Part the Dozen
Over this spring, I took a photography class at the local college. Now, I don't know about you, but I like to keep the internet very seperate from my personal life like how hyper-Christain parents keep their children from death metal. Much to my horror, I discovered three people in my class that actively browsed Reddit, a site the is the internet equivalent of a swarm of mosquitos: massive, but made up of small, insignificant, and annoying individuals where if you are unlucky enough to get stuck in the middle of, you'd be annoyed and irritated to the point of almost traumatization. And I'm pretty sure you'd probably get malaria, too.
In General Chatter, I made almost journal-like entries of my time in the class with two of the most irritating people I've met in real life. Because I'm too civilized to outright punch them in the face, I'll settle for the next best thing: making fun of them anonomously on the internet.
Week 1(also I forgot what specific days I posted these so I'm just going to set them all at one week intervels)
Dear diary, I was walking aroung campas today when I noticed a person sitting alone in the designated smoking area. I couldn't believe it, but he was actually picking his nose. When he noticed me staring at him, he started yelling at me. Speaking of irritating immature people in college, I had to do a "
Flat Stanly" project for the first assignment in a college photography class with three of the most annoying people. Normally first graders do this "Flat Stanly" thing by cutting out some paper drawing, sending it to a relative, and then the relatives take a picture and send it back. Our assignment was to cut out Flat Stanly and take a picture of him in an "interesting situation". Here's mine.

Well anyways, then in comes these three guys. They try to speak in memes at any opportunity, which is annoying on the internet, but in
real life? They do it even when it doesn't have any relevance (imagine the professor in the middle of a lecture and one of them yelling "COOL STORY BRO" when he starts to demonstrate Photoshop image correcting). For their Flat Stanly project, they copied and pasted some stupid Reddit rage face onto Flat Stanly. The one with the red text going "LOOOL" or something.
All three of them got an F on the project. I overheard them passing the F off as the professor not understanding the meme or what a meme is. But actually there were three major factors in them getting an F: 1) The shot was WAY out of focus; 2) They took a picture of the Flat Stanly against a plain white wall, defeating the entire purpose of the project; and most importantly, 3) Doing the assignment as a group project and turning it in with multiple people credited was an instant F.
Week 2
Hello diary. In my photography class today, our project was due the very day it was assigned. The professor didn't have any work for us planned because we were (mostly) all ahead on our current assignment. So he gave us us a filler assignment: we had to take a picture of "texture". That is to say he gave us a couple of hours to explore the campus or drive to a spot and take a close-up picture of an object with really neat texture. I took a picture of some frozen water, which turned out well. That's not the point of this entry, though.
The three Redditors I mentioned before? They spent every hour we had for the project in the lab. Browsing that awful website, "Know Your Meme". You know, the one that does nothing but list awful Reddit memes or things from as far back as 2007. It just got me thinking, WHY would you SPEND MONEY on a college class to BROWSE THE INTERNET AND DO NOTHING? And that doesn't even compare to a conversation I overhead one of them had with a woman right as the class was over. I'd tell you the story if I wasn't still processing the sheer stupidity of it in my mind.
Week 2 Addendum
Okay, I've taken about seven aspirin, so I'm ready to tell you what happened. One of the Redditors had a purse (not a bookbag, a flat-out PURSE) with My Little Pony characters on it during the texture assignment. A younger woman was working next to him on the computer when she noticed his girly container. She asked him "What's with the purse?" and he explained it was from My Little Pony. She asked "Did you trade your backpack with your sister?" and he responded, rather condescendingly, saying that he didn't have a sister and that My Little Pony was a "trademark" of animation and that he shouldn't be ashamed to watch it, even though she said NOTHING about the show. Note that he honestly said, word-for-word, that My Little Pony was "a trademark in animation". The woman scoffed and said "I can't tell if you're serious". He retorted with,
"I can't tell if YOU'RE serious". To which she responded with,
"You're a tard" and he said the most embarrassing thing I've ever overheard somebody say in public. I'm fairly certain that phrase was from My Little Pony, because I nor the woman could, for the life of us, make sense of it. His comeback?
"You only make my cutie mark stronger!"
After that, I just got up and walked to the bathroom to scrub the filth off of my body. I assumed the woman walked away from the conversation too, because she was on the other side of the room from him when I came back.
Week 3
Hey there, diary. For my photography class, we were given the old classic: still life, as an assignment tomorrow. Since we had to bring the objects ourselves at the next class day, the rest of class was working on our other assignment, which was realistically replicating and adding water through Photoshop. Pretty neat.
