Monday 29th July 2024
Sometimes, people lie.
To be charitable, they don't always know they're lying. Sometimes they're simply wrong about things; so, without intention, they're presenting falsehoods in a manner as to imply that they're stupid enough to think that those falsehoods are true.
Those lies, largely because they're unintended, are usually harmless. In the best of cases, the people lying without the intention of lying can learn from their mistakes. As an example, something I see online a lot is minimally exceptional talky people stating that GenerationX spans from 1965 through 1980. Because they're wrong. And have trouble adding twenty to things. And imagine that being a member of a generation is more of a feeling than a fact.
Sometimes, you can mention to them that, in point of fact, GenerationX span from the beginning of 1965—the day after the final day of the Boomers—through the end of 1984—the day before the first of the Millennials, and therefore 7,305 days before the first day of the Homeland Generation.
Sometimes that'll work; usually it won't. Remember: people are on average very stupid.
So, now, you can link them to Harvard's Definition of Generations, wherein they'll enjoy the opportunity to discover that they were hilariously wrong and—possibly but probably not—feel penitent enough to feel very sorry and maybe even apologise for littering the internet with stupid, stupid, lies.
Usually, though, they'll just reiterate that they really personally feel like GenerationX, and therefore want to agegate GenerationX against roughly twenty-five percent of GenerationX. And whatever exuses let them keep tolerating themselves as they otherwise decay toward middle age, even at this late date.
From the World Health Organisation, shortly before they proved so good at defeating a pandemic.
Whether the WHO are hilarious liars is a topic for another time.
To build from the example of people lying about GenerationX and pretending that the Millennial Generation span from 1981 through around the time I started up this website, followed by what they call 'Generation Z' because they've only just learned that 'Generation Y' have been called the Millennial Generation since about the time I started up this website, and they aren't great at learning more than one new thing per decade, they makebelieve that the Homelanders span from the beginning of my website to the beginning of my webcomic and then failover into whatever the hell they think 'Generation Alpha' are despite their current lack of existence—they'll actually be showing up in just over five months, because years don't care about your feelings: most of these lying morons will happily continue to lie, simply because, though false, they like the lies more than they like reality.
It's at about this point that I become displeased.
Because, though stupid, these lying morons have all the information required to learn that they're lying, but continue to lie. The closest I get to tolerating these lying liars who lie, inasmuch as they're lying about generations, is when I note that—to date—they're not actually lying about me.
To date. I'm sure that, eventually, some lying liar who lies will lie about GenerationX spanning only those eighteen and a half minutes during which Nixon stopped recording in 1971 because feelings; then I'll be yet more annoyed with the lying liars who lie about generations.
This isn't really about those lying liars who lie; it just came to mind. Plus, it's a chance to let you know that, in all likelihood, you have until just now been a bit of a lying liar who lies; now you can get all better about it.
To reiterate: those lying liars who lie are not, to date, lying about me. Because that would be the next level. That's where I abandon my apathy in favour of thinking toward worsening the lives of the lying liars who lie. At my most benevolent, I merely charge them a Defamation Fee for it; then they hafta buy the cheap food for a while.
But, before we get to that, there's the one in the middle. And, somehow, it's actually the most annoying type of lying liar who lies.
Those who lie, to me, about me.
These are the lunatics assuring me—as an example—that I actively hate whatever deities I don't believe in. Which is all of them, since I don't makebelieve any deities; but, specifically, they'll assure me that I, being me, hate their imaginary friends.
To the attention of no one. That's the weird part. These aren't lying liars who lie, about me, to me, and also to other people; they'll just lie, to me, about me, in the absence of an audience. Like they just want me, personally, to know that they're lying about what's happening in my brain, in sight of me and them. And their imaginary friends, maybe; but those clearly don't count.
They'll assure me—lyingly—that I obviously makebelieve their imaginary friends, but I'm lying about not doing that. No one else is hearing any of this. There's two of us: I, who makebelieve zero deities; and they, who are lying liars who lie.
I can't imagine what they think they're accomplishing with that. False witness maybe; but that means nothing more to me than another methodology of lying liars who lie; it doesn't evidently mean anything to their imaginary friends, since they're imaginary, and since those imaginary friends would reportedly be pretty cross with the lying liars who lie over the false witness if they weren't imaginary; and, if it's for the sole benefit of the lying liars who lie to entertain the lies that the lying liars who lie like to lie about, then they're probably dumber than I'd presumed: think of the effort saved in makebelieving stupid lies in silence, without expending the effort to tell me what the lying liars who lie are lying to themselves about.
It's possible that they're simply very stupid.
And, now that we're officially discussing Stupid People, it's time to talk about the dumbest of the lying liars who lie: those who lie, optionally to you, certainly about you, and also to other people.
