21st century attention seeking.

Let’s have a round of applause, and a cinder block on the fingers, for Alecia Keys, who came up with the idea of raising money for charity by asking you to pay to see celebrity tweets and Facebook updates. On the face of it, this sounds like real progress – less Lady Gaga, more money for a good cause – indeed you could almost be fooled into thinking that social media has finally delivered some genuine value to the world, but then the truth comes out: Gaga will only deign to address her 30+ million online followers again AFTER they raise over €1m for charity.

The only thing more depressing than this innovative approach to fundraising is the likelihood, whether by novelty or loyalty, that it will work. People – strange, confused, lonely, young people – may be all too willing to donate money, so that a woman who wears a phone on her head will update her Facebook and Twitter again.

Cyber-sociologists say:

“The creation of social networks has brought millions of us closer together so that we can all have a good look at how lonely and needy we really are. User-neediness is quantified in terms of updates, friendships, followers and tweets and is then reinforced with a crude but effective numerical system. The more friends and followers you have, the better you are. The more comments you have on your update, or tweet, the better that comment is. At the heart of this dangerously flawed system is the premise that asserts your personal worth and self-esteem can only be measured in terms of other people.”

Please hastily post your own responses to this story, thereby legitimizing this reporter’s deep insight and rare understanding of human behaviour on the internet.

In real news, the legendary Leslie Nielsen has gone to the great comic in the sky.

Nice beaver.

Nielsen died at home following a conversation with his wife, during which he outlined his need of a hospital. A hospital? His wife said, what is it? It’s a large building for sick people, but that’s not important right now…

Sadly, it was important right now.

For years YouTube comments have held the honorary title of ‘Most retarded shit’ on the internet. Commentators on the site, whose usernames are usually followed by a series of random numbers, have been renowned for their cruelty, stupidity and crassness.

YouTube versus a bloody cock, the internet at its greatest

“YouTube comments are the special olympics of the internet”, said Lance iPad III, web guru with TechnoCrunch. “It’s like they assembled all the kids who sit at the back of the bus licking windows, gave them a keyboard and said ‘Go!’. Quite honestly the stuff you read on there is beyond reprehensible. Until now nobody thought things could get any worse. Then along came Chatroulette”.

The new site connects users via their webcams where they can enjoy a video or text chat. However, users have quickly ensured that Chatroulette is a place not so much NSFW as Not Safe For Life. Statistics show that for every one ‘normal’ chat you are connected to, there are seven in which you will be greeted with an image of somebody’s genitals, anus, breasts or another diseased area of a person’s body.

“Nobody expected anything quite like it”, continued iPad III. “It was thought that YouTube comments would remain the web’s sinkhole forever. Things are going to get ugly”.

And already the war of words has started. “OMFG!! Ur gay!!!”, said YouTube user clertin85665. He was backed up by jonny7566456a who said “Fuckin’ jews on chatroulette shud be put in concertation clumps” and margo8756 who advised Chatroulette users that “I hope ur dad rapes u and u get pragnent and ur baby is a lizard who ates ur cunt. ROLFCOPETER!!!!!!”.

Mark_impish on Chatroulette responded by appearing on screen with his semi-erect, spunk glistening penis in his hand while Jimbo18Dallas held up a picture of Blue Waffle photoshopped onto Goatse’s red bit.

As Tim Berners-Lee holds his head in his hands and once again moans out loud “What have I done? What in the name of Jesus have I done?”, we can only hope that the ongoing warfare between these sites does not claim too many innocent victims.

Adele Staunton, media pig

Social media experts up and down the country today rejoiced at the launch of Google’s new social media product ‘Buzz’.

“We’ve had a mare of a Q1 so far” said Adele Staunton of leading Irish digital media agency Vapidit.ie

“Our portfolio of expertise was waning there for a short while. People had begun to unlock the deep, dark mysteries of Twitter and Facebook and we found our 2000 euro per day ‘Social Media Synergy’ workshops were beginning to lack in popularity. We needed some new hype, and thankfully, Google Buzz has come along at just the right time to fill the money shaped hole in our portfolio of bullshit.”

“In the last 24 hours, Vapidit.ie has established itself as Ireland’s leading authority on Google Buzz. How? That’s a deep, dark mystery that I cannot divulge, and you could never hope to understand. All you need to know is that WE are the experts. Only we can help your business leverage it’s  untapped sales potential in the sociosphere.”