Oh, but an entry about my class isn't complete without the Redditor dorks. One of them finally dropped out, so there's only two left. For the lecture today, our professor was describing abstract angles for our next assignment. In the middle of the lecture, the professor asks "What is the main appeal of abstract angles?" and one of them yells "THE EPICNESS", with the other one busts up laughing immediatly afterwards while the entire class sits silent. Then for the rest of the lecture, I could hear them "whispering" the words "the epicness" and what the professor asked between the two of them while giggling.
When it came time to continue the Photoshop assignment, the "YOU ONLY MAKE MY CUTIE MARK STRONGER" guy starts playing a nyan cat Flash game. The other one notices, and so he goes to a nyan cat website and plays that atrocious song for literally half an hour while constantly adjusting the volume. Some guy comes over and asks him to stop, so he doesn't...It took the same guy coming over and telling him to stop for a second time. But only in exchange for both of them humming and singing it to themselves for the rest of the class.
Week 4
Okay diary, so here's what happened THIS TIME.
Our assignment for the day was still life. We were supposed to bring in a couple of objects, large and small, that represents our personality the most. I brought in some of my ceramic things I made a while back. The YOU STRONG CUTIE ONLY MAKER guy didn't do anything. His meme-spouting friend brought in...a bunch of anime books and some colored pencils. "Anime" as in like Bleach or some guy with white hair and dog ears or something. He also brought in a blue notebook with two anthropomorphic and very masculine lions learning head to head with the words "I love you more than life itself" on it. "On it" as in he taped a piece of paper with the picture printed out in black and white on the notebook.
I'm going to leave that one alone.
Anyways, the point of the assignment was to get abstract angles while still being able to see what the objects are. One girl brought in an amp and a guitar and took a picture of the guitar leaning on the amp, with the stock of the guitar slowing fading out of focus upwards. It turned out pretty great. Because I've been doing pretty good with abstract angles, the professor assigned me to help the other students. The meme guy dumped all of his junk onto the backdrop, and organized it. Which I guess looked neat. "Neat" as in "orderly", not "abstract" or "cool". So I come over to him and suggested "Try messing it up a bit. It'll give it a lot of character and look pretty cool. Maybe experiment with weird angles a little". He responds with "Don't tell me what to do, bro," ignores what I says and, right in front of me, takes one photo without changing anything, packs up, turns it in, and plays the nyan cat game with the sound slightly on for the rest of the day.
This class is fun, don't get me wrong. But if it wasn't, I would just have dropped out because of two.
Week 5
Today the STRONGIE CUTER MAKE guy was the only one who showed up. Usually this was good, since nobody talks to him except for his annoying friend. Except today he installed Amnesia: The Dark Decent, a survival horror game, on the computer. First he asked if he could turn off the lights to the professor, whom of which couldn't figure out why and just walked away. When the professor left us to do our work (it's an independent class), the MAKIE STRONG CUTER guy began playing the game and started screaming (not "AAAAAHHHH" but a quick and loud "AHH!") whenever something "scary" (a door closed, a chair tipped over, a rather threatening puzzle appears) happened. Eventually he encountered and got attacked by Mr. Flappy Jaw and turned off the monitor out of fear.
I can't believe these kind of people exist.
Week 67
What's the word, diary? Our assignment this week was "Odd Man Out", where we had to have a group of something (a group being two or more), and we had to Photoshop and object that clearly doesn't belong. I don't have the finished one, but here's the one I already uploaded. It's still got a few wrinkles I can iron out.

I did pretty well on the completely one. I got an A+ (usually when you complete the assignment in its entirety correctly, you just get an A; you get an A+ for going above and beyond).
As for the Redditors, all that's left is the CUTEY MARK STRONGER guy, because the other one died after going three days without water while browsing Reddit or something. I don't really care enough to find out where he went. But anyways, the only one that's left actually did the project. Amazing, I know. His picture was a Reddit rage comic. Putrid little things, aren't they? Funny thing is, he did exactly what I predicted he would do right as this project was assigned. What I couldn't fathom a guess on was how he could make an "odd man" for it.
What he did was he got that exceptionally stupid rage comic with the guy eating cereal and talking to a guy holding a news paper. The last frame is a real-life picture of him spitting out cereal. He "Photoshopped" the picture of him spitting cereal onto the comic along with the "punchline" speech bubble underneath him. Also there was a ton of unnecessary swearing in every single frame.
For ever assignment, the professor critiques our work and offers suggestions or improvements. It's pretty neat, because it's always nice to get recognized for your work as well as being criticized, for better or worse. But I'm probably just going to skip the day where our professor reviews our work for this project in front of the class. The last thing I want to see is a confused professor reviewing a meme while a complete idiot tries to justify it.
