WTF, Tweetdeck!?

Posted on July 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, I woke up and tried to hop onto Tweetdeck and I discovered that it is now down. I usually have 10 open columns on my Tweetdeck and, as of right now, only two of them are loading. I can check my DMs and I can see tweets from people I follow but I can’t check my lists, I can’t check my hashtags, and I can’t see my replies on Tweetdeck. For that, I have to go straight to Twitter.

(Oddly, I can still tweet from Tweetdeck.)

Following yesterday’s rate-limit announcement, it’s hard not to assume that the limits that Elon Musk instituted also broke Tweetdeck. It’s like he’s just looking for ways to make those of us who encouraged others to give him a chance feel foolish.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some thing that Elon Musk has done that I agree with. I agree with the idea that free speech should be Twitter’s number one priority. I agree with the release of the Twitter Files, which did show just how much the government and other wealthy players manipulated the news. I agree with bringing back the previously banned accounts. In fact, I think he didn’t go far enough where that’s concerned because, as far as I know, the Trashfilm Guru’s original account is still suspended. And I even agree with doing away with the legacy blue checkmarks because the verification system had itself become corrupted. After Musk took over the site, I had a lot less annoying people showing up on my timeline as recommended follows and I appreciated that. Plus, Elon Musk drives my commie friends crazy and I appreciated that even more.

But none of that matters if people cannot actually use the site!

The official story is that the rate limit was instituted to combat data scraping. Data scraping is something that has been going on since the day Twitter was founded and it’s never been a big enough problem to require destroying people’s ability to use the site. If the problem was suddenly so bad that emergency measures were needed, why not take Twitter offline for maintenance instead of making an announcement that everyone would be restricted but that subscribers to Twitter Blue would be restricted less? If the problem was so bad that unverified users could only read 600 tweets a day, why then change that to a thousand tweets a day in response to people getting pissed off? If it’s that huge of a problem, you don’t say, “Okay, sorry, here’s an extra 400 tweets.” What you do is apologize and promise to fix things as quickly as possible. The rate limit is obviously just a scheme to convince people to subscribe.

At this point, I think everyone just has to hope that Joe Rogan or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will declare rate limits to be a conspiracy because they seem to be the only people that the Silicon Valley tech bros are interested in listening to.

In the end, this is all a reminder of the outsized role that social media (and Twitter, in particular) play in our lives. Is it too late to return to the blogging era?

WTF, Twitter!?

Posted on July 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

You know, I have really been pretty open-minded when it comes to Elon Musk’s twitter but the announcement, made about an hour ago, that there are going to “temporarily” be limits on the number of tweets that you can read during a day may be the announcement that breaks me.

I’m not going to share the tweet here because I’m not sure if someone seeing an embedded tweet on a website counts towards the new read limits but basically, Elon Musk announced that verified users are now limited to reading 6,000 tweets “a day”, unverified users (i.e., those of us who don’t want to spend money to do something that we spent 14 yeas doing for free) can read 600 tweets “a day,” and new users can only read 300. Elon says that this is being done as a temporary measure to battle spam on the site.

(It is true that there is a lot of spam on twitter now. Recently, a bunch of obvious bots — i.e., bios that read, “I’m just looking for love!” and such — lay siege to a live tweet that I was taking part in. It got annoying pretty quickly. That said, I’ve got a block button and I’ve got a mute button and that’s really pretty much all I need to battle them.)

Elon’s tweet was frustratingly vague. How temporary is temporary? By day, does he mean a day per sunrise to sunset or does he mean that you’ll be limited by the number of tweets that you looked at over the previous 24 hours? If I scroll my timeline, does that count as reading every single tweet that shows up on it, regardless of whether I stopped to look at the tweet or not? If I see a tweet embedded in a news story, does that count? If I go back and read my own tweets, do those count? If I re-read a tweet, does that count as two tweets? If 600 strangers all reply to a tweet, does that mean that I’m screwed as soon as I click on my notifications?

It’s frustrating. Hopefully, the backlash — and there is a big one — will lead to twitter backtracking. Twitter’s habit of replying to the press with the poop emoji was cute at first but now, users have serious questions about their experience and Twitter’s refusal to be clear is no longer amusing. This isn’t a case of some whiny reporter throwing a fit and demanding to know why Elon refuses to suspend anyone who tells them to learn to code. This is a case of real users having legitimate questions about something that feels very arbitrary.

If this policy continues, it’ll be the death of live tweeting. I’m going to continue to try to keep my live tweets going for as long as possible. I don’t want to have to move everything over to Mastodon, where it seems like 90% of the users are competing to see who can virtue signal the loudest. But, if it has to be done, it’ll be done.

For now, I will no longer be embedding tweets in my posts here at TSL. I don’t want to accidentally send anyone over their limit.

Let’s hope this is resolved soon.

I miss the Fail Whale.

Shadowbanned Again, Naturally

Posted on May 25, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, I’ve been shadowbanned on twitter. Again.

Shadowbanning is when you still have a twitter account but, for whatever reason, twitter goes out of its way to hide your tweets. Right now, people can read my tweets by going to my profile page or by following me. That hasn’t changed. However, my tweets do not currently show up under most twitter searches nor will they be found under any hashtags.

So, for instance, let’s say that someone decided to go on twitter and search for which film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier today. They’ll probably find a lot of tweets about it but what they won’t find is the post that I wrote for this site or the link that I tweeted out earlier today. Or let’s say that someone was searching to see if anyone on twitter had written a review of the new Netflix film, Maria. Again, I have. And, as always, I posted a link to it on twitter. But only those people who are already following me are going to see that link. A random person searching for “Maria review” will not.

