In these modern times, when people hear the word "beard," they sometimes think of someone being used, perhaps unknowingly, to cover up the sexual orientation of a friend.
However, once anyone under 20 sees this series of public-service announcements from LG, in which James Lipton from "Inside the Actor's Studio" attempts to be a good companion to troubled teens, they will, hopefully, think "beard" before sending a text featuring a picture of their private parts.
You see, LG did a little research and discovered that nasty or sexually explicit texts weren't being sent so much by bullies, but by "tabloid teens." You know, those who might have helped Yahoo's business enormously by trying to find every last piece of information about Tiger Woods' alleged missteps with various misses.
Such teens believe that gossip is their source of influence and social power, but it doesn't necessarily yield the finest of results. Which is why LG would like the rapidly typing youth to "give it a ponder" before they send, as Lipton so sweetly describes it in one of the spots, "a pic of your junk."
In an attempt to help, Lipton gives them his beard for them to stroke. On their own faces, you understand.
The spots have a tough task, as they are asking kids to don Lipton's famously ephemeral facial hair in order to adopt a little temporary maturity at a moment of some excitement.
But LG is still determined to knock a little sense into these people wherever it can get to them.
The rather lovely Give It A Ponder Facebook page has delightful entries from, for example, a lady called Lynn Hood who says, "Oh, that I had a beard this magnificent to stroke while I ponder." And, the GiveItAPonder.com site offers even more amusement.
U.S. teens together apparently send 20,000 texts per second, so one can only hope that this delightful campaign puts at least a tiny dent into their craniums.
Once it makes some intelligent inroads with teens, perhaps LG might try to influence the poor judgment of politicians. Perhaps, indeed, LG could get the folks on Capitol Hill to text us their thoughts and receive our approval before they ever articulate a single word in public. Just a thought.
Is there some etiquette one should follow when receiving a spam text?
Should one at least read it before erasing it? Should one even attempt a polite reply, even if it is in the negative? Or should one sue the rotten behind off the ungracious crasher who deigns to invade one's cell phone?
If your name is Elizabeth Espinal, you gravitate toward the latter option.
According to the Miami New Times, Espinal was inconvenienced by that slightly creepy King texting her with what she describes in her suit as "cryptic" messages.
You know the kind of thing, enticements to nosh on a splendidly nourishing Burger King steakhouse burger. Or entreaties to please, please try a Mocha BK Iced Coffee. After the first, Espinal allegedly texted back "stop." But the King kept creeping electronically into her life certain, it seems, of winning her over. At least twice more, apparently.
Unimpressed by his wooing her with his "perfect mix of rich coffee and chocolate syrup," Espinal slapped him with what she hopes is a perfect mix of a lawsuit.
The New Times suggested that within Espinal's veritable onion ring of pain lay the idea that she was "caused actual harm" and was "subjected to aggravation."
(Credit:
CC Ted Murphy/Flickr)
Now, we all have our own opinions of fast food. Yes, the purchasing process can be aggravating, and yes, very occasionally our digestion can slip a cog in its delicate machinations, resulting in some temporary harm. But could this all be worth $5 million?
Oh, perhaps I didn't mention, but Espinal is allegedly looking for 5 million whopping dollars. Perhaps the King would merely have to sell a couple of his crowns, but still, it does seem like a lot of money.
She appears to have filed the suit in April of this year as a class action and it has not yet received certification. Her no doubt clever lawyers are relying on Section 47 of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which "prohibits unsolicited voice and text calls to cellular phones."
I understand that Espinal might be on the blistered side of peeved to discover she had to pay for the texts that Burger King sent, even though they might have contained patently irresistible enticements.
But $5 million suggests either that she is a very sensitive human being, or that she believes that the only way to deal with an alleged harasser is to harass them right back.
What if she were to somehow win? Might we all be able to sue those who text us with unwanted inducements? I'm not thinking merely of AT&T, which keeps sending me texts with numbers and concepts far beyond my meager rationality.
What about those slightly odd people we meet at parties and networking events? You know, the insurance salesmen to whom we regret giving our phone number, our business cards, even our names--the ones who contact us suggesting a meeting and then contact us three more times. Might we be able to take them for a few million?
I think I'll text my lawyer and ask him.
Parents have to fight hard to find new ways to get through to their offspring.
