In probably the 1,000,000th post that MG Siegler has written related to FOURSQUARE (not the fun game we played as kids, but the super “hip” being continually crammed down our throats mobile app/service that allows you to “check-in” to local businesses), he coves a new startup, Future Checkin, which allows you to “Check-In On Foursqaure Without Taking Your Phone Out of Your Pocket“.

The problem this startup is solving according to the article is:

Check-in fatigue in particular is a growing problem. A number of heavy users of Foursquare that I know (myself included) have been complaining in recent months that it’s getting a bit tedious to have to pull out your phone each time to check-in to a venue. Particularly venues that you frequent. Future Checkin absolutely solves that.

After reading that I don’t know where to begin. My initial reaction or solution to check-in fatigue wold be to STOP PLAYING FOURSQUARE. But I think that might be too logical. But I’m not too smart, and maybe I’m missing something. Instead I’ll follow up with while MG and gang might think that Future Checkin will be a big help for frequent users of Foursquare, Future Checkin is acutally the downfall of Foursqaure.

Why the Downfall?

It’s simple. The whole point of engaging in Foursquare is to partake in a “game.” I use the term very loosely cause I don’t see it so much a game, but if you consider anything where you get points and compete as a game then technically it’s a “game.”  Foursquare’s game mechanics are simple, you take you out your phone, open the app, tap check-in, and you gain a check-in point. Whoever has the most check-ins for a location is crowned the Mayor and has all the same privileges a real mayor has (none).

Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but part of the enjoyment of playing games is not so much the end result (getting the high score) but the process (the whole journey is the reward thing). What Future Checkin provides people is basically a way to automatically play the game without any work on the player’s part. That’s like having a program play Pacman for you. That’s not fun, that’s lame. If this is how these mobile local app/games are going to work this raises the question, why bother using stuff like Foursquare if you don’t even need to take it out of your pocket?

But maybe some people feel like the following…

Well I like playing Foursqaure since I can become the mayor of McDonald’s…so Future Check-In allows me to check-in when I forget

That’s true, but it makes the game truly irrelevant when you don’t have to do any additional work. That’s like me getting points every time I pee, take a breath of air, or scratch my butt (actually I’m kind of liking the sound of this game). I don’t have to do any work to play this game, I just do it cause I need to.

The bigger problem is that once someone starts using Future Checkin and racking up more points than another person that other person is going to install it…and then sooner or later everyone will have to install it to be competitive.  Once one person starts cheating it brings down the whole ecosystem and just makes it so everyone has to “cheat” to stay competitve.  Then we have the situation where everyone is playing a game where no one is doing anything…except installing an app on their phone.

So basically Future Checkin makes Foursquare irrelevant.

If You like Future Checkin You’ll Love These Ideas…

Maybe you don’t agree with me and that’s fine.   It doesn’t seem like Techcrunch sees it my way either. Somehow I’ll survive.  However, before I go I’ll leave you with some other awesome super brilliant app ideas that you’re guaranteed to love if you love Future Checkin:

• Future Twitter – automatically tweets and responds to tweets based on your personality – for people who have tweet fatigue
• Future Chat – automatically chats with your friends so you have more time to use Future Twitter – for people who have chat fatigue
• Future Tennis – a robot that will play tennis for you against other opponents – for people who have movement fatigue

Anyway you get the point…if it gets to the point where you aren’t involved in the process it makes me wonder why even do it in the first place?

I did have hope today when I read the headline in Techcrunch, “Why Checking Into Foursquare with Your Phone in Your Pocket Won’t Always Work,” that someone would realize this futility issue with Future Checkin. But the article was talking more of the technological constraints of this working rather than discussing the bigger question of “why bother using Foursquare if we aren’t going to be using it.”

Stay classy Techcrunch.

Disclaimer:

I’m not ragging on the developers of the app, it’s not easy to build and launch stuff. I’m just ranting on the bigger picture of what’s the point of doing something when we aren’t involved. Hopefully you see that.  If not then keep enjoying Foursquare.