Week 68
Hey diary. America declared war on Russia...it's the last thing our country needed, really. But I'm sure we'll be fine. Anyhow, I got some of the friends I made in my photography class on my Facebook page (I know, I know). I managed to find the two Redditors through suggested friends. The CUTEY MARK IS STRONGER guy is in like five My Little Pony groups or likes or whatever they're called, and the other one that dropped out has their description stating "I am an enour-mouse furry. Don't like it? Don't talk to me :3" and that he likes 9gag, which I'm somewhat inclinded to believe is some 4chan thing.
Bleh. Also our assignment for the day was architecture. I managed to snag a shot higher up of some nice snow-covered houses that I might post later. It looks really nice. I'm disappointed that they didn't do it, I was curious whose Cheeto-covered and Mountain Dew-flooded basement they would take a picture of.
Week -12
The CUTEY MARK guy brought his mini-laptop to school today. He took one of the wacom tablets we had in the class and used it...to recolor a Sonic character--the rabbit--black and giving her longer eyelashes.
Note that this guy cannot be younger than 19.
About four different people stopped, stared, frowned, then walked away in the hours he spent recoloring MANUALLY using Adobe Illustrator.
Year 2032
Dear diary, the bombs fell today. We're going to try seeking shelter, but I'm just...I'm not sure of anything anymore. Oh, and also today the ONLY MAKE CUTE STRONGIES guy started out quiet. I thought he was going to be silent for once. Then half an hour in he goes "WHY IS KNOWYOURMEME.COM DOWN!?" as if anybody was masochistic enough to talk to him, let alone care. And I'm not exaggerating with all those caps there. He literally YELLED in the middle of class.
After several attempts of trying to connect to the website, he starts pounding the desk like a child. Not like a weak little pound, I mean he put his fists into a ball and hit the table with enough force to make every computer two seats away from him shake. And he did this repeatedly for about thirty seconds until I glared at him. But still went "URGH, AUGH, GRRNGH" like he was giving birth to a baby made out of broken glass.
He finally gave up and started playing Amnesia. I guess he got over the game's scariness, because now he wasn't screaming anymore. However, in the middle of the game I heard him say to himself "This is Sparta!" although I don't know what sort of context the game would provide to justify saying that. Even just to yourself.
Eventually he got bored and started whistling. Poorly. I think he was trying to whistle the opening to William Tell, but he was horrible at changing pitches and just whistling in general, so it was a sputtering high pitched whistle that only matched the beats.
At the end of the day, the professor assigned us to make a portfolio using a white binder. We had to add our names and optional decorations to the front, back and spine. Inside the portfolio is our current work and any work we'll do afterward. I just put my name in the spine, a solid red piece of paper in the back, and this.

Purdy, innit? Amazingly, Mr. CUTEY STRONG MAKE MARKERS actually did the assignment. Go ahead and guess what his portfolio looked like. No, really. Go and guess, and try to get the specifics if you're feeling extra-psychic.
A My Little Pony character on the was on the front of the portfolio, the bottom and top saying "<HIS NAME>'S PORTFOLIO" reading like those Advice Dog knock-offs. The rage face reading "Forever Alone" on the back. Nothing on the spine.Why won't he just accept the F preemptively and leave?
Week 10
You know what I needed today? That same exact CUTIE MARKIE SRONGIE MAKIE guy singing Disney songs all day, starting with "Make a Man Out Of You" and ending with "Beauty and the Beast". Not even the whole song, too. Just parts of it over and over. He finally ended, but not without him asking me "Do you not like me?"
I just sighed and pretended I didn't hear him. I hope we don't get stuck in the same bomb shelter.
Century 11
Hello diary. I finally found purified water. None of this irradiated kind. We'll be able to live through the night, if we aren't attacked by the mutated animals...We might make it. Oh, and also one of the Redditor dorks in my class that dropped out sent me a friend request over Facebook. I added him. Don't be surprised, I still I denied the request as hard as I could later, but I checked out his page first. His profile picture is him crouching while wearing black cat ears and paws while bizarrely looking as serious-faced as possible. The other pictures he had uploaded are him with the same outfit but posing differently, each with a stone-cold, straight face, although he did have one "unique" picture, which was him with a circular cut designed on the back of his hand. His description stated he loved 9gag.
Oh, and his description also had a link to his Deviant art page. Out of morbid curiosity, I clicked it. The earlier entries on his profile were, I am not joking, Sonic the Hedgehog recolors, mostly of Tails but more feminine and painted black. The later ones are of scantily-clad and very masculine drawings of lion men, most of which were black, with
very prominent bulges. A majority of which were colored in marker. The rest were thankfully censored by Deviant Art.
