash
Yeh, we’re ok too, thanks. Did you like that we changed the pictures?
Actually, we only changed one and added one other. Because it takes work. Not a lot of work, but any work is work, right? And if you don’t really want to do stuff then it seems a little crazy to go out of your way working at the task, doesn’t it?
So there’s a cute dog. [ed: “cute” being interesting but ugly. Does anyone really bother learning the meaning of the words they use or is it all just lip-service to grammar and language?]. And for the aspirationals, we’ve included a hip looking character staring off into the greater future. You know, where men are men and women are there. And animals and stuff.
Anyway, your continual lack of communication is very much appreciated, so we here at onlineandbored have gone out of our way to give you something different when you log in.
Just don’t get overly keen on this “change” thing, right? We’re even more bored than you are, and our apathy cannot be measured in mere listlessness or physiological charts or even psychological profiles. We are THAT good at what we do. It’s why we have a website.
And now for another token picture.
Why are you even trying? What the hell’s going on in your confused little mind. Lay down, and let’s share some quiet time.
Yeh, we know – you’ve seen that picture before. But it’s from our existing stock, so it was easier to find than another, non-stock photo. OK?
ps. If you want to request a specific picture or mode of picturing then just drop us a line. Although we’re not going to link to a “contact us” page or anything, because that is just too hard. And what else is too hard?
A rock.
Rocks are hard. But they can also be impressive. Like these ones, photographed by Alexandre Chambon on Unsplash
Alright. We’re at the end of our capacity for interest. We just hope yours is higher. So we can become super famous and popular and rake in gazillions while laying back gracefully. Or at least, fitfully.
Bored by life? Maybe. Maybe you’re just not a big thinker.
Yes, the title is being repeated in the first line of this post. It’s *apparently* good for SeO. In GeekTalk, that acronym stands for Search Engine Optimisation. But you and I know that it’s really short for “making Google notice me”. Not that Google is the only search engine – it’s just the most important to we folks who don’t like doing stuff. You know, like researching alternative search engines.
Anyway, repeating the title (slug) in the first line may or may not be the current thing. We just read about it a while back, and it seems a pretty laid-back way of being more important. At least, being important in our own little lunchbox corner of the world.
Talking about SeO, it’s time for a picture.
These people are all looking for short-term entertainment, while trying to ignore the folk next to them, who are also desperately trying to find a reason not to look at each other.
Bored Users
We’ve been driven to write this post because the number of folk who are taking the time to sign-up as “users” on this lovely onlineandbored.com website of ours. There’s a lot of you. A quick glance at the emails would suggest most of you are spammers or something called a “splogger”. Not entirely sure, but a splogger might be a person who signs up as a user with the intention of copying your material.
Hah!
News for you, dear Sploggers. There ain’t a lot of content on this site!
Sure, there’s some form of IP (that’s short for Intellectual Property) that accrues to us for the stuff we have on this site, but we’re a bit embarrassed to be seen using that phrase for something put together on a whim. Still, we’ll claim all copyright rights and entitlements. Even if only because we’re kinda big on the idea of coming up with an idea and keeping any money that is made from that idea. Forever. At least, from our own lifetime measure of forever. But let’s not get into a discussion on existential angst. It’s too hard, takes too long and involves a lot of thinking. Yuck. So.. back to the idea of making money forever for thinking something up… Yes, we like that idea. We like it a lot.
So we were laying there, just minding our own business, when we looked out the window and spotted a long line of people – or “bots” – that had signed up to be “users” on our site…
When you take the time to register on this site, our wonderful administration system notes you as a “user”. That seems a tad label’istic, don’t you think? Anyway, we are mightily – even if somewhat surprisedly – impressed that over 200 people and/or bots, have taken the time to register for our site.
That’s almost a nudge towards doing something to make all that adoration worthwhile. But not quite. We’re sure most of you are downright lovely folk, with lovely folk lives and lovely folk worries and dreams. Good on you. We applaud your efforts in registering to be included as one of the online and bored. We’re a team. Go. Team.
This post has already taken FOREVER! So here’s a couple of pictures, which is a tidy end to an untidy point, badly made but well intended.
So.. art is always appreciated. So here’s some photography art, which is far more artistic than anything we have written so far. This helps make your time well-spent, doesn’t it.?.!.?This is an artistic expression of our angst at discovering we spent so much time writing this post, that we missed a very important engagement with the couch. Sad. Really sad.
