Tuesday, June 9, 2009

"HoBlogging" (i.e. Hobo Blogging) and "Twittering Without a Nest"

Say goodbye to Youtube, Facebook and even Google because there is a new phenomenon taking the internet by storm: HoBlogging (i.e. hobo blogging). Yes, this is no typo; hobloggers do exist. Remember the hobo that always sits near a pile of garbage between Taco Bell and McDonalds? He has a blog. The naked Mexican whose best friend is a shopping cart filled with empty boxes of cigarettes? He's got a blog too. It appears that even homeless people, the absolute lowest class in society, cannot abstain from writing about the mundane aspects of everyday life.

Photobucket
Most Recent Post: Interview with the GIANT SHIT I took on 7th ave. near FootLocker

What are they writing about? The best place in the city to grab a hamburger...half-eaten? The loudest nightclub...that you can hear from the alleyway? The nuances of local produce...found in a dumpster as compared to canned produce...found on the ground near the dumpster? Although little is known about the origins of HoBlogging, one can surmise that it began with the mystical union of a hobo, a computer and frequent complaints by library patrons regardeing a pungent odor...an odor itself ceated by the mustical union of urine, human fecal matter and used tampons (classic signs of a hobo blogger, or HoBlogger).

Photobucket
Artist's rendering of a hobo-compatable computer. Powered by spare change.

This phenomenon first caught my attention during one of my frequent visits to lifelong rival NPR. The story (click here) told of the online adventures of Eric Sheptock (visit blog here), a part-time janitor and full-time hobo. He started a blog using the hobo-friendly facilities available in the Washington D.C. (i.e., hobo capital of the U.S., i.e. juxtoposition of imaginary U.S. wealth/freedom and real U.S. poverty/class warefare.). His blog focuses on educating the house-living home-ful public about very true and very disturbing facts about homelessness. Since I haven't actually read it, however, I prefer to imagine that it provides helpful tips on topics such as: sign-drafting and design; loitering safety; and how to bathe in a public restroom.

"I don't cleam, I'm not cleaM"

Look, hobos. Since you're capable of blogging I am sure that you're probably reading this (certainly no one with a life would!). I don't hate the homeless. I feel your pain. I, too, know what it is like to wake up every morning in a different place covered with my own bodily fluids (LSD is a crazy drug!). I am forced to ask total strangers for change on a daily basis (though us house'd folk call them "tips"). I even dig through dumpsters and garbage cans for food (no witty remark this time...I just love eating garbage!). You may not like the fact that I am making light of your plight (that rhymes!), and it may be my one-way ticket to eternal damnation (forced to read hoblogs for ALL ETERNITY!), but if you can't find humor in everything, anything can end up making you feel hopeless (deep man...real deep).

Oh, and did I mention they produce their very own hobo "tweets", AKA "Tweets without Nests"? Below is a list of my favorite hobo-authored twitter activity (*note: not all tweets are by the same HoBlogger):

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
fist time eva using twitter...anybodey have spare change?
6:34 PM April 7th from the web
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
found a half-full (or half-empty, depending on how you look at it) bottle of Coca Cola. Turns out it was filled with piss...MY piss.
7:14 AM April 7th from the web
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
got a flat shopping-cart-tire today. Tride to steel new 1 from BestBuy but police sed noes.
11:45 AM March 12th from the new cardboard computer
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Banker LFW (Looking for Work). Former employers: Enron, AIG, Lehman Bros. N33d $$$ to keep Yacht.
3:30 PM March 6th from my Yacht
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
find another half-full bottle of Coca Cola. Also filled with piss...probly same bottle as b4 =(
8:14 AM April 7th from the web
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hobologic
Above: Photo of Eric Sheptock, first of what we hope to be many "HoBloggers." If you or anyone else are in the D.C. area and would like to provide him with assistance and/or use him in a satirical documentary on the financial disparities that exist in the USA, please e-mail him at ericsheptock@yahoo.com

21 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Too bad you didn't actually read Eric Sheptock's blog. If you had read it you probably would have something informative to say rather than all these wise cracks playing on uniformed stereotypes of homeless people.

Julio said...