If it's any reassurance to myself, it's that I now know for a fact that he's unemployed and lives with his parents, and isn't pursuing a career or taking any college classes, so he was definitely low on the priority list for the shelters.
But still, bleh.
Three days later
Horrible news, diary. The CUTER STRONGER AND MARKER, along with the other Redditor dork, are still alive. Even worse, they're in the same shelter. The Redditor dork also decided to come back to the photography class. My annoyance is going to double over the next few weeks. Thankfully I managed to talk to the professor into letting me work in the library. So I was saved another cranial aneurysm. However, those two managed to sandwich my moment of peacefulness with an insanely stupid thing at the start of the class, and an insanely stupid thing at the end. When the day started I was walking to the door, he starts nearly sprinting towards the room and bumped into me. Because I'm practically twice his size, he winds up stumbling and trips into a table. He quickly stands up, raises his hands in the air, and yells "FIRST!" while the CUTEY MARK IS STRONGER guy starts laughing. At the end of the class, I came back to turn in an assignment, and I noticed his shirt. I didn't read it at first because I thought it was some "witty" hot topic saying or something. However, I caught a glimpse of it and I got a chance to read it. Go ahead and guess what it said.
"If there's pockey, cosplay or yaoi involve, I'm in!"My brain is imploding on itselksijknsio; wijesok
gwse3qwedz
gsde4ww we4ry6uh
Dear diary, sjnfcviksniun3 ws3orfnl.okdcx. On a side note, the two Redditor guys were acting especially spastic today. One of them starting flapping his hands while the other one kept on clapping slowly yet loudly, then the two went on with spending the rest of the day seeing which My Little Pony horse they were most like, after discussing why Aquaman is a bad superhero and asking each other if Diablo III will be like Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.
Finale
Well diary, today was the final day for my photography class. The last assignment we had was burning our images onto a CD, and making a label and cover for the disk and container. I did pretty good with mine, I took a texture of a rock and added some effects to make it look like there were glowing indents on the rock. It's kind of hard to explain, but it turned out really well.
Naturally, the Redditor dork and CUTIE MARK STRONGER guy found it necessary to top their past stupidities. They didn't do the project at all, naturally. For the first hour of class, they played Happy Wheels while constantly yelling (and
I do mean yelling) "TIMMY" (from South Park).
For the next hour, they "worked" on a comic. Amazingly, it wasn't a rage comic. Nope, they stole from that awful webcomic Cyanide and Happiness instead, copying the "style" of the webcomic via tracing one character using Adobe Illustrator, then copying and pasting the picture about 12 times. The Redditor dork called me over and asked me how to change the fill color of an object. Since it was the last day, I told him I wasn't going to help him. When he asked why, I said "You two have been complete children the entire semester, and the professor might as well be your mother seeing how much he needs to remind you to stop being annoying." The woman sitting across from them started laughing, and the man next to her clapped his hands, pointed at me, and said "Thank you!" So that shut him up and I walked away.
Apparently his comic's punchline was stolen from some really lame Reddit joke where there's a patient and a doctor, and the doctor says "Knock knock", the patient says
"Who's there?",
"Interrupting doctor."
"Interrupting doctor who--"
"You have cancer."
I assumed this because they repeated the joke literally about ten times while they were making it, and one of them pointed out the AMAZING OBSERVATION that the joke wasn't entirely original. About half an hour after I told them off, they started listening to the audio diarrhea that is dubstep, then tried using the Google doodle (which was a synth piano you could play by clicking on it) to play along with the song. Both the original song and their version were to music what a lion is to a deer--a natural killer.
Finally, the class ended. The professor stood by the door and shook hands with everyone on the way out. While we shook hands, I told him I really enjoyed his class, and he said I was a creative worker, and that I was "a teacher's dream student". Because the MARKIE STRONG CUTER guy was behind me and overheard him, he had to walk up and ask "What about me?" The professor gave a painfully obvious fake smile and said "You're a very unique student," and shook his hand. While I was standing outside, I was texting a friend of mine when I noticed the Redditor's dork shirt. Go on, try to guess what it said this time. Highlight the black box below to see the answer.
"You think all furries are flammable? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED"Yep, there goes my brain cells. As much as I enjoyed the class and the assignments I was given, these two completely destroyed most of the enjoyment. The radiation should be clearing tomorrow, so we're going to try leaving the shelter. I'll write another entry if everything goes okay...
And then everybody died.
THE END
Date of Memorial of Morons addition:
5/26/12