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I’ve included the actual screen shot from my logs to illustrate and prove that people are actually search this stuff.  As a note the first number is the ip address from the visitor, the second column is the date they visited, the third column is the page they landed on (if it is just a “/” that means they ended up on the home page, benjitao.com), and the final column is what they actually search to end up there.

Hannah Montana in bikini

Let the record show that I am in no way a fan of Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus.  I actually can’t stand her, which is why I was so surprised that people ended up at my blog by searching for her in a bikini.  This means if you came here looking for the “hot” Hannah Montana sporting a bikini, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Things that look like penises

This one I understand cause I did a post on chocolates shaped like penises.  However, I was more curious why this person was looking this up in the first place?  Was it for some kind of school art project?

How could you be so horny

When I saw people searching for “how could you be so horny” I was thrilled.   This was vindication for me and proof that I was not taking crazy pills in thinking that Kanye West is singing “how could you be so horny?” in his hit song “Heartless” (apparently the correct lyrics are “How could you be so heartless?”) as well as proof other people mishear lyrics just like me.

Broken Penis – Oprah

This one is my all time favorite in terms of wackiness and randomness.   It’s twisted in so many ways when you think about why a person would even search a string like “Broken Penis – Oprah.”  Was he trying to find an article about how Oprah broke some guy’s penis?  Was “Broken Penis” some book this person had her about on Oprah?  Does this person think Oprah is/was a man had has a “Broken Penis?”  The possibilities are endless.

***UPDATE***

I googled it and apparently Oprah had some Doctor answer the question if men could get a broken penis.  So that makes more sense now, but I still want to know how that guy ended up at my website…

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The latest internet rage is a video clip from reality show Britain’s Got Talent featuring the singing audition of Susan Boyle.  I would embed the video here, but seems like most of the videos have disabled embedding so follow this link to watch the video.  What’s the big deal?  What makes this audition so much more special than any of the other auditions for the show?  I’ll sum it up.  This video features an ugly woman was actually talented at something!  I know can you believe it?  A non-attractive woman was actually good at singing.   Everyone knows that if a woman is supposed to be a good singer that they have at least look good.  What is the world coming to??

Seriously though, while this video was “inspiring” it mainly made me angry.  I was impressed by Susan’s singing talent, but I was pissed off by the fickleness of the audience and judges.  One moment they are staring at her like she’s the Black Plague and the next moment they are standing on their feet cheering and clapping like she’s the Messiah.  All in the span of about 15 seconds–the moment she opened her mouth and the audience realized that she could sing.  The whole video made me hate people more than usual.

The editors and producers of the show know that in order to make the audience think she’s even worse than she really is they have to make her look really bad (this way you’ll be even more shocked when she can sing).  In the clip’s introduction they show this lovely camera shot of Susan stuffing her face with a sandwich.

Ugly people can't sing if they are busy eating sandwiches

Next we learn some more fun facts about Susan, all of which make her seem more pathetic and sad.   We learn 1) she’s old 47 (old people don’t have talent!) 2) she’s not married and has never been kissed (so sad) and  3)  She lives alone with her cat, Pebbles (even more sad).  At this point in the video you just pray she’s talented at something…

I'm sure Pebbles still loves you for who you are

Once she walks on stage it’s pretty funny watching the audience and judges reaction.   At one point while she’s trying to describe the town that’s she from you hear condescending laughter and even a sarcastic wolf whistle–the kind people normally reserve for very attractive women as they walk by.  When asked her age to which she responded “47″ Simon gave her this wonderful look.

47? That's like ancient...you can't be talented!

It should be noted that Simon himself is 49, 2 years older than Susan.  If things don’t workout between Simon and his wife, who knows, maybe Susan could be his mistress.  Anyway,  luckily Susan has a pretty upbeat personality handled his disgust gracefully.  She even threw in a little hip wiggling action to show Simon how sexual she potentially could be.  However, this didn’t seem to impress the other judge on the show, Piers.  This was his reaction.