Actually, if I had read it, I would have something informative to say AND/AS WELL AS/IN ADDITION TO all these wise cracks playing on uninformed stereotypes of homeless people.

Static said...

Too bad Jake doesn't get satire, which plays on stereotypes of all kinds..but he also doesn't seem to get MTV/HYTV/HGTV/Do-It-Yourself Network cable broadcasts.

It's also too bad he doesn't completely grasp humor, and sabotages himself sometimes by trying to impose limitations on the things he does (or what others do), as evidenced by that very recent statement on his blog. And this one too:

["I read somewhere that it was important to stick to one subject matter when writing a blog. Well that’s great, except I can’t stick to one subject matter to save my life. So I give up. I’m going to write what I want about what I want to write about.. all you readers be dammed [sic]"]

I guess the irony here is that, while this is a humor/shock blog, and does not pertain to providing accurate information, Jake's statements here don't begin to explain his own hypocrisy.

btw, the link for Eric's blog is http://streatstv.blogspot.com/

How's that for informative?

Anonymous said...

Julio - Nice investigative reporting, ~Static~. I appreciate negative attention, such as Jake's, because in the blogging world there truly is no such thing as bad publicity! (JAKE, WRITE A BLOG ABOUT MY BLOG...I LOVE ATTENTION...no, I HATE attention [reverse psychology!]).

Static said...

Well, you'd get plenty of negative attention from the homeless community if Julio posted a comment with a trackback on Eric's blog...so I wouldn't recommend that.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps this is, in fact, a satire, which claims innocence in the notion that no publicity is bad publicity (not to mention how obvious it is that this is nothing more than an attempt to capitalize off of Eric's NPR plug today), but the major fallacy of this blog is that none of this **** is funny.

Shaker said...

I agree finding humor in life is a positive. But not being able to look at anything sans humor is a pretty sad thing, especially when at the expense of others existing alongside us. To each their own.

Julio said...

Obviously the first thing I did was link ProjectJulio on Eric's most recent post! The second thing I did was write, in extremely poor taste (as usual), a scathing satire of HoBlogging. The THIRD thing I did was download Porn (And the 4th...and 5th...and, well, gotta go [porn passwords just updated!])

Static said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Julio said...

aww Static your comment was so KILLER it made a lone tear fall down my cheek! Deep scars of satire CAUSE THE BRAIN CELLS OF AVERAGE AMERICANS TO EXPLODE, THEREBY RELEASING AN ELECTRICALLY CHARGED POWDER THAT I CAN USE TO RULE THE WORLD!!! MWYGHUAHAHA

Static said...

@Anonymous (Jake and the other critics here) - How does this "satire" claim that no publicity is bad publicity, or that this post or this blog was meant to be funny or informative, or that we claim innocence for anything stated or published?????

Humor is subjective - not everyone is going to understand, approve of, or appreciate it. So your remarks, "Anonymouse", are baseless, pretty ignorant, and redundant. In short, pseudo-intellectuals, pretentious self-righteous commentators, and cynical finger-pointing critics are a dime a dozen...just like humor bloggers. And yet, no one's opinion truly addresses the core of, or "solves" the problem. Ironic, isn't it?

Although satire is usually meant to be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humor in itself so much as an attack on something of which the author strongly disapproves, finds ironic, or in some cases may be jealous of, or maybe even admire - using the weapon of wit.

When it comes to the homeless; I don't think it's funny that people ARE homeless, ie. how they ended up there, the fact that they are there, or the fact that they don't get the kind of support from their communities that they need or should have.

The humor (or the satire) in this article lies within the irony that some of the homeless have moved into the digital age along with everyone else and their inane, mostly subjective, narcissistic Twittering tweets and other social networking - considering that these are homeless netizens we are talking about, and given the stereotypical associations people have of the homeless, therein lies the irony.