Why have I been shadowbanned? I don’t know. As you may remember, the same thing happened to me three years ago and the shadowban was lifted after three days. From my own research, I imagine that it’s because I post a lot of links (mostly to this site) and I’ve been doing some automated tweets as my way of wishing everyone a good morning. Here’s an example of one of them:

https://twitter.com/LisaMarieBowman/status/1132247439967178752

The Twitter Algorithm has apparently been set to treat with suspicion any account that posts a certain amount of links or which posts any automated tweet. A human being, of course, could just look at my profile and see that I’m a very real person who talks to a lot of other very real people. The Algorithm, however, doesn’t have to worry about any of that or any of the damage done by its decisions. For a film blogger, being shadowbanned from the country’s biggest social network — even if it is just for a limited amount of time — can seriously and adversely effect that number of daily page views that their site receives.

I’ve been told that the best way to get unshadowbanned is to basically just go silent for a few days. Apparently, under the new rules, these shadowbans usually only last 48 hours from the moment that you stop tweeting but they can last up to 5 days. To me, this seems like bullshit and it also seems rather unfair but I guess that’s what I’ll do.

It’s frustrating. Twitter says that they want to promote “healthy conversation” but this isn’t the way to do it. A look at my twitter timeline will show that I’m probably one of the nicest, most positive people on twitter. I don’t pick fights with people. I don’t send abusive tweets to anyone, regardless of whether they’re verified or not. I’ve studiously avoided getting involved in any of the political fights that have come to define social media as of late. My only sin is that apparently I tweeted too much, I posted too many links, and I thought it would be cute to wish everyone a good morning.

I’m mad. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And quite frankly, I’m not alone in this. There are others who have been shadowbanned for the exact same reason. They did something that tripped up the algorithm and they were shadowbanned without warning. Tweeting at @Twitter or @Jack or @TwitterSupport, as so many people do, will not make any difference. But you have to wonder how exactly we’re supposed to follow the twitter rules when no one knows what the rules are?

It’s easy to just shrug and say, “Well, forget twitter. Who needs social media?” Realistically, though, social media has become too important to be ignored or causally dismissed. My fear, though, is that twitter’s foolish attempts to control “healthy conversation” will ultimately just make society sicker. If you want to know why so many people end up on social media sites like Gab (where most of their interactions will likely be with Neo-Nazis who were previously kicked off of twitter), it’s because of stuff like this.

Anyway, I guess my twitter silence begins now. I’ll be back in a few days, hopefully.

Fortunately, however, I will never be silent on this site. TSL forever!

That too.

(And, by the way, check out this Shadownban Test, in case your curious about the status of your own account!)

Lisa’s Editorial Corner: What Does It Feel Like To Be A Ghost a.k.a. A Few Thoughts On Being #Shadowbanned

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last week, on Twitter, I was shadowbanned.

In my case, it only lasted three days. Since that experience, I’ve talked to several people who have been shadowbanned on Twitter for far longer. I’ve also discovered that there are a lot of people who think that they have been shadowbanned but who aren’t sure. Since I’ve had a lot of people ask me a lot of questions about the experience, I’ve decided to answer all of them here.

What Is Shadowbanning?

For the longest time, Twitter’s official position was that shadowbanning was a myth. Only recently has Twitter admitted to putting “restrictions” on certain users. As far as I know, Twitter has never made official use of the term “shadowban.”

However, that’s exactly what these “restrictions” are.

Basically, being shadowbanned means that you’ve been secretly restricted on twitter. A lot of people on Twitter are shadowbanned but they don’t even realize it. Unlike when an account is suspended, Twitter does not send a message to let you know that you’ve been shadowbanned. Nor will Twitter let you know when your shadowban has been lifted. These are things that you have to discover for yourself.

What Happens When You’re Shadowbanned?

I was shadowbanned for three days and I can only tell you about my own experience. During the first 24 hours of being shadowbanned, I could not reply to anyone. I could send out tweets to people but they wouldn’t show up in anyone’s notifications. Therefore, I had to hope that, when I tweeted people, they would see my tweet on the main timeline. Anyone who follows more than a 1,000 people can tell you just how unlikely that would be.

Even after I regained the ability to reply to people, my name and tweets still didn’t show up in twitter searches. Nor did they appear under any hashtags. This lasted for three days. For me, as a film blogger, this was a huge issue. A good deal of the traffic on this site comes from people going on twitter and searching for film reviews. As well, since 2009, I’ve been a prolific live tweeter. Not only do I enjoy live tweeting films and TV show but also it’s also helped to bring attention to both this site and several other sites that I write for.

How Did You Know That You Were Shadowbanned?

I found out through pure chance. Every Saturday, I host #LateNightMovie in the SyFyDesigns.com chatroom. Every Saturday, two hours before the movie, I tweet out the link to the members of the Late Night Movie Gang. On October 7th, when I tweeted out the links, I had already been shadowbanned but I didn’t know it. An hour after sending out the links, I received a tweet from my friend, Steve.

@LisaMarieBowman no lnm this week?

— Steve (@ElysianSteve) October 8, 2017

I tweeted out the invitations, did you not get them?

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) October 8, 2017

Of course, neither Steve nor Janeen were able to read my reply because it never showed up in their notifications.

Suspecting that my replies were not showing up, I then sent a tweet to Jeff while he was standing right next to me and looking down at his phone.

@JedadiahLeland ???

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) October 8, 2017

The tweet did not show up in his notifications.

Jeff then proceeded to do a twitter search for my tweets, under his account. None of them showed up. When he looked up my profile, he got a message warning him that my profile might contain “sensitive material.”

(When you’re shadowbanned, your tweets will only show up if you do a search under your account. The only way to know for sure is to either log out of twitter and do a search or have someone you know do a search under their account.)

So, When Twitter Shadowbans You, They Go Out Of Their Way To Keep You From Knowing That You’ve Been Shadowbanned? That Sounds Pretty Freaking Cowardly.

No shit.

What Did You Do To Get Shadowbanned?

I have no idea.

This is why shadowbanning is so frustrating. As opposed to a suspension, in which case you’re told why your account has been suspended and what you can do to prevent your account from getting suspended a second time, a shadowban comes with no warning or explanation.