Naturally, there are those who might think it pointless to bother communicating with them at all. Yet somehow parents keep trying like the spurned lovers of Cleopatra.
According to The Washington Post, the latest trend in parenting patter is to nag your kids by text.
The article points out some touching nuances. Kids don't like picking up the phone when a parent calls. A text that says, for example, "u little dolt. Where the hell are u?" can be read rather more discreetly.
Some parents apparently send their kids one-worders such as "Update." To which I know that my own inclination as a 12-year-old would have been to reply "Up Yours."
I suppose it depends on how good the parent/child relationship is.
I cannot help but wonder, though, whether all this technological access is giving parents a little too much opportunity to nag and set a bad example at the same time.
You see, one can imagine a bored wife spending an afternoon with her part-time fitness trainer and lover while still sending a text demanding that little Steven does his homework.
One can conceive of a dreadful businessman in some sleazy lapdancing club imploring sweet Sophie-Anne by text to clean her room.
Parents can now go online to check their kids' grades with just one flick at their iPhones. They can more effectively stalk and haunt their children's lives like ghouls of godliness while living up to none of their own principles.
Sending a text can surely deliver the same level of whininess as a moan over the breakfast table or a call, but the mere technology behind texting gives parents far too much ease with which to nag without end or consequence.
Some parents even send texts demanding that their kids send them pictures to prove their room is clean. Why don't they send pictures of their own rooms?
The kids are striking back. In an ingenious move, those who receive texts in class are often using manically texting parents as their excuse.
Shouldn't there be limits placed on parental texting mania? Two texts a day, oldies. One in the morning, one in the evening. Any more and you're grounded.
Have you ever written a text message and then failed to correctly multiply 3 by 7 right after you pressed "send"?
Have you ever posted an update on Facebook and instantly reached for your Proust? And have you ever sent a tweet, looked in the mirror, and suddenly believed that you had a twin?
Well, according to the Telegraph, Dr. Tracy Alloway, a psychologist from the University of Stirling in Scotland, can explain all of this.
The good doctor has spent many of her days studying working memory, which allows people to retain and use information. She believes it to be a far more significant measure of the well-being and intelligence of humanity than, say, IQ.
Alloway spoke Sunday to the British Science Festival at the University of Surrey and rather gushed about the success she has had in training children to enhance their working memory.
And she happened to mention that certain social-media behaviors are rather more conducive at developing working memory than others.
While Facebook apparently expands the working memory and therefore "enhances intelligence" because the mind has to work in keeping up with one's 500 friends, Twitter does not deserve such glowing praise.
Instead, Alloway released both barrels of her working memory in a critical appraisal of microblogging. She said that because Twitter was so succinct, "your attention span is being reduced and you're not engaging your brain and improving nerve connections."
She was equally critical of anything she deemed "instant"--YouTube and texting, for example. On the other hand, video games and Sudoku allegedly involve more thinking depth, more tracking of past actions, and more mapping of those things you might do in the future. Therefore, they enhance working memory.
I find myself instantly recoiling from the doctor's pleasantly radical analysis. I begin to wonder whether, for example, it makes a difference if you are watching a four-minute video on YouTube about, say, the Large Hadron Collider.
I wonder if it counts that you find a link on Twitter that leads you to a deeply intellectual debunking of all research methods in psychology.
And I wonder whether it really can be true that keeping up with a bunch of supposed friends on Facebook can make you just that little bit smarter.
Surely when you think of all the time some people spend on Facebook, doesn't it make you think that perhaps, just perhaps, they need to get a life? Or at least a better working memory of one?
It has already been discussed on NBC's "Today Show."
It has apparently enjoyed more than 1 million views on YouTube. And it has already aroused cries that it is too graphic, too shocking, too much to watch.
But the police department of Gwent, Wales, felt it had to do something to highlight the realities of texting and driving, so together with filmmaker Peter Watkins-Hughes, it made a public service announcement.
The film shows a teenage girl driving some friends in her car. Engrossed in her texting, she is involved first in one crash before her car is then broadsided by another.
You have seen far worse in movies and with far less good intent. It can only go a small way to making teenagers and, frankly, half the alleged adults I've seen driving in California, consider the potential consequences of their self-involved habits.
