Tag Archives: Bullshit

Facebook Sucks: Stupid Things People Share

Note: I wrote an entire ebook about Facebook and why it sucks. Check it out if you’re interested.

Let me be totally honest here: I’ve started writing this post over and over about five times now and nothing seems to work. Nothing flows right. My intention, upon scrolling Facebook and being totally pissed at all of the low-quality shit that people share, was to make a blog post about it. Usually I try to write an introduction that eases into the topic while sometimes asking interesting questions about it. With this post I might ask why people share so much stuff in the first place. Why don’t people make their own posts as much as they share? And so on. But hell if this post isn’t just a collection of shitty memes from Facebook. I don’t even want to attempt to be “deep” about why people share this shit: I just want to bitch about how shitty these things are. This list is also not exhaustive and there very well could be a part 2 or a part 3 to this someday.

And let me be honest one more time: these shitty images were filling up my phone’s download folder and made it a miserable place to be. Once this was posted I could delete the damn things leaving the folder filled only with amazingly funny and clever memes, because I have the utmost refined comedic tastes obviously.

Mildly Amusing Sexist Jokes

These are really stupid to see and they upset me greatly. I’m not even upset much over the sexism (and this goes both ways depending on the actual image, sometimes it’s women being sexist towards men) because a joke is a joke. I’m willing to laugh at almost anything because as long as you know it’s just a stupid joke and there’s no I’ll will behind it, who cares? What bothers me most about these is how goddamn cheap they are: they’re lazy jokes. Take this one for example:

Haha right? Women wash dishes! That’s their job! You thought the meme was talking about an actual dish washing machine when you read it, right? Gotcha! No. No you didn’t. The joke is so obvious that it isn’t even funny. Part of the humor in jokes is not seeing any immediate connection between the setup and punchline and then figuring it out. There’s an “a-ha!” moment that makes the joke funny. These lack that cleverness.

They’re also shared almost exclusively by older people who apparently have a fondness for this type of humor. It makes me wonder if in 30 years I’ll be sharing jokes that aren’t funny on whatever social media is around then. I fucking hope not. But a few younger people share them too, usually males (obviously). They’re typically the people you’d expect to share them too. They’re the ones constantly posting sexual memes and jokes (almost like trying trying to end up on r/ihavesex on purpose) and have a general sense of vulgarity about them. Luckily I’m not friends with many of these people so that’s good for me at least.

Sports

Take a look at this:

Okay. I don’t even know what to say about it. You don’t like the Packers. You watch football. It’s a Packers’ logo on toilet paper. You know, what you wipe your ass with. Ha.

Shit like this is usually shared by the demographics from above, but you could find any diehard sports fan sharing it as well.

2deep4u Posts

Here ya go:

These things are exhausting because they’re everywhere. I’ve always liked to bitch amount images that are just images of text, because, why? For fucks sake put some background on it or something. Even worse are the 2deep posts that are pictures from someone else’s Facebook post. Like this one:

“The thing is, Bob. It’s not that I’m lazy: It’s that I just don’t care. It’s a problem of motivation, right?“

Making things even worse is the fact that many of these actually have decent advice to them. The first image is a perfect example of this: the actual words make sense really. Sometimes it is wasting your time to talk to a headstrong dumbass. The problem arises because the person sharing the image is likely to be one of these people, ironically. If you really felt this image resonated with you you probably wouldn’t be sharing it on social media. Also, with the multitude of these on social media they lose their meaning an effectiveness. After seeing 30 of these every time you look at Facebook, you simply find yourself not caring about them anymore.

A friend pointed out that there is a brown version as well!

Remember when I ~~mentioned that social media should be a conversation~~ deleted and rewrote the introduction? A two-way conversation? These fail miserably on that goal. Even if the outward appearance is one of information — what if the poster just wanted for other people to see it? — they’re usually posted to say something about the sharer and aren’t directed to an audience at all. The poster is saying something about themselves — that they can understand different perspectives and aren’t a dumbass — and how deep and complex they are. It’s egotistical as fuck. They’re not trying to prompt others to keep an open mind, they’re only circle jerking themselves.