This is where we enter the blunderful world of defamation.
Because lying, to other people, about you, is more than a laughable nuisance: it's an actionable form of reputational damage.
There are levels to that, of course: sometimes, people are insignificant morons, and also lying liars who lie, who lie about you in a way that no one really cares about, because they're insignificant morons. Other times, the lying liars who lie are so amazingly important that they get billed $1.4Billion for being lying liars who lie and for being so amazingly important that people might believe them.
I'd have doubted that this goof was amazingly important, but the courts have spoken.
So that brings me to what I need to mention here today: lying liars who lie, of undetermined importance.
Because, a couple weeks ago, on July the Thirteenth, I'd just finished putting together the webcomic for July the Fourteenth when I AltTabbed over to the rest of the world and immediately saw a curious image. Which I'll show you in a minute.
I could show you now, but a lying liar who lies trolled in to lie about me, with this:
If it has to be said, to a potential audience of 8.1Billion people, I altered nothing; I RightClicked, copied the image I'd seen, and thumped it in with Control-V after having written first two sentences above it.
For a couple weeks there, everything was fine. I'd posted the image; I'd mentioned that it was irksome that it was suddenly news, seconds after I'd done the following day's webcomic. And that was that.
Then the news kept coming, and I added an edit—that I was bumping the webcomic meant for the Fourteenth to the Fifteenth, because it was kinda weird now.
On the Fourteenth, having ended up with a webcomic more suitable for the Fourteenth—
It looked like this.
—I added that second edit, mentioning that I'd moved what was going to have been Sunday's webcomic to Monday, after changing a couple words in it to make it make contemporary sense. Which, incidentally, looked like this in the end:
If you're wondering how I'd known, on Friday, that Shannen Doherty was about to die: people die all the time, so it was gonna be someone; also, I'm really pretty good at predicting the obvious.
I added that final edit—EDIT #3—today, seconds after I got an alert that a lying liar who lies had lied about me.
Can't wait to hear more lies from the lying liars who lie....
So I clicked on it and wound up in the backend to have a lying liar who lies lie, to me, about me:
At least we're keeping this between me, where I know I altered zero things, and you, who know...dick.
As you may have noticed, there's no link to this allegedly altered thing. So I had to go into my profile and scroll endlessly down, and wait for more to load, and down, and wait for more to load, and down, and could facebook.com hire someone to manage a website sometime...?
Eventually, I found it. Down past the more recent obvious jokes about it all. Down past the persiflage I prepended above screenshots of lying liars who were lying about the whole thing having been staged—
'Yuh shouldn't oughtta do that.'
—down past things that really had nothing to do with any image that could have been altered.
I should mention that I do [probably] know which image the lying liars who lie are lying about. It's nothing I ever posted—though, for a second, I wondered if I had and had then forgotten about it. But, in fact, I hadn't posted the altered image in question; that's why it just took me a stupid amount of time to go track this down to show you what I assume the lying liars who lie were lying about:
This image is beneath me and it adds to my damages.
But, no: I never posted that stupid thing. You'll see what I posted—unaltered—in a minute.
First, I've got to click See Why in order to see the lie, from a lying liar who lies, which 8.1Billion other people can see:
Oh, fun: a lie.
I can, at this point, click See post to see the image in question; but, first, 8.1Billion people can See fact-check if they'd like lying liars who lie to lie to them about me. So let's start there....
Lies, from lying liars who lie.
So. Now that we've seen the lying liars who lie lyingly tell 8.1Billion people that one of us is being a smidge misleading, let's click on See post after all to find out....
Lying factcheckers who lie call this Smiling.
That's the image. It's the image I RightClicked to copy on July the Thirteenth, seconds after having finished a webcomic about celebrities dying, and pasted into facebook.com before adding edits over the next couple hours, and the next day, and now today, explaining why Remedial Numerology had been bumped to Monday, when it might be less inappropriate. Those edits to the text aside, I never altered anything at all.
I would in fact hazard that, given exactly when I posted that original and unaltered image—at 16.47 Mountain Dumbass Time [don't get me started on making noon happen at 1.00PM]—the altered, smiley image almost certainly didn't exist anywhere on the internet; I'd hazard that it was photoshopped somewhat later, like around the time I finally saw it—around dusk, here in Denver—and then never posted it because it was stupid.
Therefore: the lying liars who lie have objectively lied, to me, and to you, and to eight point one billion people, about me.
I'll settle out of court for $1,400,000,001, just to set a new precedent; or, I'll accept a globally advertised statement from facebook.com that Mark Zuckerberg lacks the importance of the least important idiot ever to be sued for defamation.
Have a webcomic:
