Everything is Overrated

Violent Acres is a fairly popular online blog (it even has its own Wikipedia entry) by someone who claims to be a “woman in her 30’s”. Unfortunately for her, “her” blog is extremely overrated.

Violent Acres - EXTREMELY OVERRATED

Violent Acres has some good things going for it:

1) It has a cool title that sounds sort of like a fighting game (underrated) set in the suburbs.

2) It has a cool logo that’s the shadow of a woman with a big question mark in the center.

3) “She’s” collecting money for a charity that sounds good.

Unfortunately there are no other good things, and there are a lot more reasons why “her” blog is overrated.

1) “She” is constantly really negative. This actually isn’t too bad I guess, since negativity is kind of underrated (and sort of the basis of this site).

2) “Her” posts are REALLY long and boring. I could only read a few of them, and I was skipping almost every other sentence.

3) “Her” posts don’t really have any pictures (underrated), which usually make long posts easier to read.

4) “She” attacks people who can’t really defend themselves, or makes fun of other people’s children (like Dooce’s) in really mean-spirited ways that aren’t even funny.

5) (this is the worst) “She” thinks it makes her site “edgy” to take neutral phrases and add the word “bitch”. Examples: “[Subscribe to my] RSS, BITCH!”. “She” also says “fuck” all the time in “her” posts, which is what people do when they want to make sentences stronger without actually coming up with a real reason to attack something.

Also, as you may have guessed, I have put “she” in quotation marks for a reason. I am fairly convinced “she” is a dude, based on her ridiculous tone, constant attempts to remind us she’s female, and ridiculous posts that sound like they were written by a guy pretending to be a girl (like this absurd post).

Violent Acres is overrated and very possibly written by a dude. Either way, it’s pointlessly mean and boring.

Wesleyan University - MODERATELY OVERRATED

“Proud to be 5th 7th tied (with Grinnell, Vassar, and Claremont McKenna) for 11th in USNews!”

Wesleyan is moderately overrated, and even worse, it is sort of dishonest. Overall, it basically sucks.

1) It’s not actually a university. It’s really a “liberal arts college,” which sets off two red flags (liberal and arts) right away. Liberal arts colleges are sort of like Kumon or Sylvan Learning Center, except they cost 200 times as much and don’t actually teach anything of value.

2) Wesleyan is located in Middletown, Connecticut, which is one of the most depressing towns in the northeast.

3) Instead of having real dorms, half of the students at Wesleyan live in crappy houses that no one takes care of.

And, worst of all…

4) Wesleyan is the NYU of liberal arts colleges. It’s liberal and filled with annoying kids from New York and (even worse) Los Angeles, and is prestigious for unknown reasons.

On the positive side, Wesleyan is slightly prestigious and counts among its alumni Bobbito Garcia (the annoying announcer from NBA Street Vol. 2), one of the Wayans siblings, and a bunch of people that Wikipedia calls famous but I’ve never heard of. Here’s to you, Wesleyan!

There is a phrase that never fails to annoy me- “THE BEST SHOW ON TV”. Whether it’s Battlestar Galactica or The Wire or some other less worthy show, just hearing that phrase almost invariably means there is overrating going on.

Both of these shows are fairly awesome, I guess, but telling me that it’s “THE BEST SHOW ON TV” means one of two things:

1) You are telling me that the shows I currently watch and enjoy, like National Bingo Night, that show with the dude who lives forever, and the game show where you watch other people do crosswords, are inferior, which I take as a personal insult.

2) You are the type of person who speaks in hyperbole, and thus I will discount everything you say in the future.

Either way, you are lame.

eBay - FAIRLY OVERRATED

I like eBay, usually. The selection is amazing (duh), and people will buy anything, including (but not limited to) an old 8-track of the Grease soundtrack (I totally found it in the basement, really). eBay, however, is fairly overrated. Why?

1) Other bidders are stupid. I learned this when I tried to buy a $25 Amazon.com gift card and I lost to a guy who bid $25.16.

2) People charge insane amounts for shipping small items and get away with it. $6.99 to ship a DVD? Makes no sense.

3) Unlike Google and Amazon (two internet companies that are probably fairly rated), eBay is constantly doing stuff that pisses people off, probably because they don’t really seem to listen to their users.

eBay is overrated (but does not suck).

The New Yorker - EXTREMELY OVERRATED

“I’m better than you”

The New Yorker is ridiculously overrated. There are several reasons:

1) 80% of the magazine is unreadable crap like short stories that make no sense and poetry (OVERRATED).

2) Annoying people (like NYU students) are constantly reading it on the train (underrated) and in Starbucks (overrated). Unless they secretly have a cool magazine (like Zillions, which ruled) under it, they are lame.

3) The cartoons (the worst part) really make no sense and make you angry that you can’t understand them. I entered a caption in their contest once, but they didn’t publish it.

If you want news, read the Times. If you want good commentary, read The Atlantic or Harpers (for god’s sake, don’t read blogs). If you want cartoons, you are lame. Cartoons are for dorks.