2deep4u Fake News?

This one is a subset of the 2deep4u posts but with the added benefit of having a questionable factual basis:

I don’t know anything about wolves really, so maybe the image is true, but my bullshit radar goes off anytime I look at it. The worst part? Posts like these you’re not bothered enough by to actually fact-check them. While I suspect it’s bullshit ~~I don’t want to make an effort to find out~~ it actually is bullshit.

Informative Fake News

A few posts might actually be helpful or make some sense at first. Like you can tell the sharer isn’t being self-centered or looking for attention and is actually trying to help their friends and family have some useful information. Once again many of these set my bullshit alarm into high gear. Here:

Floor polish and pumpkins? Once again I don’t know enough about the ingredients of floor polish and how pumpkins decay so I can’t outright say that it’s bullshit, but come on. This one I’m not even going to research either. I don’t want part of my internet search history to be about floor cleaner and pumpkins. The next time I’m on Amazon I don’t want endless ads for Brite floor polish.

Or this one:

News just means, ya know, “new stuff” and if it’s printed on paper you might be tempted to call it a “news-paper.” It’s no surprised that a newspaper would be called what is is. Come on people.

Its not really informative like the pumpkin one but it still purports to have an interesting fact that, once again, screams of bullshit. In fact I’m like 95% sure it’s bullshit. Even worse is the woah reacts to it that I’m assuming are from people who gobbled up the bullshit like a swarm of hungry flies would.

And this:

There’s a general theme here of my ignorance on a topic giving claims something to work with even if I suspect there’s bullshit around. Once again there are claims that seem factual; charcoal can affect medicine uptake, but is charcoal used to color food that much? It seems like it would affect the texture or something. Who knows. After some quick Googling apparently charcoal is used to color foods, among with other possible ingredients. Basically known what your medicine shouldn’t be taken with and figure out if charcoal is in your food. Which you should’be been doing even if you didn’t see this shit on Facebook!

I think the same will be true for my conclusion paragraph as the introduction paragraph. I don’t have shit to say and am just going to stop. If anything, check the shit you share for factual basis before sharing it. I can’t believe I even have to mention that.

Junk Mail Sucks

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I got this envelope in the mail today. As you can see it looks really fancy and important, so if you lived life at all you should realize that it’s total junk. It’s pointless and unimportant simply because it looks important. If you’ve ever applied for a credit card or recieved a debit card you know the bank mails them in the blandest, boringest, unmarked envelopes ever. Think of a bill from Comcast, the electric company, or from wherever; they’re always in boring envelopes. If you get a flashy envelope from Comcast, you know they’re just trying to upsell you on a new package deal or whatever and that it isn’t a bill.

I open the envelope to actually see who is trying to sell me stuff. It’s from a car lot. Look at how fucking flashy and gaudy it is. I’m surprised these things don’t cause people to have seizures. I’m also surprised they don’t send these without tiny batteries and flashing LEDs to make it even more ridiculously over-the-top and gaudy.

Also note who it is addressed to. It’s addressed to me, by name, but also says “or current resident”. They don’t give a fuck if I really do open it, and if it made its way to another horse, any dipshit can open it because they’re “the current resident”. While the envelope makes you feel special by receiving this gaudy-ass piece of mail, it undermines itself by also stating that “if you’re not this person, no big deal, you can open it too!” Imagine if a bill said that. Billy Johnson owes $230 to ComEd for electricity, but if you’re the current resident you can pay it too, if you want…”

The ad goes even further down the “what the fuck” path by including a car key. I guess this is to symbolize that you can win a car if you’re really lucky! There’s a fucking scratch-off area like a lottery ticket and a symbol to match. And if it matches you might win the Grand Prize!!!!!!!! Holy fuck, I (or the current resident…) am lucky! I can win the Grand Prize™!