Thank You Unsplash
The modern world is a wonderful place. Full of really expensive cars and technology but also full of massively talented folk, who can’t get people to part with cash for their efforts but still make their beautiful work available regardless. It’s a backscratching kinda thing, and one we regard as highly essential in a world where your ability to kick or hit a ball will earn you many multiples of what any incredible artistic ability will earn you. So here’s a salute to those who try to help by providing a platform to those who are busy with their artistic endeavours.
Here’s the folk who have put their art on the website unsplash.com – from where the images in this post were obtained.
Latest news, just in! Here at the home of online activity and disarray…
Anyway, as we were saying just an ever-so-short-time-ago, this purpose-driven, ambitious internet-savvy site, is first out with news of a startling discovery!
Yes, you guessed it – we’ve actually lifted our chins off our spit-encrusted wrist-hairs, and… participated. For all those nay-say’ers and shouldna’s who so diligently looked down on our up-to-now meagre efforts – shove that in your red-rimmed rheumy eyes.
We searched and we poked and we investigated. Yes we did, my friend. And you are going to be so surprised at just what we are about to reveal. At least, once we reach the 300-word-ideal-length for an internet post to be read-worthy by the most important readers in the human experience – Search Bots!
Be we digress…
Latest News found!
Yes indeed, the new-and-improved news took us some finding to find…
We trawled through valley and mountain…
We navigated the vast halls of power (via the back stairs)…
And we took the time to rest and recharge, in between. Because we could. And because the latest news is really, really important.
Sort of.
It’s not like we are all starry eyed and blissful, here at the onlineandbored bunker. No, far from it. We’re all wired up and ready to explore and share.
Latest news in pictures
Well, the latest news didn’t have to be very much really, did it? After all, you are at the home of the disinterested and detached, where a picture is worth hours and hours and hours of writing and research and stuff like that.
So our research on everything that is the ‘latest news’, turned up little more than a syllogistic overlay on Baudrillard’s simulacra and simulation. So we dug a little more superficially, and present to you our efforts on the latest news, via a series of unrelated, irrelevant images.
You’re welcome!
And some internal links, to boost that SeO score thingy..
Not to make a big deal of it – but this is the first post in like, ages. We’re not sure who is the most bored out of you and we – but there’s a good stiff shot of whisky suggesting that it’s us. You’re reading this stuff, so you’re at least partially motivated. We’re not even sure we want to finish this paragraph.
[insert irrelevant but up-beat, funky image here]
That’s a note to us to do something about Search Engine Optimisation. That’s a ridiculously long phrase. No wonder everyone just uses SEO. SEO involves all those little tricks that help convince Google or Bing or Dingo or Arktica or BambooCandlesticksSuck that your work should rank highly in their search results. Apparently, cool photos do a good job of kicking you up those rankings. Videos, it seems, are even better. No way in hell you’re gonna get a video out of us though – way toooo much effort. And titles – you’ve gotta have titles with relevant headings and stuff. Nup. That’s way too much mousework.
Of course we could pay some Dark Net spammer to tack our links onto their next attempt at world domination but then we’d have to want to talk to someone or pay something or do something, and that’s just dull.
Apparently something called “keywords” is really, roolly helpful. But we’re not going there.
Don’t you just hate it when fabulously rich, globally recognized celebrities bemoan their billions of slavish followers or grumble at their inability to cavort and frolic in billionaire playgrounds without attracting attention? Well, we do. So, to avoid the extremely unlikely event of our site moving to a state of global renown, we’re going to avoid doing anything that might accidentally steer us down that awful pathway. High brow of us, ain’t it?
[insert clever, witty, relevant video. ensure alt description follows title relevance and keyword/s]
Ha. As if.
Cool, hip and funky image to appeal to the internet go-getters, and to humiliate the non-achievers. Don’t worry, we didn’t take the photo. We got it (for free of course) from Photo by PHUOC LE on Unsplash
See, we’ve added a photo. Yay! for an impressive spurt of productivity from us, man.
Now we’re gonna trawl Unsplash for photos to add. Just because. Not too many though, ’cause we’re near our limits.
Nature photo for avid gardeners. Gorgeous model apparently not named, Photo by Timothy Paul Smith on Unsplash
Yeh, we know. That photo has already been used. But we like it. There’s no other reason, really.
Our limits for output were exceeded paragraphs ago.
We’re going back to Unsplash to haunt the work depository of other people’s hard effort.
If we’ve accidentally managed to entertain you or unbore you or send you offline then please accept our completely insincere but grammatically correct apologies and stuff. Forgive us, for we know not what we do.
Why bother having a page about boredom and being online when there are already so many options out there in Virtual World? Surely you’re just stomping on what is clearly firmly-treaded ground?
