On Things That Should Stop, Vol. 1

Right after college, I started my first media-based website, Big K Media, for my friends and I to publish blogs, podcasts, and photographs. I was so good at managing the site that, about a year after starting the site, I somehow lost the entire thing. I tried moving it from one URL to another, and in the process every post ever created vanished into the ether. Naturally, the Internet was devastated – all four people who knew I had a website, at least.

One of the recurring segments I had on my own blog on the site was “Things That Should Stop.” It was an easy way for me to bitch and moan about a particular topic quickly. I’d mostly forgotten I had that bit until today, when my girlfriend brought up something that I’ve rolled my eyes at several times in the past.

I’m not talking about anything grand – listen, we know Donald Trump and white supremacists and rapists and McDonalds are all out to destroy the world and all that shit. I’m here in the nooks and crannies of society, taking down the insidious enemies that trip you up daily. People like…

Amazon Customers Who Replies to Questions They Have No Answer To

Let’s say you’re on Amazon – and by the way, if you’re morally and vocally opposed to Wal-Mart but order from Amazon on the reg, you’re part of the problem – and you’re looking at a new waffle iron. You want to know if you can adjust the temperature on the waffle iron. Lo and behold, someone else has asked the same question in the “Customer Question and Answer” section of the item’s page. And even better, someone has already answered! Wonderful! The consumer community comes together once again to better inform their fellow waffle sous chef!

Question:

Is there a temperature dial on the waffle iron?

Answer:

i don’t know. i haven’t bought this, I have an old one that’s pretty good though.
By joe assface on December 11, 2015

Welp, that’s it. You have no choice but to determine the IP address associated with the user and pinpoint the location associated with it so you can find and murder Joe Assface.

What this exchange means is that someone on the Internet was looking for waffle irons, or randomly happened upon the page for this particular waffle iron during their routine search for…I dunno…Mystery Men? They determined they don’t own this product, nor do they want the product (since they already own a different one that’s “pretty good”). And yet, they still went to the question and answer section, found a question about the product, and decided, “Let me lend my expertise to this situation and help this stranger out by not helping them at all!”

I would like to think that these people are trolls, but frankly, trolls have done such great work onAmazon that this seems beyond them. No, I am convinced these are legitimate people who respond to questions about products by saying they wouldn’t know because “it was a gift to someone” or “I’m not sure what you mean by this.” It’s quite possible that these people aren’t aware that billions of people use the Internet, and chances are that if you, Joan Whateverthehell, don’t know whether you can use this particular cast iron skillet as a makeshift Dutch oven, that one of those other people just might.

These are the people who think every message, question or declarative statement is being directed towards them, people who hear commercials for razors that start with “Men, we all appreciate a good shave” and immediately shout, “EXCUSE ME, BUT AS SOMEONE WITH ALOPECIA AREATA, I CANNOT RELATE TO THIS ADVERTISEMENT AND AM CONFUSED AND ENRAGED BY IT.”

Actually, that seems like too much of a sweeping judgment to make about these responders, and one that I don’t know if I’m qualified to make. I am so legitimately baffled by this behavior that I can’t say that it’s a particular type of person besides “sociopath.” But in a world full of Trumps and terrorists and the like, it’s almost more concerning to know that poor, innocent shoppers who just want to know how sturdy a fishing pole is will send their question into the abyss or the Internet and receive only a lonely answer in return: “I don’t really like fishing, so I couldn’t tell you.”