My suspicion is this: Because I’m a prolific reviewer, I post a lot of links on Twitter. My guess is that the Twitter Algorithm decided that I had posted too many links so it decided to shadowban me as a “warning.” I’ve also read that some people have been shadowbanned after posting too many tweets under one hashtag. It’s meant to combat “hashtag abuse,” which is when bots will post a hundred spam tweets under one hashtag. I’m all for combatting bots but all shadowbanning is doing is making it more difficult to host a good live tweet.

If The People Who Ran Twitter Actually Understood What People Use It For, Why Would They Ruin Live Tweeting With Random Shadowbans?

For the most part, the people who run Twitter have nothing to do with handing down a shadowban. That’s all handled by the Twitter Algorithm.

What Is This Twitter Algorithm That People Keep Mentioning?

One of the biggest misconceptions that users seem to have about twitter is this belief that there’s a group of people reading and judging every single tweet. With the amount of people who use twitter every single day, that’s just not possible. For the most part, Twitter is an automated service and suspensions and shadowbans are, with a few possible exceptions, automated as well.

The Twitter Algorithm does not take into consideration how long you’ve been a member of twitter or the content of what you’re tweeting. Instead, it is simply designed to react to certain triggers — like tweeting a certain amount of links or using a hashtag a certain amount of times. Unfortunately, no where is it specifically explained how many links are too many or how many times you can use a hashtag before the Algorithm decides that you need to be put on time out.

In short, Shadowbanning is a victory of automation over humanity. And, since it’s an algorithm, it doesn’t have to worry about whether or not it’s inconvenienced you or treated you unfairly.

But You Were Only Shadowbanned For Three Days. This Seems Rather Dramatic For Just Three Days…

Yeah, kiss my ass.

But Seriously…

Yes, it was only three days. However, if I get shadowbanned again, it’ll be five days. I’ve spoken to people who have been shadowbanned for months on twitter. Several of them eventually had to create a new account and start over again from scratch.

For me, it comes down to this. I was only shadowbanned for three days but I still don’t know why I was shadowbanned and, as a result, I don’t know what I should specifically do to prevent it from happening again. Every time I send out a link to a review that I’ve written, I now find myself wondering if my tweets are about to once again vanish from twitter search. As much as I love live tweeting Lifetime and SyFy films, I will now spend all of my time on twitter looking over my shoulder and wondering if the Algorithm is about to get me again.

What Can You Do If You’re Shadowbanned?

Nothing.

Oh Come On…

Okay, there are things you can do. You can still send out DMs, which is what I did to let people know that I was shadowbanned. I was shadowbanned on Saturday. By Sunday afternoon, over a hundred people had sent tweets to @twitter and @twittersupport, letting them know that I was not a spammer:

https://twitter.com/theholly_wilson/status/917142477722804224

By the end of the day, people were once again able to read my replies, though my name and tweets still didn’t show up in any searches. Did all the tweets make a difference? I don’t know but it was still a wonderful feeling to see the amount of support that I received.

I also reached out to twitter support myself. Unfortunately, as anyone who has ever had to use it can tell you, the Twitter Help Center is a mess and deliberately useless. They literally have a form for everything, except for what you actually need. You can file an appeal if you feel that you have been unfairly or incorrectly suspended. However, you cannot file an appeal if you’ve been shadowbanned.

(Of course, Twitter’s official position is that shadowbanning doesn’t happen.)

I sent Twitter Support an email every day that I was suspended. I also tweeted @TwitterSupport several times. I have yet to hear back from Support or receive any sort of acknowledgement that my complaints were ever received.

I’ve Heard That You Can Get A Shadowban Lifted By Offering To Spend Money on Twitter Ads…

I’ve heard that, too. I don’t know if it’s true or not but it wouldn’t surprise me. Money talks.

That said, I’m not going to spend money when I haven’t done anything wrong.

Why Is It Easier To Get Shadowbanned For Tweeting Too Much Under A Hashtag Than For Tweeting Out Hate Speech?

That’s a good question. When, after two days, I was still not showing up in any search results, Jeff did an experiment. He did a twitter search for Richard Spencer, the infamous alt-right Nazi. Spencer and his tweets showed right up.

I mean, imagine that. My tweets — which, for the most part, deal with movies and cats — were hidden. But Spencer’s tweets were right there for the world to see.

So, You Support Censoring The People You Disagree With?

Actually, I don’t. I think that banning racists on twitter would be a mistake because banning them would not make them any less racist. It was just make it more difficult to spot and expose them. If twitter banned Richard Spencer tomorrow, it wouldn’t make him any less dangerous. Instead, it would make him a martyr to the idiots who follow him. Sometimes, it’s best to let people speak and expose themselves for being who they truly are.

(If you need evidence of this, I suggest checking out the 1957 film, A Face In The Crowd.)

So, no, I don’t support censorship. But I do support fairness. Because right now, it’s apparently easier to get shadowbanned for live tweeting a TV show than for promoting hate.

Right now, twitter has plenty of rules but they’re randomly and arbitrarily enforced. My personal solution would be to have less rules but that’s not going to happen. We live in authoritarian society. Those who aren’t getting off on enforcing the rules secretly crave someone to tell them what to do. (The Twitter Algorithm is itself the latest attempt to control people without having to actually deal with them as individuals.) Since the rules aren’t going away, twitter needs to actually figure out how to enforce them without unfairly penalizing people like me.

Again, What Can I Do If I’m Shadowbanned?

My advice: go outside and enjoy the sunshine for three days. If your ban isn’t lifted after three days, go outside and enjoy the sunshine for two more days. If the ban isn’t lifted after five days, you’re in trouble.

