(Context: written 2019/08/08 between 07:30 and 08:30 UTC. Publishing now because…reasons, I guess.)
GaG recently informed me I’m here 2 years. Well, it definitely feels longer. But that says more about how I perceive time flow than GaG. I have joined because I saw the app on Google Play.
It seemed interesting enough, to myself getting ready to sleep. I tried to set up account, bet the password verification kept failing. It said that password must be longer than 5 chars. Cool, but I have about 20 of them there. That evening/night I’ve decided to just “fuck this” and went to sleep.
Next day, I tried to do it from desktop. I find helpful to have full physical keyboard, desktop OS, 2 monitors, super simple ability to copy and paste text together with the ability to see text editor and browser at the same time. I don't know, seems basic to me, but phones? Nope. And why do I need that, you might ask? Password generation process. I still had some long ones and GaG was still telling me that it’s shorter than 5 chars. So…I tried that (like 4 char password) even though I knew the problem is not in length. The problem is in special chars, like “*” or “+”. To my knowledge, SMS (at least in my country) still cannot take “+” char. :-D This is just absurd. I was thinking something like “well, this stupid site cannot take special chars, will not explicitly tell you, which are the forbidden ones, and the error message which you’ll get is just ‘one size fits all’. Why do I even bother to get in?”. <sarcasm>Surprisingly enough,</sarcasm> it turns out I was right. You see, I'm an IT guy. I like coding. I don’t like this kind of interaction with user. It’s lazy and frustrating. But! I got in. So here I am.
Idea of this site is pretty good, actually. The execution is…less stellar. But still reasonably good. Now, I’m not gonna talk about technical issues, but more social. By that I mean simple thing. The ratio between guys and girls. In the comment section. And instead of me giving you bunch of numbers, just wheel-click on GaG logo. And see how many pink and blue comments there are for articles on the main page. If you’re on your phone, then I cannot help you. :-D
You’ll see the blue number being larger than the pink. In majority of the cases. Sometimes just no pink (not absent, just 0). An blue…big. I currently see only 1 article, where this is not true (as of this time, obviously). It’s this one: What are some things you hate about yourself/things you wish you could change? . But right next to it is some 22/111. Wow. Guys. Do you really think that anyone will read your comment? The 111. Guy. Really. Why bother commenting? Nobody will read it. Ever. Most likely.
<sidetrack>
You see, this is why I have this unwritten rule. Don’t comment where a lot of people commented. OP will probably not read it, you’ll not get any answer or interesting conversation. So what will happen is you’ll spend time and effort to write comment (however small amount is still not 0) and…that’s it. Nothing out of it. Nobody reading it. Nobody reacting. Why bother then? If you must, at least keep in mind you doing it in vain. But as I said. This is “my rule”. If someone comments where are 1000s of comments…not my problem. I just don’t see why.
</sidetrack>
So your average comment section is about 3 guys to 1 girl. Now, let’s talk about feminism and equality, shall we? <sarcasm>Because that is definitely not controversial topic at all.</sarcasm> You girls want equality. OK. But why is that, that article “Would you move to Mars?“ has 0 pink and 14 (now) blue comments? Girls? Opinions? Like…why not? No, seriously, why no girl commented on this? It's a simple question, really. This is not the only case though. Just the one I see now. Another, “Brian Banks Movie?” OK, it’s 0/3, and I personally couldn’t care less, but still. And third time the charm. “How strong can women NATURALLY get, by lifting weights?” You’d think it’s for women, but 1 pink, 19 blue. I mean… :-D
And this is my impression, not just from this site, but from many more. Guys, just shtiloads of guys everywhere. And girls… Just rarity. And to be honest, I’m tired of never ending sausage fest. What about you, girls? And I don’t have to ask guys, because I know they’ll just tell me. I kind of like this attitude, so girls, could you…you know…be more like that as well?
You see, I don’t complain that guys comment too much. I “complain” (if you want to call it that, I’d say that I’m just pointing it out) about girls just being…passive. I encourage you to…you know…comment on shit on the internet. Why not?
Cherry on top are those posts, from girls to other girls about girly things, where you have more blue comments. :-D I mean… It’s just funny.
Did I ever tell you how much I dislike stock photos? Yeah, no, I really do. Why? This site. No, seriously. And only in the last monts. Before that I just seriously disliked stock footage of “hackers” or “IT people” or “researcher”. Yeah, because when you hack, you must be in a dark room, wearing a hoodie, and green text si projecting to your face. :-D I know, I know, it’s because I'm an IT guy and all that, but c’mon. We can do better than that.
But! Why do I write this? GaG. I know you’re not listening, so I’m doing this in vain, but: please, just…stop. Stop the onslaught of stock photos. Stop forcing them everywhere. I, myself, had to put some here, so this gets even published.
That’s all. Well, not really, but for this article anyway. There is much more where this comes from. If you’re interested (and show it in numbers in the comment section) there just might be another part. If not, trust me, I get it.
Thanks for reading and have nice part of the day, which you’re currently in. :-)
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