But if it even makes one person think twice, or even once, about the consequences, then any amount of graphic content is to be applauded. There is surely nothing gratuitous about trying to save a life.
"OMG!!! You'll never guess what happened next!!!"
"What?!!!"
"OMG!!!! I'm being sucked towards Atlantis!!!!"
Perhaps that wasn't the texting exchange between 15-year-old Alexa Longueira and her friend as she walked along a Staten Island street. But it would have been lovely if it had been.
Alexa, you see, as so many on the East Coast, had focused all her attention on her cell phone rather than the sidewalk.
According to a report by MSNBC, she did not dedicate the merest glance towards a sewer manhole that was lurking menacingly in her path.
As her eyes focused on her keyboard, her legs were sucked into the sewers of Staten Island, where who knows what vermin and demons scrape together their survival.
MSNBC quoted the Staten Island Advance, which claims it was told by the teen: "It was four or five feet, it was very painful. I kind of crawled out and the DEP guys came running and helped me (...) They were just, like, 'I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
The question is, how sorry exactly.
You see Alexa's family appears to be suing the Department of Environmental Protection, perhaps for not protecting Alexa's environment. Or her footwear.
Alexa's mom told MSNBC: "Oh my God, it was putrid. One of her sneakers is still down there."
One can only imagine that one of Staten Island's rats is sprinting a little faster this morning.
You might be wondering whether Alexa suffered any injuries. Reportedly, she suffered only a little scare and a few scrapes. Still, the manhole did not have cones around it, so how can Alexa have possibly known it was there?
Well, yes, she might have looked where she was going.
But why would you do that when you have a text to send?
Kate Moore in all her glory.
(Credit: LG)Here's a thought that might numb more than just your fingers.
About 250,000 people entered the LG National Texting Championship, which concluded Tuesday. Yes, a quarter of a million people wanted to prove that they could text faster, more accurately, and ignore more distractions. Like insulting emoticons.
The winner, you will find it difficult to accept, was a 15-year-old girl. Her name is Kate Moore. She is from Iowa. And amid her boundless joy, she told the Associated Press: "Let your kid text during dinner! Let your kid text during school! It pays off."
Oh, Lordy.
Kate battled through rounds of texting while blindfolded, while being distracted by an actor dressed as an emoticon, while playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and simultaneously picking her nose.
Yes, I only made up the last one.
Indeed, according to CNN, the forlorn girl who came in fourth, Jordan Rowe, failed to accurately text "which wicked witch wished which more wicked witch in the well?" while having to listen to an actor dressed as an emoticon talk trash about her sister.
How did the emoticon even know she had a sister? Why would an emoticon talk trash? Why would an emoticon talk at all?
There are so many questions. But because I know many of you worship competition, you will want to know what fine texting dexterity brought Moore to digital nirvana.
Well, it all came down to a tiebreaker in the best of three final. And the two (girls, surprisingly) in the final round had to text: "Zippity Dooo Dahh Zippity Ayy...MY oh MY, what a wonderful day! Plenty of sunshine Comin' my way....Zippitty Do Dah Zippity Aay! WondeRful Feeling Wonderful day!"
Truly.
You will want to let those closest to you know that Moore told CNN she sends somewhere around 500 texts a day. And that she won $50,000 for her troubles. And that she cried.
Oh, Moore also said she's a good student and terribly sociable.
However, I am still extremely concerned about what kind of mean-spirited, insensitive souls would allow for a trash-talking emoticon. It could ruin a girl's tornado-like texting ability for life.
This unnamed girl has emoticons on her fingers. There is no evidence she uses them to talk trash.
(Credit: CC Lu Lu/Flickr)
You need a peculiar set of half-formed, skinny fingers to text on an iPhone.
And you need a peculiar set of strangely formed cranial connections to send and receive 303,398 texts on it in one month.
However, this is the claim of Crystal Wiski, a teen from Antelope in California's Sacramento County.
Her mother, Jackie, bought her the iPhone a month ago and young Crystal took to it like a duck to quacking.
Crystal told local NBC station KSBW: "I get cramps."
She then got the urge to explain the simplicity of her need to text so much: "I'm popular. I can't help it."
Well, indeed. I am sure that's how President Obama explains his attachment to his BlackBerry.