Sadly, just as Twitter refuses to provide a reason for a shadowban, it also refuses to provide information on how to get them lifted. As I mentioned earlier, several people, after being shadowbanned for months (even over a year in a few cases) have resorted to creating new accounts but that, in itself, is a pain. I have close to 10,000 followers right now. If I ever had to start a new account, I’d have to start from scratch. I’m sure many of my followers would follow me over but that’s assuming they knew I had created a new account.

Hopefully, Twitter will get its head out of its ass and figure out that punishing innocent users for arbitrary reasons is bad for business. Otherwise, a few years from now, Twitter might be as relevant as MySpace.

Courtesy of Zack Snyder’s Twitter Account, here’s some Aquaman Footage!

Posted on March 2, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Working on my birthday 🎉 pic.twitter.com/tLidlUrcyn

— Zack Snyder (@ZackSnyder) March 2, 2017

Apparently, this is the first footage that we’ve seen of Aquaman and … uhmmmm …. yeah. This doesn’t look incredibly silly at all.

Hey, Zack, would it be too much trouble to get a Sucker Punch sequel?

2015 In Review: 16 Good Things I Saw On Television

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, as I was trying to write up my annual list of the good things that I saw on TV during the previous year, I realized that I was struggling a bit to come up with enough entries to justify doing a list. The more I thought about it, the more apparent it became that I watched a lot less TV than usual last year.

(Though I did manage to watch a lot of Lifetime movies…)

Furthermore, when I do think about what I saw on television last year, a lot of my memories deal with being annoyed. I find myself fixating on those terrible Liberty Mutual Insurance Commercials and that stupid advertisement where they wouldn’t stop saying, “The Tobin Stance…” and especially that Taco Bell commercial with those horrible hipsters, Mary and Dominic, talking about how much they love breakfast tacos.

BLEH!

But, that said, there were still a few things worth praising! (Hope is never totally lost…) And here they are in no particular order:

1) South Park Had One Of Its Greatest Seasons Ever!

Seriously, 2015 saw South Park have one of its greatest seasons ever. Trey and Matt took on the excesses of PC Culture and ended up providing one of the most important and incisive critiques of 21st Century America ever. At a time when political and cultural criticism is growing increasingly dreary and predictable, South Park delivered a much-needed jolt to the system and reminded of us why satire and humor are so important in the first place. Perhaps the best part of this season was watching dreary PC-obsessed critics desperately trying to figure out how to praise this season without acknowledging that they were the ones being satirized.

2) UnReal

One of the best shows on television premiered on the Lifetime network. UnReal took us behind the scenes of a Bachelor-type series and provided the ultimate take down of reality television. I love reality TV but I loved UnReal even more.

3) Ash vs. Evil Dead

Save us, Groovy Bruce!

4) Agent Carter

Agent Carter didn’t get as much attention as it deserved during its 8-episode short season. I loved the show’s retro look, I loved the way it satirized 40s style sexism, I loved the dashing Dominic Cooper as Iron Man’s father, and most of all, I loved Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter! The overrated Supergirl has been getting a lot of attention as an empowering comic book show but honestly, Agent Carter did it first, did it with style and wit, and did it a 100 times better.

5) Show Me A Hero

At times, this HBO miniseries was a bit too heavy-handed for my taste. But overall, it was a fascinating look at municipal politics and racism up north. (Yes, there are racists up north, as much as people refuse to admit it.) Plus, Oscar Isaac gave a great performance as an initially idealistic politician who is literally destroyed by his attempt to do the right thing.

6) Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

HBO pretty much fell apart this year (The Brink? Ballers?) but, fortunately, Netflix was there to offer up some of the best original programming of the year. Kimmy Schmidt is brilliantly hilarious and gives Elle Kemper a role that is finally worthy of her talents.

7) Jessica Jones

Again, who needs Supergirl when you’ve got Jessica Jones?

8) Glenn lived on The Walking Dead!

Actually, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. To be honest, having Glenn survive that zombie attack totally goes against everything that The Walking Dead previously stood for. After all, this was the show where anyone could die. It didn’t matter if you were likable or popular or if the sight of you being ripped into pieces would traumatize the viewers. Under the previously established rules of the show, Glenn should have died. And yet, he didn’t. And I can’t complain because, seriously — was anyone really ready to see Glenn die? That said, if Glenn somehow escapes certain death a second time, it’ll be a problem.

9) Degrassi Was Picked Up By Netflix!

Oh my God, I was so upset when I heard that my beloved Degrassi would no longer be airing on TeenNick. I’ve always said that the day when there were no more episodes of Degrassi would be the day that I would finally have to admit to being an adult. Fortunately, Netflix picked up Degrassi so I got to put off adulthood for at least another year.

10) More Old People TV Networks

I’m a history nerd so I love all of these TV networks that only show reruns of old people TV shows. I may never get to personally experience what it was like to be alive in the 1970s but I can a rerun on an Old People TV Network and get a taste. And happily, it seems like there’s a new Old People TV network every day! Seriously, I’m getting quite an education.

11) Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci on TCM

Last year, they showed both Shock and The House By The Cemetery on TCM! Finally, Bava and Fulci are getting the respect they deserve. Now, if only TCM would show a Jean Rollin film…

12) Speaking of TCM…

Actually, I just love TCM in general. It’s without a doubt the greatest thing in the world!

13) Debate Counter-Programming

Seriously, I am so happy that there is always something else for me to watch while everyone else in the world is watching a Presidential debate. My main fear is that, in the future, all of the networks will decide to simultaneously air the debates (like they occasionally do with charity fund raisers) and there will be no escape from the droning emptiness of it all.

(Seriously, I could imagine them doing it. “These debates are damn important…” Whatever.)

14) One of my tweets appeared on TV!

Seriously that was pretty neat, even if I did turn out to be 100% incorrect in my prediction.

15) I trashed The Leisure Class and sent at least one troll into a rage spiral!

Seriously, never underestimate how much some people love the unlovable! My oddly controversial review of the Project Greenlight film really rubbed some people the wrong way. That some people felt so strongly about it is both alarming and amusing.