So it’s just a simple matter of upscaling your clients’ vertical markets into a socially scalable, cloud-aware hyperniche?

“Pretty much. Our marketplace is mostly advertising agencies who don’t have a clue about the internet but know that they should be ‘involved’ in social media somehow. They saw it on the cover of the Economist, but were too lazy to actually read the article. At the proposal stage, we just throw a couple of buzzwords at them like ‘retweet’, ‘unfollow’ and ‘fan page’… before you know it, marketing managers are crapping  themselves because they’re hearing technical-sounding words they’ve never heard before. They don’t want to seem out of the loop, or that they’re losing their edge.”

“Once you instill that fear, well, the money starts flowing like the fucking Niagra Falls.”

“We’re talking workshops, seminars, conferences, open coffee, closed coffee,  shitbrick Tuesdays… you name it, we’re selling it to them for sizeable chunks of their marketing budget. All we’re really doing though is copying stuff off someone else’s blog and pasting it into Powerpoint, but don’t tell anyone.”

So business is booming then?

“Google Buzz is going to keep us in Grande Lattes and Macbook Airs for at least the next 12 months.”

What then?

“Sure if the hole falls out of it, I can always go back gutting fish part-time in the factory down the docks. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll probably go into SEO.”

He moves away from the mic to breathe in

More than 400 people are expected to attend the event at Trinity College this evening. Across Ireland web enthusiasts are frantically freeing up enough space on their iPhones so their voicerecorder app won’t run out of space as they tape the proceedings. While many are looking forward to the speech by the founder of Craiglist, a classifieds website through which one can buy and sell almost everything, including orphans, body parts and sculpted turds, it’s the arrival of some of the web’s most well known characters that is expected to bring 64bit joy to the audience.

“When I first got the call I thought to myself, ‘Ireland? Why would I want go there?’”, said Tron Guy, “but the promise of a slap up meal in the Little Caesar’s of my choice and two nights in the Skylon was too good to pass up”.

“I can’t wait, this is gonna be awesome”, Leeroy Jenkins told the Irish Sentinel. He will appear on stage a few moments before he is scheduled to do so. Practical demonstrations will take place too, with TV star McGyver on hand to show how to get millions of hits from just 2 girls and one cup.

Musical entertainment for the evening will be provided by Numa-Numa Bloke covering Chocolate Rain while a surprise guest appearance from Rick Astley has not been ruled out.

To add some local flavour proceedings there will be a Q&A with drunk guy in a shopping trolley, Twink and Jedward teaming up to do an updated version of Zip up your Mickey, while Imelda from Athlone will demonstrate the manageable size of Apple’s new iPad by inserting one in her gowl whilst having a convict kiss her back better than what her boyfriend does.

However, organisers are said to be ‘disappointed but understanding’ at the cancelling of his appearance by Goatse due to ’severe rectal bleeding’.

Details are sketchy at the moment but The Irish Sentinel can exclusively reveal the nuts and bolts of the case without naming names. It stems from a blog post made in the summer of 2009 in which the blogger accused the celebrity,  a well-known TV presenter, of being a ‘cunt’.

Irish Blogger "40 Consulate" said to be 'worried like shite' over judge's ruling

The celebrity’s lawyers forced the blogger’s hosting company and ISP to reveal details which identified him and served a writ. The blogger in question refused to remove the post or issue the apology the legal team demanded. The case went before a High Court judge in a secret hearing last month where all the evidence was presented.

The celeb’s legal team provided pictorial and written testimony from doctors, physicians, anatomists and world renowned vagina expert John Terry, who supported his claim that he was, literally speaking, not a cunt. Viewing the evidence on its merits the judge agreed that the absence of a labia, clitoris or torn hymen it was inaccurate for the celebrity to be labelled a cunt.

However, he said in taking the action the celebrity had made it quite clear he was, in actual fact, a cock. Nevertheless, he had to agree that the blogger had libelled the celebrity by calling him a cunt and ordered him to make a ‘reasonable’ payout. The blogger in question has not spoken publicly about the award but told the Irish Sentinel that having to differentiate between male and female genitalia when insulting celebrities is going to ’set Irish blogging back years’.

The verdict is likely to open the door to many more legal actions taken against bloggers, with a list of cases already scheduled including Brian McFadden’s action against pop-culture blog, mulch.ie, where he will attempt to prove his head is not made entirely of shit.

