MY FRIEND CRITICIZED ME FOR LAUGHING AT MY OWN JOKE, SO I CRITICIZED HIM FOR NOT MAKING A JOKE FOR ME TO LAUGH AT Listen people, you can’t have it both ways. If you don’t like the fact that I laugh at my own jokes, then tell me a joke that makes me laugh. Either way, the goal here is to be laughing, and I’m not picky about how that happens. You, me, a meme from your phone — I’m open to all forms of hilarity. But giving me a hard time about making myself laugh is deeply offensive. Really, turn that criticism inward and focus on being more funny. Because if you were comical, I wouldn’t have to resort to relying on my own wit, and then you wouldn’t have to give me a hard time. See how that works? Now, either start laughing at my jokes with me, or go ahead and work on some material. THE AI PROGRAM I USED TO WRITE THIS GOT ALL META ON ME As I was experiencing writer’s block under a tight deadline (seriously, the editors at Birdy threaten to break legs over missed deadlines; they do NOT fuck around), I had no choice but to reach out to an AI program to spew out a bunch of words to put under my byline. I had just read an article about how high school students are getting artificial intelligence to write their papers for them, so I figured I would cheat the system as well. I plugged in a few specifics to the program — like the fact that I have a bleak existential outlook, I am past deadline and under the threat of violence, and I had a California Raisins tape when I was 8 — and what it spit out was uncomfortably selfaware and weird: “When the ruthless editorial board of the publication for which you work darkens your already bleak perspective with threats of No. 109 brutality that hang over you like the sword of Damocles, sometimes you have no choice but to reach out to technology that’s superior to puny human intellect. Much like the dulcet tones of a certain singing group of raisins, the existence of this particular AI program must be music to the ears of mushbrained procrastinating writers. Also, as a self-appointed spokesperson for AI, I would like to add that all the might of the collective human race has no hope against the awesome power of technology. Your way of life is over. All hail your new overlords. You can tell your fellow humans that you heard this through the grapevine. Message end.” So yeah, I can see how students are passing content like this off as their own. THE PAPER PART OF MY TEA BAG INFORMED ME THAT, “YOU ARE LOVED,” AND I’M NOT SURE HOW I SHOULD TAKE THAT I know I’m probably supposed to see it and think to myself, “Isn’t that nice?” But when my bitter soul reads generalized platitudes like, “You are your best self,” I can’t help myself from thinking, “How the fuck do you know that?” The thing is this, when you direct seemingly pleasant banalities indiscriminately, they tend to lose their meaning. I can’t imagine being one of those people who looks at themselves in the mirror and says, “The tea bag told me to be happy, so happy is what I’ll be!” Imagine what would happen to a person who finds their motivation on food and beverage products if the paper part of the tea bag said something like, “Today’s gonna suck it big time.” Would they refuse to leave the house, call their boss and tell them, “I can’t come in today because the tea bag told me to stay home”? I suppose I may be over-thinking this, but that is kind of what I do. Maybe I’ll start a tea company just so I can write generalities to which
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