16) Dancing Sharks at The Super Bowl!

That was in 2015, wasn’t it?

Dance, Shark, dance!

Tomorrow, I’ll continue my look back at 2015 with my ten favorite non-fiction books of the year!

Previous Entries In The Best of 2015:

Writing In An Angry World

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I was planning on writing a lot of film reviews today. After all, I am definitely running behind. I’ve recently seen everything from Lavalantula to Trainwreck to The Stanford Prison Experiment and I promise that, within the next few days, I will get around to reviewing all of them.

But right now, I am having a hard time getting my mind to focus. Indulge me, if you will, in a few off-topic thoughts:

We live in an angry world. Fortunately, there is often enough good out there to allow us to maintain some sort of hope in the face of the bad. But this week…oh my God, this week. I find myself dreading going on twitter because my timeline is full of hatred. It’s being spewed by people on both sides of the political and cultural divide and none of it is really designed to debate an issue or change anyone’s mind. Instead, it’s simply a celebration of just how capable and imaginative we, as a species, are when it comes to finding excuses to hate one another.

Sometimes, it becomes too much to handle. It’s infuriating. It’s depressing. It’s exhausting. I can understand why my fellow TSL writer, Viktor VonGlum, takes occasional breaks from all forms of social media.

I think, ultimately, the main reason all of the twitter fights and the angry Facebook memes and the internet trolling gets to me is because it all feels so pointless. It’s depressing that there are apparently thousands of people out there who believe that tweeting out a picture of some smirking comedian talking about what he thinks Jesus would do is somehow the equivalent of true political activism. The whole idea that any of this is being done to make the world a better place is a fantasy. Instead, it’s simply a reflection of the fact that we live in an angry and hateful world. Nobody’s mind is going to be expanded. Nothing is going to be accomplished. Nothing is going to be changed. And nothing is ever going to get better. And let’s be honest, here — the majority of twitter activists don’t want to change the world. If the world ever became more like the one they claim to want, they would lose their excuse for being angry and hence, their reason for existing.

That’s why I usually refuse to comment on politics on twitter. That’s why, whenever any of my friends on Facebook send out a political meme, I usually choose to hide the post. Me, sign a petition? Unless it’s related to film preservation, don’t count on it…

Or, at least, that’s what I would have said until earlier today. That was when I read about the death of Cecil the Lion. Cecil was a 13 year-old lion who lived in Zimbawe’s Hwange National Park. Since 1999, Cecil had been a part of a study conducted by scientists from Oxford University. Known for being a particularly friendly lion, Cecil was something of a national icon in his home country.

Earlier this month, an American tourist killed Cecil the Lion. Working with two accomplices, this hunter used meat to lure Cecil away from the safety of the park. He then shot Cecil with a bow and arrow. When that failed to kill Cecil, this hunter spent 40 hours tracking Cecil. When he found the wounded Cecil, he shot and killed him with a rifle. Cecil was then skinned and beheaded. To the hunter, Cecil was just another trophy. Cecil’s cubs have now been left without a father and will probably be killed as other male lions seek to take over Cecil’s pride.

Well, when I read that story, I finally had enough. I was finally as pissed off as everyone else on twitter. And I did something that I have never done before. I signed a petition over at Whitehouse.gov, demanding that the American tourist be extradited to face poaching charges in Zimbawe. And if the story of Cecil’s death pissed you off as much as it did me, I would ask you to consider signing as well. Here’s the link.

(As someone who believes in as little government as possible, I am as shocked as anyone by the fact that I’m petitioning the government to actually do something.)

Thank you for your consideration and for indulging me in this little off-topic rant.

Cecil The Lion, R.I.P.

It’s Been One Week Since #SyFyDaysaster

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is the one-week anniversary of a historic social media event: the #SyFyDaysaster.

For the past year, I’ve been a proud member of a group of film lovers known as the Snarkalecs. Every Saturday, we would meet up via twitter and we would watch whatever film happened to be playing on the SyFy network. Every week, we would look forward to the chance to live tweet films with titles like Jersey Shore Shark Attack, Chupacabra Vs. The Alamo, Two-Headed Shark Attack, and Piranaconda. Often times, we would be joined by actors like Gerald Webb and directors like Griff Furst. One of my best memories remains the time that Greg Grunberg replied to one of my tweets while we were watching End of the World.

Incidentally, every time that the Snarkalecs would start to live tweet a movie on Saturday, that movie would soon start trending. As a result, other twitter users would have an incentive to change the station over to SyFy and see what everyone was talking about. By showing original movies on Saturday night, SyFy kept the Snarkalecs entertained and we, as a result, then helped SyFy get better ratings.

What could be more American than that?

However, a few months ago, the SyFy network announced that they would no longer be showing original movies on Saturday night. Instead, the movies moved to Thursday and Saturday night became about showcasing a rather forgettable show called Sinbad.

Unfortunately, Thursday is not a convenient night for many of the Snarkalecs. Some Snarkalecs have to be at work on Friday morning. Other Snarkalecs have family obligations during the week. As for me, Thursday doesn’t work because that’s when CBS airs the weekly eviction episode of Big Brother.

As a result, the Snarkalecs have found other things and other networks to watch on Saturday night and Sinbad hasn’t trended once.

Two Thursdays ago, the snarkalecs decided to make a point. As a group, we DVRed the SyFy original film, Independence Daysaster, off of the SyFy network. We then watched and live tweeted the film on Saturday night.

Within fifteen minutes, just as a result of a handful of Snarkalecs live tweeting the film, #SyfyDaysaster was the number one trending topic in the world. And it stayed at number one for the next two hours. And when the tweets started to show up from people wanting to know just why exactly #SyFyDaysaster was trending, we let them know that it was trending because it was a film that the SyFy Network could have been showing instead of broadcasting the latest episode of Sinbad.