Now you know what’s going to happen even before I scratch it. Of course I’m going to “win” the Grand Prize™ because why wouldn’t I? I scratch it and HOLY SHIT, I won!

HOLY SHIT I WON

Now I don’t know what the Grand Prize™ really is because I know it’s just a ploy to get your ass to the car lot to buy something. I imagine the “prize” is something like $1,000 off a new car or something trivial like that. Something that sounds good on the surface but still nets the car dealership a bunch of new sales to gullible idiots who think they’re special while still taking out an unnecessary car loan.

And I guess that’s why this Sucks: ads like these are just so obvious it’s pathetic. But like I said in my post on pre-screened credit offers, even if they are pathetically obvious they must work otherwise people wouldn’t mail them out. Even if them being so obvious is stupid, the fact that people are actually that gullible to believe that they (or the current resident!) won the Grand Prize™ is even stupider. I almost think that ads like these are meant to capitalize on old people being gullible and even if the fine print does give all of the details, you know the damn thing is misleading. Every level of ads like these are upsetting: how obvious they are, how people are gullible and fall for these tactics, and how companies actually make money off these unsubtle pieces of shit.

It’s like those TV commercials with the really small print that lays out all of the legal details but don’t show them long enough for anyone to actually read them.

But after taking the pictures and writing this quick little post I did what I was going to do originally. I walked over to the trash and tossed the thing in where it belongs. But don’t be like me, please recycle if that is offered in your area. Or, better yet, use up a stamp and mail the shit right back to them. Which I wish I would’ve done earlier…

Donald Trump Sucks: Covfefe

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Note: Like I noted in my first post about the Dolan, I noted that there is a struggle between making relevant posts about Trump and keeping it up to date with all the shit that happens so quickly. I’ll try to put relevant notes and updates around instead of trying to rewrite the damn thing over and over…

It was like the Tweet Heard ’round the World, or something like that. As I awoke, I checked Facebook on my phone and somehow this strange word was being thrown around. Here. I’ll write it out right now:

Covfefe

At the time, with the haze of just waking up, I knew something had happened in the world that I wasn’t aware of yet. It’s sort of how you might wake up to find news about a celebrity dying, and see tons of posts about it, but where you still don’t know what actually happened. That’s sort of how it was with me and covfefe a few days ago.

Now that we all know what covfefe is…well maybe you don’t! Let’s cover that really quickly. Donald Trump, our tweeter extroidiane is known to tweet stupid shit at crazy hours of the morning instead of, well, maybe relaxing because being president is a tough job. These tweets are often about the media being mean to him and how it’s unfair #MAGA. I don’t give two fucks about if you think it’s unfair and that the “fake news” is trying to crucify the guy: you still don’t get on twitter and cry about it. That’s what a 4-year-old would do. Anyways, this is what he does, and it isn’t that big of a deal; we’re all used to it by now. But then this beauty appears. Update: He did delete it so I can’t link to the “real one.” But the internet doesn’t forget stuff, so here’s a screenshot:

170531121403-trump-covfefe-tweet-screengrab-super-169

Thanks to whoever screencapped this. And whoever I stole it from. Whatever.

It starts off in a predictable way and no one would’ve batted an eye to in had it continued like you might’ve expected it to. “Despite the constant negative press…” But then, suddenly, the tweet goes fucking insane and ridiculous and it’s over without any punctuation, “Sad!,” or anything else to let you know it’s over. It’s like a gunshot to your eyeballs: covfefe.

Why does covfefe suck?

Covfefe isn’t really a big deal: no one has died (maybe from laughter though, or knowing how pathetic America as a whole appears to the rest of the civilized world?), the environment hasn’t been polluted (Update: We left the Paris Climate Agreement Thingy so yeah, we’re sort of fucked, but not in relation to covfefe…), and we aren’t in another war (yet). The president, by tweeting covfefe did almost no harm to anything. So why the fuck is there a post about this Sucking? There’s are a few reasons. Let’s get started.