Why are you even trying? What the hell’s going on in your confused little mind?. Lay down, and let’s share some quiet time.
Haven’t you even thought about this?
Surely, all one has to do is visit the most popular online and bored sites using any one of the incredibly clever and regularly updated search engines? Google, anyone?
And you can’t even work out your SEO, you fool. i’ve just Googled “online and bored” and guess what? Huh? You don’t even show up on the front page.
Nor the second page.
Nor the third.
Couldn’t spot ya on the fourth either.
Fifth looks like a desert for your touch.
Sixth page finds you. That’s one hell of a search.
6th page of search results? That’s not going to get you very far, is it?
And if i’m truly online and bored then i ain’t gonna be investing that much time looking up some droll website that i haven’t even heard of anyway. So why bother at all? What are you trying to achieve?
Why bother at all?
Indeed. Why bother? And if you look at the search results, there ain’t a lotta fancy neighbors out in 6th Page Land, are there? Surely, anyone worth their salt would be aiming at the Front Page. The Holy Grail of freakin’ everything that’s on the ‘net, man. Just look at those characters. They’re pumpin’ with the good Google juice flowing through their veins and their Bitcoin bank accounts.
Why bother is a silly question
It’s a silly question because you’d have to be pretty silly to not notice that we haven’t bothered. Not at all. In fact, you’d have to answer the question “why bother” with another question..
What the hell gave you the impression that we had?
Huh?
If you are under 18 years of age you cannot read further because there’s an inappropriate link coming up. Click here instead. (It’s probably still inappropriate but at least it’s not rude).
At what stage of your investigation did you uncover an incredibly clever and nuanced approach by we who are Online and Bored? At what precise point did you encounter the incriminating body fluid stains on the walls of our virtual burrow?
So what ‘ave your genius investigations uncovered then, huh?
We think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, mate! [a rather indulgent and fascinating colloquialism from ancient Australia]. You seem to have missed the whole point of this site and this page and this extraordinarily dismal effort at providing fodder for your consumption.
You see, we really haven’t bothered
Not at all. Even a cursory look would have confirmed any suspicions you may have had. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? You’re not the only one that’s Online and Bored. So are we.
Hugely.
Massively.
Incredibly bored.
And that’s because we ARE online. Well, probably not by the time you consume this note. By then, we would hopefully be indulging our more feline characteristics.
We’re going to spend a really big amount of time trying to imitate the feline skills of this cat. This particular cat. Doing what it’s doing. Now. But without the teeth.
It’s sorta kinda like a motto thingy. So you’re bored AND you’re online. We don’t want to get all picky here but we’re wondering if that’s even technically possible?
You know – you’re a thinking, supposedly rational human being. And you’re supposedly driven to act in your own self-interest at any given moment – aside maybe from the occasional foray into charity or philanthropy or some other-y thing. Actually, some philosopher folk have suggested that even charity is really just a selfish act wrapped up in pretty feelings. So we’ll have to just go with the flow, and assume that you are a human. That you do stuff that makes you feel good or get good stuff or accumulate good memories or selfies. That you have an internet connection, and the power to use it. Uhmm.. And that you are capable of actually doing stuff. All of which would suggest that any individual with said capability should be able to achieve at least some lower level of satisfaction and/or self fulfillment once connected to the vast, wide expanse of the online virtual world. Oh gosh i’m tired after writing all that. Close eyes. Stay still for a moment. Breathe out. Ok. Where were we?
Ah yes – we were suggesting that it should not be possible to be online and bored both at the same time. But i really have reached my limit for thinking about all this stuff. Let’s just shorten the sentences and reduce the grammatical energy-suck a little bit, OK?
What do you do when you are bored and online? What should you do? And what should you NOT do? Well, firstly, don’t make stuff up.
Actually – skip that. Make stuff up. But do it well, ok?
So with that overflow of introspective effervescence, let’s see what happens when people actually do stuff. And other people write about stuff that other people are doing.
As a starting point, here’s a brilliant gallery of a brilliant photographer’s brilliant photos..
A photo and link from the brilliant Hamid Sardar-Afkhami
and here’s a post that has generated some heated commentary for mixing up the photos and their context…
Actually, this only proves the old adage* that procrastination, and the careful study of doing nothing, is a worthwhile and rewarding activity, ’cause getting out and doing stuff just leads to complications.
We know this because the page below has the same sorta material but hasn’t managed to elicit much comment – positive or negative – at all. And that sounds like a particularly good outcome.
“old adage” – this is a rather vague reference to a thought that has no reference but certainly seems apt and appropriate, and right for the place in which it has been put.