As a result of our act of social media protest, for two hours, #SyFyDaysaster was an even more popular subject than Amanda Bynes calling Drake ugly.

As for Sinbad, it trended not once.

The fact of the matter is that people don’t love the SyFy Network because of shows like Sinbad. Instead, we love the SyFy network because SyFy gives us a chance to watch movies like Super Shark and Tasmanian Devils. By showing those movies, the SyFy network has given me a chance to meet and get to know people who I may not have ever met otherwise. SyFy Saturday movie nights introduced me to the snarkalecs and, for that, I will always be thankful.

Let me put it like this — if you tell me you watch Sinbad, I’ll smile politely. Ff you tell me that you love Jersey Shore Shark Attack, I’ll be your friend forever and I’ll probably end up making out with you depending on how much I’ve had to drink beforehand.

In short, I’m proud of us! I only hope that the SyFy network noticed and that they’ll reconsider their decision to make Saturday night all about Sinbad.

As for Independence Daysaster, it was actually something of a lesser SyFy film. A bunch of aliens invade Earth on the 4th of July. The President (played by Tom Everett Scott) teams up with a bunch of hackers to defeat them. It was all pretty predictable and, under any other circumstances, rather forgettable. Still, I will never forget the #SyFyDaysaster and I look forward to engaging in future acts of civil disobedience until, hopefully, the movies return to where they belong, back on Saturday night.

Here’s just a few of the tweets from #SyFyDaysaster:

Ok #SnarkAlecs 1 hr 45 minutes until #syfydaysaster let’s tweet the heck out of it, trend it and end up in twitter jail! — @Holidill

It’s just another day in Canada. — @LisaMarieBowman

Canada should annex us. #SyFyDaysaster — @LisaMarieBowman

Oh damn, does that mean Biden’s President now? #SyFyDaysaster — @LisaMarieBowman

I find it amusing that the alien invasion happens in a place called Mooseridge. #Syfydaysaster — @Karmic9

is it true most #SyFy movies are watched 3 day later with at least 10 #SyFyDaysaster tweets?” — @KellyThul

So #SyFyDaysaster is tending a movie #Snarkalecs are watching on dvr , but Sinbad isn’t #SyFy are you paying attention — @ScottMcDonald3

“Nick’s hurt pretty bad. Can we just leave him here and pretend we didn’t find him?” #SyFyDaysaster — @LisaMarieBowman

“You can’t fight here! This is the War Room!” — @LisaMarieBowman

I thought they were led by a Mimeminister RT @LisaMarieBowman Were we really hoping to get any help from President of France? #SyFyDaysaster” — @KellyThul

#WhoTheHellIsSinbad? #SyFyDaysaster — @HelenMcGe

He’s the President of Sexyville — @LisaMarieBowman

Redheads have no use for Presidents. #SyFyDaysaster — @LisaMarieBowman

Red barns: replacing gas stations as new source of magic wifi #syfydaysaster — @DawnSnarks

Sound effects courtesy of airzooka #syfydaysaster” — @murderalotta

Gingers do to have souls! Haven’t you seen that YouTube video? #SyFyDaysaster — @LisaMarieBowman

“What is that?” It’s the moon, you moron. #syfydaysaster — @LisaMarieBowman

Is that Ben Gardner’s alien invasion stock footage? #syfydaysaster — @LisaMarieBowman

The real fans of @SyfyMovies got #syfydaysaster trending 3 days after #indenpendencedaysaster — @TonySolo

She put on her big glasses b/c she knew she was going to have to do smart stuff. #syfydaysaster — @LisaMarieBowman

Nick is like a cockroach wearing an American flag. — @LisaMarieBowman

Stop insulting cockroaches — @KellyThul

The VP is thinking, OH shit, my evil plan has been foiled. All because of those meddling kids! #syfydaysaster — @PirateMel

“@LisaMarieBowman: I have to admit that I have no idea what’s going on in #syfydaysaster.” You’re at least a step ahead of me.. — @DocZeke71

There has been a serious lack of trees and vines in #syfydaysaster. I’m not lichen it.” — @LisaMarieBowman

Hey @SyFy, even though I am tweeting your movie on the “wrong” night, I am open to you sending me that power source thing #SyFyDaysaster — @KellyThul

Been a long day, a lot of short tempers, we could all use a Snickers #syfydaysaster — @PinkyGuerro

My milkshake brings all the balls to the yard. #syfydaysaster — @GGFletcher

#syfydaysaster If she were a real scientist she would be in a halter top by now. — @MJCaan

You have to ask if the world is really worth saving. I’d like to at least meet the aliens before dismissing them. #SyFYDaysaster — @LisaMarieBowman

I’m comforted to know that 2 hackers from Mooseridge can fire a nuclear missile. #Syfydaysaster” — @Karmic9

Make love to the camera Mr. President! Seduce it! #syfydaysaster — @DawnSnarks

The President should resign & let the redheads run the country #SyFYDaysaster” — @LisaMarieBowman

I haven’t seen a ball take a licking like that since the Jodi Arias trial. #syfydaysaster — @MJCaan

The balls went from suck to blow! #syfydaysaster — @Crunch_Ops

Wow, the aliens are dropping faster than Paula Dean sponsors #SyFyDaysaster — @bgardnersboat

Congrats, #Snarkalecs! Y’all had a lot of balls tonight. Now I have to fly away. #SyFyDaysaster — @Killer_Skippy

Tonight, the #snarkalecs made this goatsucker proud! #SyFyDaysaster — @HappyChupacabra

Flame-haired one is all excited because she made something trend in some place called Dallas. Meh. #SyFyDaysaster — @Doc_Bowman

Clint Eastwood’s Chair

Posted on September 1, 2012 by necromoonyeti

Politics constitute an indomitable itch for those of us inclined to discuss them. This is not a post about politics. This is a post about Clint Eastwood’s chair.

