Have you ever been seated at a drug store soda fountain, only to be stared at, approached, and accosted by a Hollywood agent? OMG! Me too!
Not really.
And although I’m no supermodel and although I’m firmly entrenched in middle age, I somehow feel perfectly entitled to engage in what the skinny youth are doing these days. And these days, it’s participating in the latest nail fashion trends that shall remain nameless because I don’t know what it’s called, but what you do is paint your nails and then apply glitter polish to one nail. Like this:
I know. I have man hands. Or man knuckles. Or something. You’re probably thinking this picture comes straight out of Drag Queen Cosmo Couture magazine. To which I would reply, “Oh really? Do you subscribe? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” (and that’s TWO Seinfeld references for you, Meleah.)
Anyway, I was wondering if you’d do me a favor. If you or someone you know is a teenager, would you ask them if I’m totally violating some fashion protocol by pointlessly clinging to the shreds of my youth? I mean, it’s not like I’m so with it that I did it right away. I feel that I, like any true age-appropriately-late-to-the-party dork, I am behind this trend by at least 6 months.
With my luck, it’s a dying fad already, because I’ve only witnessed two others doing this. And when I find people staring at my hands, trying to figure out what’s wrong with them, I have to point out that, yes, it’s not a bruise.
They are clearly not aware of this tray sheek act.
I’m disappointed that people aren’t nearly as effusive about it as I am. I feel I have to convince them that it’s the latest thing and they just look at me as if I have an Octopus on my head and are afraid to tell me that I have an Octopus on my head because it might hurt my feelings. Maybe I’m doing it on the wrong finger (that’s what she said - sorry).
What I mean is, the one almost-adult I saw doing this had the glitter on her middle finger. But I was told you were supposed to do it on your ring finger. Maybe I’ve been duped. Maybe only Cool Kid Club members got the secret newsletter that said:
Always, always, ALWAYS put the glitter on your middle finger.
Only drag queens glitter up their ring finger.
And there’s probably some name for THAT too. Like, “Man Digit Sparkles”, or something like that.
That’s right. Now I’m a member of the Man Digit Sparklerati. Nice. At least if I hang around the right soda fountains, somebody will think I’m a living nail fashion trendsetter. Of course, they’ll look at my face and say, “But you look like a girl.” Of course, when you’re a hand model, it doesn’t matter what your face looks like, so at least I’ll have that.
By the way, if I ever have an Octopus on my head, would you please let me know instead of letting me walk around in public flaunting a sea creature wig?
And Another Thing: The Giveaway Winner
Congratulations to Paula over at How to Become a Cat Lady Without the Cats who won the Hallmark Giveaway held last week - yay!
Bloggers Who Buy Twitter Followers Run Scared After Doping Raid
TWITTERVILLE, WWW - The latest wave of blog raids conducted by BADA (The Blogosphere Anti-Doping Agency) has left some bloggers shaking in their sponsored designer boots. Ever since the doping scandal that broke last week, bloggers everywhere are getting exposed and disqualified for purchasing Twitter followers, Facebook likes, and blog comments in order to raise their digital reputation and therefore be seen as popular by brands and PR companies.
Snuff and stuff, indeed. When Outman pressed the blogger to elaborate on what kind of free stuff she gets, she blubbered a long list of items that included free trips to Disney Iceland, a Gucci apron, and “this really pretty glitter nail polish”.
So, are bloggers really employing unethical performance enhancing methods, gaming the system, just to keep up?
Another busted blogger who wished to remain anonymous (but whose name is Bartholomew Greenblatt and blogs for I Heart Baseball) stated, “The question isn’t who is doping, the question is, who isn’t?”
“We were getting away with murder,” bragged another nameless blogger on Outman’s program. “I killed baby unicorns, and blogged about it. Talk about easy money. All I had to do was buy about fifty thousand followers and a dozen or so blog comments for the sponsored posts. I was livin’ large. Until someone blew the whistle on us.”
So, who is this whistle blower?
Enter Status People, the new internet application that tells you how many fake followers someone has on Twitter.
Bloggers left and right are getting stripped of their “gold medal” status by savvy PR companies who are well aware of how to check for real influence vs. fabricated ones.
Blog Doctor Ryan McGurviclampen saw this coming a long time ago and wrote about it in the American Blog Medical Journal predicting this very scenario that we see today.
“It was just a matter of time,” droned McGurviclampen. “I tried to warn bloggers at conferences that doping, or purchasing influence, only atrophies your blog muscles and ruins your content’s libido. This doping trend for performance enhancement has got to stop.”
Blog doping rehab websites are popping up everywhere to help those who are suffering in this crisis. StopBuyingFollowers.com founder Justin DoGooder advises resisting temptation to that very first tweet you see that says, “Get 10,000 twitter followers overnight”.
“Just say no to those guys,” admonishes DoGooder. “You might think, oh what’s the harm in buying, say, 500 followers? But purchasing even a small fake influence is a gateway drug to more deadly schemes.”
Just ask blogger Seedy Underbelly, who hit bottom last month when he was found tied up and barely breathing in a dark alley of the internet just on the other side of the border.
“It’s not worth it,” whispered Underbelly, who suffered from a blow to his sidebar and two broken IP addresses. “I had to take down my site and cancel my Twitter account after getting blasted with hate comments on my blog.” Paramedics saved his life after rescuing him from underneath an infinite loop of pop-up ads.
Underbelly had 43 million followers.
“I had to start over. I only have 15 Twitter followers now and I’m lucky if my mom leaves a comment on my new blog. It’s hard. But one day at a time, you know?”
When asked what Underbelly had learned from his experience, he coughed weakly before saying, “Don’t lose touch with your friends. Friends don’t let friends buy followers.”
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This satirical post was inspired by two very real and informative articles about purchasing Twitter followers and it’s where I found out about the also very real “whistle blower”, Status People:
Are Bloggers Buying Twitter Followers? (She Posts)
Buying Twitter Followers? Beware, Status People… (Fast Company)