First off, covfefe isn’t a real word which is stupid. The sentence ending without any punctuation hinted that covfefe isn’t a real word — as well as no one knowing what the hell it was — and the fact that every time I write that profaned word it’s underlined by Google Docs furthers the point. You could look up covfefe in a dictionary but you wouldn’t find anything because it’s not a real word! It doesn’t even sound like a real word, so you can’t even insist the guy made it up like Colbert did with truthiness. At least that word is pronounceable. Covfefe isn’t a real word, and it would a shitty attempt at a “making new word.”

Secondly, it appears to be a spelling error which is even stupider. By using context clues to figure out a word you don’t know the meaning of — just like we were taught back in fifth grade — seems to hint that covfefe is meant to be coverage. This fits well following the tweet’s “constant negative press” and sounds like a word you’d expect in a typical Trump tweet. This pushes the whole ordeal into the realm of being a misspelled word, but fuck is it misspelled! The first three letters, cov-, match in both the words, but covfefe ends in a -fefe while coverage ends in -erage. Let’s all bust out our phone keypads and check them out: the –erage seems to be sort of close to fefe on a typical phone keyboard, but the “a” is way off to the left! If the word is misspelled from coverage, well, it sure is a hell of a misspell that autocorrect didn’t get to lay a single finger on.

So it’s a misspell. So what? Well, the tweet ends there. No explanation, no finishing the thought. Had the tweet read “Despite the constant negative press covfefe I had a bigly successful erupoean visit! #MAGA!” we would’ve all laughed at how he butchered ~~a word~~ words that is are pretty common and easy to spell. I mean even if you let him slip on a spelling error, what the fuck happened to the rest of the sentence? It’s gone, absent, and further enhances the stupid mystique of covfefe. We have another stupid-ass strike in this covfefe affair: it’s a sentence fragment.

But that isn’t all, no. Far from it! Covfefe gets worse! You see, covfefe isn’t a translation error, a transcription error, and it isn’t a speaking error. People stumble, stutter, and misspeak all the time while giving speeches but no one laughs at them because it’s live and people fuck up. But this is a written tweet that he is in control of. What we see isn’t a live thing, where if he fucked up you might see the mistake and forgive him. No. He had to type it out and somehow post this train wreck without noticing or thinking to reread it. To me, that is the most damning thing about it. You have to fuck up pretty badly to type such a horrific thing on a phone, AND THEN POST IT. AND THEN NOT DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY AFTER YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU’VE DONE! (Update: It has been deleted. :() With Trump, I imagine he was tweeting in secret for fear of losing his phone and then upon being caught immediately posted it. My point here is that there is a record of it now. Had he deleted it before he posted it, no one would’ve know. But here we are…

…So Why is covfefe Bad?

Like I said, no one was really harmed by this incident. But to me it speaks volumes about the president and his incompetence that should somehow be free of partisan viewpoints. Look, people can disagree on whether trickle down economics works or not, and each side could present facts and arguments supporting their viewpoints, and then each side could argue about it.

But covfefe isn’t some policy bullshit to be argued over in perpetuity; it’s a train wreck tweet that is so bad it’s amazing the president of the United States posted it. It’s so amateurish it’s laughable. It’s totally harmless to any policy or anything that will have a major effect. No one should be up in arms about covfefe because it’s so stupid and trivial. But that’s kinda my point: if it’s so trivial why is it even a thing?

Remember in high school or college where you were expected to know how to spell or to use commas? It’s kind of like that. Having proper grammar shows others that you care about details and how your argument, views, and opinions appear. I don’t think anyone purposely uses bad grammar; some just don’t seem to care about the details of it or haven’t learned yet. But it always seems to be a goal that should be strived towards. As you get higher in school, or the world, you’re simply expected to know how to spell words or to use a comma. As I see it, if you can’t spell or use grammar properly, why would I expect that’d you’d be a good doctor, scientist, financial advisor, or anything really? If you can’t be bothered to use the right their, they’re, or there, why the fuck would I think you’d be competent in any other skill? Sure Donald Trump might be a master businessman, but really? You think so? When he can’t spell coverage correctly and stop himself from posting it? This is the guy playing 45-dimensional chess with the Russians? Come on.