You heard the man

I’ll keep this brief.  We’re big fans of Apple hardware here in Sentinel Towers. Corns uses a Macbook Pro to organise cannibal deathmatches in Liberia. I myself cruise the information pornohighway from time-to-time using one, but never without a microwaved pomelo close by. We have faith in Apple’s ability to produce a great operating system in a great computer. It fills the gap better than anything else.

Steve Jobs recently said: “We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary new product”

Okay, great! Blow my fucking mind, Steve! Show me the magic! Knock my stripey socks off with the Che Guevaraness of it all!

What do we get? A super-sized iPhone?

No doubt the fat fuckers will be queuing up outside the Apple Store in New York, waving for the CNN cameras while their douchebaggery is broadcasted across every continent, forking over their hundreds of dollars for something they couldn’t possibly need.

But don’t worry. Thy God Steve still gets paid. He needs the money for the diamond encrusted toilet seat he sits on as he takes a truly magical and revolutionary new dump every morning.

Apple go back to basics as hype machine kicks into action

Nicknamed the iSlate it is set to revolutionise communication, networking and and e-reading. Some of the features of the new device include:

• Ecological and environmentally friendly ‘chalk’ with which to write. No faulty touch screens, no copy & paste disasters, just easy to use and easy to wipe away limestone based scribblings
• Top of the range Egyptian slate with revolutionary anti-scratch covering built in
• Battery free! Costs nothing to run
• Comes with rugged wooden border on which all manner of books, magazines, newspaper and periodicals can be supported
• Fully upgradable
• Absolutely no need to ever upgrade
• Highly portable, weighing only .75 kilos
• Wifi, 3G, Edge and 4G compatible (with separately sold iPhone add-on)
• Free wiping cloth

Apple disciple Dicky Bannister told the Irish Sentinel, “Steve Jobs, or should I say Goddy McGod, does it again. While all the others go for unecessary bells and whistles like operating systems, electronics and downloadable content, he’s gone back to basics. And the design? I have to admit that I a bit of jizz came out when I saw it. Not a full splodging, but definitely a bit of stuff that wasn’t quite wee, wasn’t quite spunk. To me that’s the sign this is going to be a huge success”.

Apple plans to sell over 5,000,000 of them in the first week basing its figures entirely on the hype generated by how long people have had to wait for it and a flashy Powerpoint presentation by a man in a black polo neck in front of a select audience later this afternoon.

It is also expected the company will announce a new device aimed at pirates, known only at this stage as the iAye.

Gygax69 - Boards Moderator

A number of violent episodes followed in the wake of the boards.ie hack last week. Intrepid forum moderators had no choice but to manifest their Hitler complexes in the so-called ‘physical’ world.

“I moderate my forum on boards with an iron fist. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, fucks with me and gets away it.”

The words of After Hours and Motors mod Gygax69.

In real life, Gygax69 is known as Seamus Brady, an unassuming 28 year old World of Warcraft enthusiast from Leitrim. Living with his mother in the sleepy hollow of Drumshambo, Seamus chose to shun the trappings of a regular young Leitrim man such as dowdy women, poorly modified cars, 10 shpots, 3rd level education and minimal standards of hygiene.

“I knew that was never the life for me. I knew, somehow, that I was different,  that my life was supposed to *mean* something. Sure, it was tempting. I mean, who doesn’t want to nick Micras and burn them out across the border, or finger fat birds in the alleyway beside Macaris chipper?”

Seamus shut himself off from the topsy-turvy world of Drumshambo when he discovered the internet. It was like a whole new world had opened up for him.

“Suddenly, I didn’t have to be a fat 28 year old virgin living with my Ma, working part-time in my uncle’s bakery, with really shit skin and terrible teeth. Online, I was like some kind of RamboJesus made out of ones and zeros. I could be whatever I wanted to be.”

With his snappy new online identity in place, Seamus trawled the net looking for an outlet where he could flex his newly found cyber-muscles.