Piers doesn't like Susan's sexual dance

But the hate and disgust is not just reserved for the judges.  When she shares that her dream is to become a professional singer even the audience has an opinion about that.  Especially this young woman.

"OMG! There's no way you can be a singer"

The third judge, Amanda, upon hearing that Susan will be singing “I Dreamed a Dream” just looks utterly clueless.

"I'm so confused, why is someone unattractive on stage?"

By this point the show’s producers have established the fact that there’s no way she can be talented.  However, since we have her on stage might as well let her sing and get it over with.  This way we can get to the more attractive people.  So she starts singing and look the reactions now.  No sooner after the Susan sings the second note in tune we get this…

Holy sh*t, IT can sing! Inconceivable!!

Now that the audience realizes that she does have talent and they have been tricked by her unattractive looks they stand up and approvingly cheer for her.  Just like people cheer for the underdog, longshot, or person who has no chance.

We support you now because we underestimated you

Even more annoying are the two obnoxious hosts who stand behind the curtain, I think their names are Ant and Dec.  At one point one of them remarks “You didn’t expect that did you? Did you? No” and then a little later into her song he enthusiastically remarks “WOW!  Look at THAT!”  It’s really what he isn’t saying that bother me.  Both statements imply that he didn’t expect her to be a good singer because she’s ugly.  I mean why else would he have to assume she was a bad singer?

Anyway it’s pretty interesting to see how people react in this video.  It really does make me hate people more…I mean why did everyone immediately assume she was going to be a bad singer?  If you really think about it it’s probably true that more unattractive people are better singers than attractive people.  And then what was up with their totally over-the-top support of her when they discovered she could sing?  It seems like a sympathy cheer…because they felt bad for doubting her they had to over compensate by putting extra effort into their cheering and support for her.  Even the clueless judge, Amanda, mentions how “everyone was against you…” but she never explicitly stated the reason why everyone was against her.  Was it because she stuffs her face with sandwiches?  Or the fact that she’s never been married?  Nope, it’s because she was ugly and we assumed she couldn’t sing.

I read this article talking about the Susan Boyle phenomenon and she summed it up perfectly in her title, “It wasn’t singer Susan Boyle who was ugly on Britain’s Got Talent so much as our reaction to her.”

I should just create a show.  I’ll call it Ugly People Got Talent Too…I’ll be rich!  People would be on their feet cheering left and right non-stop.

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“I hate Twitter because I’m so addicted to it!”

“I hate Twitter because I have no time to vlog anymore”

“I hate Twitter because it’s down all the time”

That’s lame.  If you willingly use Twitter then you can’t really hate it because if you really hated it you wouldn’t use it in the first place.  Here’s an example.  I hate Broccoli (I feel like I’m eating trees and I hate the taste). However, you’ll never see me eating broccoli and hear me say “I hate Broccoli because it’s so addictive.”  I stay the hell away from broccoli.   If Broccoli enters a room, I would walk up to Broccoli and punch it in it’s green healthy face.  That’s how much I hate Broccoli.  That’s hatred.

I was looking to find people who really hate Twitter, but instead I found a bunch of posers.

So before I go any further, let me make this clear.  I TRULY hate Twitter…no if’s, and’s, or but’s.

Why I hate Twitter

The natural question to ask is, “Why do you hate Twitter?”

It’s simple, Twitter murdered my family.