He doesn’t care. He’s sloppy. Consequences don’t exist to him. Spelling doesn’t matter. Deleting a stupid tweet doesn’t matter. Why would anyone have faith in a person so incompetent as to misspell coverage as covfefe and post it. Why would this guy ever be expected to subtly understand policy and complex topics such as the world economy when he can’t proofread a tweet? Covfefe is a microcosm of everything wrong with Trump, made perfectly clear in a simple 7 letter “word.” say it again. Covfefe. Donald trump Sucks.

Update: The spin begins. Trump’s buddies are hinting that covfefe was just a thing to get liberals and the media riled up as some sort of a “joke.” Or to point at how the media is stupid and overreacts. Others have said that covfefe is an inside joke and according to Sean Spicer “The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant.” Dolan also went on twitter and posted this gem, further driving the “I did it on purpose!” story:

Who can figure out the true meaning of "covfefe" ??? Enjoy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017

The President of the United States people.

Donald Trump Sucks: An Incomprehensible Mess

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As you can probably see, this is filed under the category of Politics Suck. This being its own category means something; it means that in my mind I intended for the politics portion to take up a notable spot on this blog. Some other categories like People Suck and Society Sucks are large, but you would expect them to be large because people are that shitty in general — there isn’t much surprise there. But outside of Video Games Suck, Politics Suck seems to be a pretty damn narrow niche category that hasn’t had any posts. What the fuck is going on here?

I have to admit this category is partly inspired by Donald Trump being the Worst Candidate Ever and our wonderfulest 45th President of the United States of America. Go figure. I didn’t think it would actually happen but here we are with a damn reality TV star leading the free world. As you can probably guess, I’m not a fan as the guy stands antithetic to everything I love and hold dear, like facts, logic, not melting down on social media like a teenager, and spelling words correctly. It only makes sense that I would want to channel my loathing for the dude and his stupid policies into a series of posts collectively labeled Politics Suck. Outside of this, Politics Suck was supposed to be a general category driven by world affairs, governance, stupid partisan politics, the economy, and other shit that Sucks in those general categories. But the current situation in the US — with me being a citizen — would naturally take center stage and Trump is just too good (awful) to pass up writing about! He’s a goldmine if you have a blog called Everything Sucks. As you can see, this is only the second post, so what gives? Trump is making headline after headline and yet I’ve been silent except for the failed healthcare act #1 about two months ago. What’s up with that?

Donald Trump Sucks, but he sucks in a way that I’m unable to comprehend and process in a timely fashion.

I’m case you weren’t aware, the guy is a mess. And in case you weren’t aware, my blog posts takes quite awhile to churn out. Trump sucks in a large way by how I simply can’t keep up with his endless bullshit. It’s kind of funny but also really sad in a way. I envisioned post after post about he sucks and how he fucks up in all of his narcissistic Trumpian ways, but holy fuck, I can’t keep up and even begin to comprehend the individual fuck ups enough to write proper posts about them! It never fails: when one new story breaks on how awful he is there is another one that appears quickly on the heels of the first one. His presidency is a lightning round of bullshit that I can’t keep up with.

Are we gr9 agen yet?