You might be saying to yourself at this point that no one can send seven texts a minute. Well, the fine folk at KSBW pointed their most excellent equipment in Crystal's direction and timed her. Those thumbs were made for talking. Rapid talking.
You might also be saying to yourself that Crystal must be a woeful student who is an awful drag on her mother's patience, time, sanity, and hairdresser.
Well, you might just need a crystal of whiskey or two when I tell you that she gets straight As, is about to graduate, and holds down a 40-hour-a-week job. (No, not at an Apple store. At McDonalds.)
What else can I tell you? Oh, yes, her mom invested in an unlimited texting plan.
Dena Christofferson is 13 years old. She likes to send texts. Lots of texts. She particularly likes to send texts at school.
In fact, in a recent month she sent 10,003 of those curt little messages. And received almost 10,000.
Her parents were a little surprised at this. Not because she told them. But because Verizon sent them a bill for $4,756.25.
You see, Gregg and Jaylene Christofferson, from Cheyenne, Wyo., thought texting on little Dena's phone had been disabled. And $4,756.25 is a lot of money.
"It hit us like a rock," Gregg told NBC's Channel 9 News in Colorado.
Rocks can sometimes rain down in multiples, so perhaps it wasn't entirely a surprise that Dena's school principal called to say she had suddenly achieved five Fs in a semester. Strange that he didn't text, but still.
This was one rock too many for Gregg Christofferson. He got out his hammer and smashed that Verizon phone into several pieces.
... Read morePlease make contact with that deep and joyous part of you that is passive-aggressive.
Yes, the part of you that wants to remove the man sitting and spitting in the seat in front of you at an NFL game, or the lady who is flipping everyone off at a baseball game (probably a Yankees fan). Yes, the part of you that doesn't want to get involved in finger gestures, f-words, or fisticuffs.
Rejoice, because the wonders of texting can now be brought to bear down on the miscreants of the sports arena. All you have to do is know one number and text the nature of the problem you're having with another fan to that number.
Twenty-nine of the 32 NFL stadiums employ the service--described by ESPN's Rick Reilly as "tattletexting." So do many Major League Baseball, NBA and, yes, even NCAA March Madness games. (Hockey has it too. But surely, one would only want to text to get the slobbering, scuffling players off the ice.)
The Cincinnati Bengals, a team that seems to have more antisocial elements on its team than in its seats, has the lovely tattletexting number 513-381-JERK.
Reilly's column reveals some of the real texts collected by one of the companies involved in this highly entertaining enterprise, In Stadium Solutions (please, will someone tell companies that "solutions" is so 1997?):
Lady in turquoise tank is flipping people off and cursing sec 235 row 14. (Turquoise has always been a suspicious color.)
How about Drunk guy passed out in my seat & can't wake him up sec 442? (Perhaps he wants you to take his seat? It might be better.)
You will unquestionably be disturbed by Guy in black jacket is exposing himself to people. Section 408 row 4 seat 7. He has spikey hair. (Spikey hair? As Reilly worries, "Where?")
"The fan that was removed was wearing turquoise and picking her nose repeatedly during free-throw attempts."
(Credit: CC Inbound Pass)Scott Meyers of ISS told ESPN: Only about 5 percent of the texts we get are pranks." Yes, people have texted to suggest that the refs, the players, or the coaches be removed, though none has been known to come from Mark Cuban, as he seems to favor Twitter.
The tattletexting system is very simple. It doesn't just take the texter's word for it. The message goes through to closed-circuit camera operators, who check to see whether the lady in turquoise, the passed-out dude, or the exposed spikey hair really exist.
However, one can only imagine if, one day, an especially passive-aggressive owner, which would exclude both Cuban and Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders, might use the service to fire a coach or trade a player.
Imagine, the Miami Heat gets a new, slippery owner. He decides the save money. He decides he doesn't need star guard Dwayne Wade. He decides to scale a new height of passive aggression.
"Excuse me, Mr. Dwayne Wade," a large individual in uniform might whisper to Wade at practice. "Please come with me. You've just been traded to the Clippers."
As Wade tries to come to terms with a potential life in the NBA equivalent of a row boat with no oars, the large man in uniform whispers: "The owner thought this was the most, you know, modern, sensitive way to do it."
"Huh?" Wade stammers.
"Well, you know, you all those T-Mobile commercials you do. The owner thought you'd respect him more for doing this by text."