Clint Eastwood’s chair was first made known to me at about 3:30 this afternoon. I know, I’m behind the times. At my ripe old age of 27 it’s hard to keep up with the world. But I made that perilous journey to youtube, and with, I am proud to say, no great difficulty, I procured a mouse cursor in a blank textbox, from whence my journey began.

Arriving at my destination, and bearing witness the public oration there displayed, I found myself not at all befuddled or amused by an old man’s rant. Quite the contrary, I thought it a reasonably clever comedy sketch in consideration of his age, chuckled at his tongue-in-cheek endorsement (which amounted to little more than a ‘lesser of two evils’ vote), and felt inclined to comment on his behalf. Then my troubles set in.

I was caught off guard. The text below the video bombarded me like an artillery barrage, every 10 seconds a new string of demented rambling surpassing all of my direst expectations for the video at hand:

“LOL do you just make shit up? California well off? LOL just keep making shit up your boy will gone in November.” (kEMCO2)

“YOU’RE PROBABLY A LOSER SITTING IN YOUR MOTHER’S BASEMENT WATCHING FADING POSTERS OF OBAMA WAITING FOR YOUR NEXT WELFARE CHECK.” (Chloe Smith)

“You’re an idiot. You’re going to get old to you moron. Old age has nothing to do with dementia. People become deranged at 35, look at your hero Obama, he is as stupid as they get.” (DonDraperism)

“Ask the ones that OUR military freed and saved! Your a pansy and have no clue! Your part of the reason we’re in the shape we are!” (bessedchevy20)

“LOL. congratz u have been brainwashed” (bobilo95)

And I realized something.

I realized something terrible.

My internet was gone.

It was gone. It was dead. The shroud tailor measured it for a deep six holiday.

I didn’t believe it at first. I panicked, frantically hammering out search terms into Google, but no relief was in sight. I turned to Gogloom, dear old friend, but its springs too had run dry; IRC, my last vestige of hope, failed me.

And I thought maybe, just maybe, this tragic loss and the verbal assault upon Clint Eastwood’s chair were somehow related.

I was born and raised on the internet. I remember when we first got dial-up in 1996. I passed the tender age of 11 sharing insightful comments much akin to those I experienced today, only geared to my youthful interests. “LOL u dont even know ff3 is rly ff6 and u wasted $200 on a PSX even tho ff7s gonna suck NINTENDO FOR LIFE” Ah, such fond memories. A prodigy no doubt, I learned quickly to curb my intellectual idioms to placate the masses, adapting to the drudgery of coherent English in my teenage years and beyond. Was it some cruel twist of fate that now finds me linguistically isolated from the very internet users for whom I learned to converse? All I wanted to do was talk about Clint Eastwood’s chair.

The fact of the matter is the internet no longer functions as an outlet for sharing free thought. Oh, I am “sharing” my thoughts here, with the four or five of you who happen to read this, but should you choose to respond you will do so in the form of a comment, in reply to my post which I moderate. I am in charge here, and that means I am not really intimately engaging with anyone. These WordPress blogs completely lack an equal playing field for discussion, but they’re ideal for sharing one’s opinion with the wind. We’re all special. We all have a voice. Here’s mine.

That’s the state of WordPress. That’s the state of Facebook. That’s the state of Twitter, I suppose. I don’t use the latter two, frankly because the notion of making an isolated personal statement bores me save on rare occasions such as these. I post here because all of my previous outlets have slowly withered away. Are new outlets out there? I suppose there’s 4chan. The launch of /r9k/ encompasses some of my fondest memories of the internet, specifically due to the brief period of intellectual discussion it spawned. Coincidentally coinciding with the launch of Project Chanology, it generated countless debates on the political and social impacts of anonymity and collective thought, perhaps culminating in a collective realization of and expansion upon the notion of Stand Alone Complex (Ghost in the Shell). We were each participants, debating and trolling in turn, in the very social experiment we were conducting. It was a grand culmination of everything I loved about the internet in the 1990s and 2000s, but it was indeed a culmination–an end–because complacency and the totality of its form of anonymity rendered it non-sustainable. I remember acknowledging that at the time, and feeling as though my online world was passing away even as it stood resplendent in its most accomplished form.

And so it did. It took me four years to admit it, but the internet is dead. The pathways and connections through which such experiments as /r9k/ emerged as hubs for collective contemplation (a great majority of us, myself included, were not active 4chan members, and that fact was pivotal to elements of the discussion) dried up into defunct forums and dead irc channels. Our mutual file-sharing ties, the final tether, were severed by delayed but decisive corporate rationality headed by the likes of Apple and Netflix. The generation-spanning cultivation of anonymity was wiped clean and even culturally discredited by Facebook, with present-day internet users lavishly emblazoning their identity upon all electronic activity. The collective internet mind dispersed into relegated pockets. I am now an individual, and I despise that fact.

I wanted to talk about Clint Eastwood’s chair, but I couldn’t. I could tell a few people about it. I’m not really doing so at the moment, but I could. I could also scream at the wall, as so many youtube users of voting age are doing right now. And indeed, they’re relatively anonymous. Chloe Smith and blessedchevy20 will certainly never know that I read their banter, and, though I could probably trace down their thorough identities with easy today, apathy preserves them. But they aren’t engaging anything. Their ‘thoughts’, if what they wrote even amounts to thinking, involved not but petty rebuttals to the most recent of 12,000 comments, by now surely buried behind thousands more. The /r9k/ ideal, of thoughtful engagement under the shroud of total anonymity, was short-lived. Perhaps it carries on in some diminished form. But the long-sustained anonymous community is what we’ve truly lost. The modestly sized forum; the casual irc channel; the self-contained communities where one could engage under independent but locally consistent identities: it’s their loss that we now suffer.