First there was…see I can’t even recall it! Oh yeah, the executive orders that did a whole bunch of shit but nothing really. I remembered how he whined about Obama’s executive order “abuses” back in the day, but before I could write about that, he was on to getting his immigration thingy repealed. And there was some shit about the inauguration crowd size and “alternative facts” and God stopping the rain. Something about a plan to defeat ISIS? Right? Talking up the economy and keeping jobs in ‘Murika. Magically, I was almost able to make a real post about the first health care bill — the single highlight (so far) of my blogging during the Trump regime — but then, somehow, things got even crazier. There was another blur of whatthefuckhappened and we bombed Syria and the North Koreans did some shit with a parade and bombs and rockets and Trump was mad. And most recently, James Comey was fired, Trump met with some Russians, and he also leaked some important shit that he probably shouldn’t have. And who knows what will transpire before I finally hit the “post” button. (Update: I wrote all of that a few days ago, and in that time there was a special counsel appointed to look into the matter, and Trump has had another meltdown on Twitter about “witch hunts.” See what I mean?)

My point here is clear: I can’t keep up. Out of all that shit I just recalled I did a single post. And it was a shitty one. Each one of these incidents, and the ones I forgot about, could’ve been their own posts where I made some pointed observations about President Drumpf but I fumbled the ball because the passes came way too fast for me to handle. The guy is a pro at churning out headline after headline that you simply can’t keep track of. Seriously. I think back to the campaign and think, “Why was Trump so bad?” and I legitimately can’t think of much, but it’s not so much from lacking bad shit, it’s because there’s so much bad shit that nothing stands out in any clear manner. All shit stinks so you won’t notice anything really unless there is some really bad shit to stink really badly. Think of Bill Clinton’s presidency: boring, NAFTA, MONICA LEWINSKY, boring, boring. What stands out? Think of Nixon: debating JFK on TV, finally won, Vietnam, WATERGATE, RESIGNATION, boring career. What stands out? But with Trump it’s BUILD A WALL, BAD HOMBRES BRINGING DRUGS, BAN MUSLIMS, NUKES ARE COOL RIGHT?, I’VE GOT BIG HANDS, SMARTER THAN GENERALS, TED CRUZ’S DAD KILLED KENNEDY, NASHTY WOMMAN, NATO SUCKS PAY UP, GRAB HER BY THE PUSSY, I DID TRY TO FUCK HER, BIGGEST INAUGURATION CROWD EVAR, NATO IS OKAY, LOCK HER UP, I’M NOT GUNNA LOCK HER UP NEVERMIND, CAN’T REPEAL OBAMACARE, GOLFIN’, NORF KOREA IS BAD GUYS, COMEY “YOU’RE FIRED” BUT ONLY AFTER 110 DAYS, RUSSIANS ARE MY FWEINDS, HEY I KNOW TOP SECRET INTEL TOO GUISE. Okay, phew. Now seriously, what stands out? NOTHING DOES BECAUSE IT’S ALL INTENSE BULLSHIT. So in retrospect he seems really awful but you can’t point out anything specific because it’s all bad.

That’s the best illustration of my problem so far guys. Trump is so awful, and Sucks in such an incomprehensible manner that I don’t have the time to write proper posts to fill my Politics Suck portion of my blog. I really need to get on it and churn shit out because it is my problem, but it’s hard when your primary source for things that Suck is so Goddamn prolific. If you give the guy credit for anything, give him credit for that: he sucks so much no one can keep up with it, let alone me and my quaint little blog.

Watermelons Suck: Selecting “The Good One”

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Back in the day, I used to work in the produce department at a local Sam’s Club. I stocked food and had the pleasure of dealing with dumbass customers which could be a post all on its own. It’s been awhile since I worked there so I don’t have that fresh, fiery hatred to rant about it as if I had just experienced it. One of the things I would be asked on a regular basis was, “How do you know what watermelon is good?” or “How do you pick out a good watermelon?” And, dammit, that question would piss me off more than nearly anything else ever, besides asking me for a product that they’re standing in front of. So how do you pick out a watermelon?