“I used to get battered in school because I was smarter that everyone else. Not academically smart, or street smart, or sports smart, but you know… smart. People couldn’t handle the intellectual hand grenades I used to lob at them. Online though, I was the tough guy. I didn’t have to hide in the jacks at eleven o’clock break. Why? Because there are no eleven o’clock breaks on the internet, dumbass! Hahaha, pwnd you good. Anway, where was I? Oh yeah, I became an internet tough guy. Then I found boards in 2001 and joined the After Hours and Motors forum. At first, I was like ‘Hey, nice to talk to you etc’. This went on for two years or so. Eventually, they made me a moderator. From that day on, my place in history as the biggest cunt that ever ruled over an internet forum in Ireland has been firmly cemented in history. Don’t agree with me? Banned. Replied in a old thread? Banned. Cursing? Banned. Slagging off WoW? Banned, banned, banned.”

This continued for years. Gygax69 and his band of merry moderators were so good at their jobs, many new users would join boards, post once, get berated (“FFS. Did you even READ the forum rules, noob?”), then never come back.

However, on the 21st of January 2010, the world of Gygax69, online Superman, came crashing down. A hacker from one of the murkiest regions of cyberspace (Turkey) penetrated the Gibson servers of the boards mainframe. They uploaded the dreaded DaVinci virus, resulting in a mass outage of the boards.ie forum software

Suddenly, Seamus had nowhere to go.

“It was awful. I literally had nothing to do. I’d usually spend my days striking down new users with my staff of digital justice, but now I was just another fucking Leitrim douchebag. I felt like Clark Kent, except less educated.”

“My Ma asked me to take her Clio down to the mechanics. Her polio was playing up or something. Since I was a mod on the Motors forum, I thought myself more than capable of the job so off I went. When I got there, I decided to wow the mechanics with my knowledge of Nurburgring lap times. It all went wrong when one of the mechanics disagreed with me on the lap time of a Honda NSX. I whispered a private message into his ear saying ‘Don’t you DARE pull me up on anything like that again or I will ban you’. He’s all like ‘What the fuck are you on about man?’. That’s when I lose it. ‘Right, that’s it! You’re banned. Banned. Banned. Banned. For two weeks, no less!’. I began to escort him from his garage by the scruff of his (somewhat rouged) neck. That’s when I felt the sledgehammer in my back, followed by a balpeen to the temple. It was lights out at that point.”

Seamus Brady spent the next 2 days in intensive care and was only well enough to talk to the Irish Sentinel today. Had he learned anything from this experience?

“Yeah. Those mechanics in the garage that almost beat me to death? Fucking noobs. Tell them to try that shit on boards and I’ll wipe the floor with them. Now please leave. The site’s back up and I smell the blood of new users.”

And with that, Seamus sat back in bed and logged into his favourite forum. Cracking his neck muscles he mutters to himself: “Time to go to work, Gygax69. No fear. No fear.”

One of many stories of violence againsts boards.ie forum moderators across the country. Some call them lowest form of life in Ireland. Others call them badgers.

We call them people.

As shocked and badly wounded Haitians looked on in wonder, buildings reassembled themselves and rose skywards, services such as water and electricity began to work again and even more amazingly thousands of people came back to life. Initially there were some casualties as the superstitious people feared a rising of zombies and set about the resurrected with crude machetes, but soon it became clear that a once in a lifetime event had taken place.

Facebook group defeats nature

Eye-witness Claude D’Arcy-Trent-Terrence told the Irish Sentinel, “It was incredible. One moment I was mourning the loss of my entire family, my home and what meagre possessions I had whilst standing knee deep in rubble and corpses, the next life had returned completely to normal. I thank God for what he has done”.

Yet researchers at MIT have discovered that God played no part in the miraculous goings-on. Close analysis of web trends in the hours leading up to the event left them in doubt that Facebook users were the ones who saved the day. Professor Marlon Prince, head of Teh Internets 2.0, said “We’ve never seen anything like this. It appears that in just under two hours over three and half million people joined the group ‘Save Haiti by joining this Facebook group and you can feel better about yourself without actually having to do anything ‘. Quite how it had the power to reconstruct an entire nation is something we’re unclear about at the moment but the best guess we have is that somehow it roused Superman who flew around the world really really fast to reverse time and having had some practice at this in the past he has honed his skills to the point where he can be region specific. Obviously it’s something we’re going to keep working on though”.

A spokesman for Facebook said “Once again it shows the power of social networking and when it comes right down to it, Facebook is the daddy. Perhaps if the people of Iran had used us instead of getting all those Twitter idiots to change their avatars green then they might have democracy now. USA! USA!”.

Madness and canibalism ensued, however, normal-ish service will be resumed over the coming weeks.

Thank you,

The Irish Sentinel.