Would so many adults scream at the wall if they had any alternative? In an age where everyone has access to the internet, would we be so simultaneously excitable and yet devoid of well-formed opinions if we had any means of discussion? I can talk here and hope you hear me. I can shout on youtube knowing you won’t. In neither medium am I well positioned to receive an intelligible response by an identity in equal social standing. You’re either on my turf or in the combat zone with barely time to breathe before taking aim. And even if the spirit of youtube calmed down a bit, what can you meaningfully say in 500 characters?

I don’t want to talk about Clint Eastwood’s chair anymore. I was going to say some silly crap about a metaphor for lack of political leadership that would sound corny as hell but would spark up some discussion. But I can’t do that here, because as an editor I’m in charge and that means I have to maintain boundaries. And there’s no point in doing it anywhere else. I guess I’ll just go back to playing Warcraft, maybe discuss the new expertise cap or auction house inflation. In the absence of loosely-moderated discussion boards and public chats those seem to be the approachable topics we have left on the internet.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Green Lantern (dir. by Martin Campbell)

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, earlier tonight, I was sitting in a dark theater watching the latest super hero film, Green Lantern. Now, Green Lantern is getting some terrible reviews right now and having seen it, I can understand why. That said, Green Lantern is not an offensively terrible movie in the way that Priest, The Beaver, or The Conspirator were terrible films. Instead, Green Lantern’s main problem is that it’s just so freaking forgettable. To be honest, I found myself forgetting about it while I was watching it. So, this isn’t going to be an easy review to write.

(This is also why this is a quickie review. I mean, I’ll make some noise for a few minutes and I’ll try to come up with something halfway neat for the end of it but don’t ask me if I really felt anything.)

Since I realized I was forgetting about the movie even as I was watching it, I decided to use social media to help me out. Blatantly ignoring the rules (but that’s why you love me, baby), I spent most of the film texting and tweeting. I’m pretty sure I heard the people sitting behind me whining about it but who cares? I did what I had to do.

Anyway, checking my texts, I find the following conversation:

Text from LMB (that’s me) to ENB (that’s my sister, Erin): Hey bitch where you at?

ENB to LMB: WTF, bitch? I’m sitting next to you in the theater.

LMB to ENB: Hi, Erin! lol. : )

Okay, so that’s not much help but it does tell you just how engaging this film is. I had the choice of either watching Green Lantern or sending text messages to my sister who was sitting right next to me and I chose to send text messages.

I also resorted to posting a few cryptic messages to twitter, with the hope that they would serve to remind me of what I was watching. Here they are:

Tweet #1: About to see Green Lantern. : ) — See, I didn’t start this film out with a bad attitude. I was looking forward to it.

Tweet #2: Old ppl always take forever buying tickets — What’s up with that? I would think they would be in a hurry seeing as how they’ve got less time to see a movie than I do. Just saying.

Tweet #3: We need a super hero named Red Herring — I sent this tweet just 15 minutes into the film but it shows that I had already picked up on the main problem with this film. There’s a lot going on but it all feels like it’s just been spit out by some script-o-matic sitting hidden behind the Hollywood sign. It just doesn’t ever really add up to anything beyond a sinking feeling of been there, done that.

Ryan Reynolds is haunted by flashbacks of his father dying. Why? Because Scriptwriting 101 says that the hero has to have some sort of self-doubt to overcome.

When we first see Ryan Reynolds, he’s lying in bed with a naked blonde. Who is she? What happens to her? Why does Reynolds, at no other point in the film, seem to be the type who would have a one night stand with some anonymous blonde?

Reynolds joins the Green Lantern Corp. when he gets a glowing green ring. All the other members of the Corp. doubt him because he’s human but then they say that the ring never makes a mistake. Okay, so if the ring is incapable of making a mistake and the ring chose Reynolds than why is everyone so convinced that Reynolds can’t cut it as the Green Lantern?

Seriously, it’s as if someone just wrote out a list of plot points and some anonymous script doctor just went down the list, checking off everything as he tossed it into the mix.

Plus, I think Red Herring would be a cool super hero. He could have the power of creating mass distraction and he could be the sidekick of my super heroine alter ego, Lady Verbose.

Tweet #4: Lol, cockpit is a funny word — I believe the exact line that inspired this tweet was something like: “And I still get into a cockpit occasionally.” It just made me laugh because cockpit is a funny word, largely because it’s a combination of cock and pit. Anyway, that is honestly the only line of dialogue that I actually remember from the film. As action and comic book movies tend to live and die on the basis of the quotable one-liner, that’s not a good sign.

Tweet #5: Green Lantern kinda bleh but Ryan Reynolds is mancandy — And you know what? He is. Green Lantern may have been forgettable but Ryan Reynolds made a likable hero and he brought some much-needed humor to the role. To be honest, as I look back at the various Green super hero movies, I can’t help but wonder how much better Green Hornet would have been if it had starred Ryan Reynolds as opposed to Seth Rogen. (I love you, Seth, but the super hero thing just isn’t for you.)

Also, Peter Sarsgaard did a pretty good job playing a surprisingly sympathetic villain. Both he and Reynolds deserved a better film.

Other than Sarsgaard and Reynolds, the cast was pretty forgettable but then again, it’s not like they really had much to work with. I have to be honest, though, that I am now officially bored with Tim Robbins. He shows up here playing yet another insensitive rich white guy. As usual, you don’t really buy him as the character because he’s just too obviously Tim Robbins.

Tweet 6: Lets not go to Camelot. Its a silly place. — I think this was inspired by all the scenes that were set on the home planet of the Green Lantern Corps. (That’s the group that Reynolds becomes a member of.) These scenes were obviously meant to inspire awe but they just felt silly. In the film’s defense, some of the special effects — particularly the evil entity known as Parallax — are impressive but, for almost every impressive special effect, there was another that just fell flat (which is never a good thing for a 3-D film).

Tweet #7: Sinestro is a silly name. — Sinestro, played by Mark Strong, is the leader of the Green Lantern Corp. And Sinestro is a really silly name.

Tweet #8: Why not just call him Eviltro? — Well, why not?