“How to Pick a Watermelon”

First off, I’m not a watermelon lover by any means, so me being constantly asked about how to pick out a “good watermelon” was ridiculous from the start: there are no good watermelons because they all taste like shit. It’s like asking me to pick out a good country song: there are no good country songs. The same goes for coleslaw. I also hate cantaloupes and any other sort of “melony” melons. It must be a DNA issue with me or something because I have no control over it. When customers would ask me about “the good watermelons” I’d usually tell them that I don’t even like watermelons so I didn’t know how to “pick one out” and usually suggested that they just randomly grab one. They didn’t like that advice.

…in case you needed to be told this.

Luckily some of the more zealous customers would tell me, matter-of-factly, how to pick out a “good watermelon.”

Some told me to look for wide stripes on them! Watermelons have dark and light green stripes on them (in case you’ve never seen one), and the ones with the wider stripes are “gooder” apparently. How the stripes determine the flavor profile of the melon I don’t know, but that’s what makes a good one. Some other people would say to look for a spot where it lay on the ground because it means the melon is ripe. Nevermind the fact that they all have a spot because melons, in fact, grow on the goddamn ground. Some people would say to look for a little stem at the end that would pull off easily, or something like that. Others would pick the damn melons up, put their ear on them, and knock on them like it was a fucking door. I tried this myself and they all sound the same and I never learned what “sound” a “good watermelon” makes as opposed to a “bad watermelon.” I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few of these “tried and true” methods for determining what makes a watermelon “good” or “bad” but whatever. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this post anyways…

Lightly researching on the internet (because everything on the internet is true), gave some even more ridiculous methods for finding a “good” watermelon. One person insisted on the melon having “straight green lines” and “the more perfect the better.” The same person also recommended that the scar where the flower falls off should be small, and that this “guarantees a perfectly sweet and rupe [sic] watermelon (;” Another person suggested that, as direct advice from a farmer (!!!), that the prospective watermelon pickers look for the location of a bee sting on the melon, given away by a tiny bit of juice oozing out husk. Once again, this all but guarantees that the watermelon is decent. And just to cap it off with some really fucked up nonsense, another person described an old wives tale about putting a broom straw on top of a melon, and if this straw spins, the watermelon is ripe. At least this person didn’t seem to take the technique too seriously, by adding “…entertaining at least.”

Does Any of That Work?

As stated, I’m not a watermelon expert, but I’m pretty damn skeptical of these methods mostly because they trigger my “sounds like bullshit” alarm. Even though a farmer (who is expected to be an expert) suggested something about bee stings, I know enough about bees, or have enough questions about bees and their habits that should undermine that theory. Do bees even eat watermelons? If they do, why would they sting the melons? How do bees know the melon is ripe? Has anyone actually compared a “bee stinged” watermelon to a non-bee melon and compared the taste profile? I doubt it. The theory seems on shaky ground, and just doesn’t seem to make plausible sense. I mean I might be wrong, but it sounds fishy from the start.

What about stripes on the melon? Once again I’m skeptical because there are natural variations in all fruits, vegetables, and meats. It’s a bad analogy, but it’s like saying people with black hair lie a lot, or that blondes are more likely to get cancer. I’m just skeptical that the damn stripes or the “greenness” of the melon really has any correlation with how yummy the melon is. Once again, I might be wrong, but shit like this should be so easily testable that it should be common knowledge by now. Get a green melon, or a “straight striped” melon, and eat away. Are they better, or not? Do some fucking science people.

Ooo, or what about the straw from the broom? Someone please tell me how the melon’s interior, by being sweet, yummy, and tasty can influence a piece of straw to rotate? Do the sugar molecules move in such a way that produces a magnetic field that somehow interacts with the tiny amount of iron in the piece of straw which causes it to rotate? Maybe it does! Or maybe that theory is just some silly bullshit that someone made up?