Ok, so maybe not, but to explain my hatred of Twitter it helps to understand my irrational hatred of things.  Here’s a random list of things I hate in no particular order and why I hate them:

• Miley Cyrus: That song where she sings “I’m just being Miley” drives me up the wall…and I don’t like the fact that she sounds too manly (maybe this is related to my insecurity issues)
• Disney Channel: Have you tried watching any of their shows?  Hannah Montana, some other show about some rich twins who own a hotel, etc… They are all crap.  If my kids ever watch that, I’ll punch them in their face…
• Pocahontas: When I watched the trailer for this movie I saw a talking tree (aka Grandmother Willow), and was like, “What a talking tree?? That’s ridiculous!”  Since then I’ve refused to watch the movie.
• Broccoli (already mentioned above)

If you watch South Park.  I’m kind of like Cartman.  Cartman hates all kinds of random things from Jews to hippies to prostitutes.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Jews, hippies, and even prostitutes (everyone’s got to make a living, right?), but what amuses me so much about Cartman is that he just loves to hate.  In the same way once I latch onto hating something…I don’t want to let go (just like Rose didn’t want to Jack to let go in Titanic).  However, after a little more thought on the subject I’ve been able to break down the main reason I hate Twitter.

I hate hearing about Twitter everyday.

In one day I’ll normally hear Twitter mentioned like a thousand times.   Here are all the places that I normally get Twitter drilled into my skull:

• On the TV: CNBC (a financial stock reporting tv station)– “You can check out all the great stock tips on our Twitter page at blah blah blah”
• On the Radio: 102.7 Kiss FM (local LA top 40 radio station)– “Ryan Seacrest here, you can check out all my awesome celebrity dirt by following my Twitter…”
• On the Toilet: Businessweek Magazine lying around– “Twenty Ways to Boost Your Business with Twitter”
• At Home: My Mom– “Ben, do you have a Twitter page?”

It’s like that screeching sound you hear when people drag their nails across the chalkboard…that’s what it’s like every time I hear people mention Twitter.  Something is definitely wrong when even my parent’s know about Twitter!  So part of my hatred for Twitter is because I hear about it all the time, but the bigger picture is that I just hate things that become extremely popular seemingly overnight.  It’s like a phobia of mine.  To better illustrate this i created this graph of My Hatred of Twitter:

The graph is pretty simple.  The more I hear about Twitter the more I hate it.  When Twitter first came out, I was cool with it because no one was talking about it.  About six months ago, I started noticing a few more people talking about it, mildly annoying, but bearable.  Now complete strangers come up to me and say “You need to be on Twitter,”  it has passed from Annoying to Full on Hatred.

Here’s the funny thing, I’ve known about Twitter since they first came out.   I thought it was a very interesting product/idea when they first came out.  I thought it was cool that you could send updates from you cell phone to your Twitter account all for free.  I even went out of my way to learn all I could about Twitter.  I read interviewers with the founders, read about their software architecture, and even told other people how I thought it was a cool product.  But I never thought it would be as popular as it is today.  And it’s because it’s become so popular that I’ve developed my hatred for it.

Things always worry me when people act super crazy about them.  I take a very cynical view of mankind.  I think once everyone starts doing something there is cause to worry.  It’s like how Spider Man has Spidey Senses when danger is around, when everyone starts doing something or talking about it alarms go off in my head…to stay away.  I’ll call this power Lemmy Senses (named in honor of those adorable Lemmings).  Here are examples where my Lemmy Senses went off and I stayed away until it was safe:

• The Macarena Dance: The younger Millenial generation might not have been old enough to experience this “phenomenon,” but I remember how it was all the rage.  That ludicrous dance and music.  Once the music came on it was like moths to a flame…everyone to the dance floor.  I steered clear.
• The Atkins Diet: It seemed at one point everyone was talking about the Atkins diet… Oprah was even on it and even Fast Food restaurants had Atkins friendly menu items.  It was the thing to be on if you wanted to lose weight.  I saw people lose a ton of weight fast…only to gain back just as fast.  But then out of nowhere it just died.
• Nazis and Hitler: This before my time (and country) but if you think about it Hitler managed to convince people that it was OK to exterminate Jewish people.  It was the “in” thing to do.

Ok, so comparing Twitter to Nazis and Hitler is a little extreme, but the point of all this is that the reason I get weirded-out by Twitter is I feel most super popular things don’t last and sometimes people die because of them.  But I’m starting to digress, let me continue back on some other reasons why I hate Twitter.