Because many people still believe that the only way a person in our prevalently hedonist society has access to the internet is:

1.) if they own a home filled with stuff (most of it useless material shit and clutter), including a brand new computer with all the bells and whistles..of course only people who could AFFORD such luxuries are fit to partake in or use it's features, that it's a "privilege" or simply a "right" reserved for persons who are not homeless (the middle and upper classes - the bourgeoisie.)
The same bourgeoisie fuckwits generally believe that giving any undue attention to the matter of the plight of the homeless, other than tossing them some spare change every now and again, only when they are faced with or up to it when they go out and see the homeless sitting on the sidewalk, that it's trivial to give it "too much concern"..it's not their problem, that it is someone else's job/problem to handle, it's strictly their own fault they are where they are, etc., that it's just a part of everyday life that "normal" people have to put up with

2.) no homeless person is "smart" or "capable" enough to KNOW about, much less figure out HOW the internet works, y'know because they're homeless.. therefore they could never possibly be a part of the cyberspace equation

3.) that the netizen is so cool, they appear to have so much going on..that they have something IMPORTANT to offer the world (despite their inanity or redundancy and herd-like pack mentality)

These points are satirically observed here. And if anything, this HoBlogging article gives Eric Sheptock's blog (such as his story, or perhaps more appropriately, his plight) more publicity by drawing attention to it (even if that attention is negatively derived in someone's backwards twisted little closed mind)! Then it can't be all bad now can it?

Static said...

@Julio - anyone scarred by a joke, or harmless ribbing just display their own ignorance, show they need to get a thicker skin, and make a spectacle of themselves by getting bent out of shape - that they contribute to the problem just as much as everyone else.

If they really wanted to make a difference, they'd donate their god-damned time at a homeless shelter, or a soup kitchen..OR oh, fuck it..let them into their homes and help some of us homeless people out, THEN maybe we wouldn't have a homeless problem!

(I am/have been/will continue to be homeless - and I approve of this message)

Julio said...

My next blog will be dedicated to ~STATIC~ for his unconditional support of my exponentially increasingly politically incorrect blogging! YOU PASS GO AND COLLECT $200 YOU ELECTRICALLY CHARGED HOBO-ADVOCATE/ANTI-HOBO ADVOCATE!!!

Static said...

In the event you are going to write another EXTREMELY offensive article (esp. about yours truly), can you leave out the part about my unconditional support and love for gay marriage, and that bit about my need to snuggle with my baby blanket while I suck my thumb until I fall asleep? KTHXBAI!

Anonymous said...

Are you trying to be funny with your played out jokes and witty avatar pic?

Silly you,
:D

Julio said...

I believe you meant to say "witty jokes and played out avatar pic," my dear annonymous. Jokes about hobos are NEVER played out. For instance: Barrack Obama and a hobo walk into a bar. The hobo doesn't have any money for drinks so he asks Obama for some spare "Change" (I bet you can't see where this joke is going!). Obama says no, so the hobo steals 2 bottles of rum, passes out in a nearby alley and urintes on himself. GET IT? HAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!

Static said...

@Anonymous - No, I'm not.

Actually I am trying to annoy you, intrigue you, and pique your interest all at the same time.

Seems to be working doesn't it (Anonymous/Jake)? Silly YOU. Clearly, you're the one that is funny here. =)

I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself on the Internet. English is your second language, I'm sorry I meant...communicating other than grunting and flinging poop is your second language, isn't it?

You obviously don't have a first. In the future, kindly proofread your posts before assaulting unsuspecting readers of this message board with a litany of misspellings, egregious grammatical errors, and other verbal atrocities.

kthxbai!

Static said...

@Julio - You are quite right, "witty jokes and played out avatar pic". A mentally deficient dimwit (who may happen to be homeless because of a heartless system such as ours) would be able to use such logic when constructing a similar sentence. So "silly Anonymous", once again.

And it's true, jokes about hobos are NEVER played out.

They are underrated and not used enough. Not since the bygone eras of Charlie Chaplin, and Red Skelton.

Sure, maybe their versions are dated now, but all trends have a way of coming full circle and I think it's high time to bring hobo jokes back to prominent pop culture status again.

Like this:
http://www.hobovertise.com/images/hobo1.jpg

Static said...

Of course, a simple, "fuck you" would have sufficed but I would only be reducing myself to their level.

I can wait for them to pull themselves up from their primordial ooze..no, I can't, nvm.

Jun H24 said...

nice blog julio... It's very creative...

Popular Posts

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...