At the very least, given these ideas might actually work in selecting a melon, no one is this picky when shopping for other fruits, vegetables, and meats. With apples, you check to make sure they’re not rotten, and you buy them. Lettuce? Is it green or brown? Brownish lettuce is starting to rot, and green is fresher (unless the lettuce is naturally brown). Duh. Squishy tomatoes are about to go bad, and potatoes are obvious as fuck due to the horrid smell they emit. No one browses through package after package of ground beef looking for “the good one”; you just grab one that isn’t a nasty brown color and go about your day. But melons, NO! Somehow melons are the single thing in the produce department that takes 5 to 10 minutes to find the “the good one.” Get the hell out of here…

The Right Way?

I found a website that seemed to give some decent tips at finding a “good” melon, or as they called it, a “ripe” melon. First off, a ripe melon is a different thing than a “good” one, and already seemed to be off on an objective footing. Secondly, the things to look for actually make some sense in an obvious way. Suggested traits to look for are a firm husk with no soft spots, a yellow spot where it laid on the ground (as opposed to a whitish spot), the melon should feel heavy, and the melon should sound hollow. These are boring things to look for, but they don’t send my “bullshit” alarm into insane mode because they make logical sense. We look for firm fruit and vegetables all the time, and it’s almost obvious to realize a soft watermelon is going to be nasty to eat. At first I was confused about the spot, but if it starts off as a white spot and becomes yellow as the melon ripens, well, that makes sense then. It’s like saying a red tomato is ripe when a green one isn’t. Like no shit. And the heaviness? That is because a ripe watermelon has a lot of water in it (go figure) and water is pretty heavy. “Listening” to the watermelon also makes some sense as you’re simply listening for a hollow-sounding melon that doesn’t sound “dull.” This ensures that the melon isn’t filled with nasty, goopy, rotten pulp.

The point with these things is that they don’t tell you that the watermelon will taste amazing! No, they simply tell you that the watermelon isn’t fucking unripe or rotting. These traits are also fairly obvious as opposed to the witchcraft the customers all seemed to be doing. There isn’t a “good” watermelon sound that only you can hear properly; you’re just making sure it doesn’t sound dull and liquidy inside. Picking watermelons isn’t glamorous, and you don’t get to prance around like you’re the Watermelon God or something because you’re so damn good at it, so sorry. But considering the watermelon is a melon, these techniques are probably about as good as you can do without cutting it open and having a taste of the damn thing.

If I Ate Watermelons…

…I’d look for something akin to the paragraphs above: a watermelon that isn’t blatantly rotting, soft, or leaking all over the place. That’s it. If I go to buy a watermelon for someone else, that’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to walk up, and get a damn watermelon. It’ll take me twenty seconds at most to find one, and it’ll probably be almost as good as any other watermelon. And if it isn’t, well, it’s not like the watermelon eater I’m shopping for will know the other melons were tastier. It’ll be good enough.

In case you don’t know, Sam’s Club (and hence Walmart) is a fairly large company and they don’t source their melons from mom-and-pop farm operations; they most likely get melons in bulk from big-ass farms that mass produce them, just like every other thing they have in stock. My point here is these melons are planted in bulk, probably genetically modified, grown in bulk, and are all picked at the same time with little care given to ripeness or quality. There isn’t going to be much variance in the melons, because they’re not “hand picked” in that way that hand-picking implies. There probably is nothing better about watermelon A, B, or C; they’re probably nearly carbon-copies or clones of each other. And if I was buying a watermelon from a large supplier like that, well, I’m going to just randomly pick one because that’s about as good as you can do. The melons probably won’t be the best, and won’t vary much in flavor, so don’t waste your time.

If you’re at a farmers market or a local produce supplier, sure, you might be a bit more discerning with your melon picks, although you might be assured that the person picking them is themselves an expert and picked them at the prime of ripeness. This also gives you some reassurance that the melons will be “good” because someone who knows what’s going on with melons would’ve picked them. But if you’re at Walmart, or another large grocery store, just do what I’d tell a few customers to do in regards to finding a “good watermelon”: just fucking pick a melon because they’re most likely all the same.

Fun Fact: There’s a National Watermelon Promotion Board complete with a Watermelon Website. Yes, watermelons have their own lobbying group to influence the government.