Other Reasons for Hating Twitter

This post is starting to get a little long…so I’ll rapid fire the rest of my  reasons for hating Twitter.  I hate Twitter because …

People talk about it like it’s the next greatest thing … like it’s the Second coming of Jesus great.  “Twitter is so awesome like I can get so much feedback from all of my followers blah blah blah”  Will Twitter wash my car for me?  Will it wipe my butt?  If Twitter did that I might like it better.

If Twitter washed my car, I'd like it more...

It’s a waste of time. People talk about how great Twitter is because they only allow you to put in 140 characters for each “Tweet” which makes people be more concise and only say things that are “valuable.”  Sure that might be true, but if you are spending a lot of time responding and updating then it eats up just as much time as it would if it wasn’t 140 characters.   People will also argue that it’s valuable to get feedback and discover new things before anyone else does, but is that really more valuable than the loss in productivity?  Actually you know what would be faster?

Tweet without typing...Twitter's newest feature!

Just stick electrodes in my head and stream all my thoughts to Twitter…that way it wouldn’t take up any time.  Twitter should look into that feature.

The Lingo and Jargon.   Like all “cool” things Twitter has to have it’s own language: Tweets, Fail Whale, Twittering, Twitwits, Twatted, Twitterfic, Tweetarded, etc…  To an outsider it’s pretty overwhelming to look at something like this:

I mean what the hell is that?  I see “RT” is that Real Time?  When I see an @ sign I think of email address, so @pinkheels must be someone’s email addresses?  “14 Tips to Deal with Conflict” I understand because it’s English.  Then there is some link to a website called “Tiny Url” following it which I can only assume must be a link to these 14 Tips.  Later on it says this is from some user called TweetDeck.  Putting this all togther I can only assume that TweetDeck is telling me that he/she will be real time emailing to someone at the email address @pinkheels about 14 Tips to Deal with Conflict.  Awesome to know!  Thanks!

I didn’t come up with the idea myself!  Yeah, I’m just plain jealous I didn’t come up with Twitter.

Conclusion

So there you have it.  I have said my piece.  I really hate Twitter.

***UPDATE 4/3/09****

I’m happy to report that if you google “I hate twitter” now my post now appear on the first page of google search results.  As of now I’m the 5th result.  Finally someone who hates twitter is on the first page!  I wonder if it can get to number 1?

I also wanted to point out some other guys I found (after a little more digging) who actually hate twitter like I hate twitter:

• Russell Scott
• Grayson Davis
• Ann Bibby
• Bob Phibbs

***UPDATE 4/14/09***

I’m sad to report that I’m no longer on the first page of google for searching “I hate twitter.”  I think my last update screwed up my chances …after I posted that I no longer appeared on any search result.  So my guess is that google punished me for talking poorly about their beloved Twitter.  Yes,  I know technically they haven’t bought twitter yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

In better news if you do google the phrase “I hate twitter so much” I once again show up on the first page of the google search.

***UPDATE 8/18/09***

It’s been an interesting past 4 months in Twitter Hateland.  At my last update I was not even on the first page for “i hate twitter,” but as many of the commenters have let me known, I moved up to the number 2 spot just behind Grayson Davis at OpenSalon.com.  However, on a whim today I decided to search today and was pleasantly surprised by this google search result:

That’s right folks.  I’ve made it to the top and can now claim the title of Number 1 Twitter Hater in the World (at least the world according to google).  Thank you all for your twitter hate support.  Without all of you searching, linking, and commenting I could have never gotten to where I am today.  Thank you again!  (Hopefully my reign at number 1 will be long and glorious).

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1 in 5 teenagers have done “sexting” (the sending of sexually explicit text messages)

teen preganacy is on the rise for the first time in 15 years

my thoughts: is there a correlation between the two?

At the gym:

Is water good for you?

my thoughts: no, vodka is better for you

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That’s right, the number 1 movie was Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail.  I was a little shocked to see this as the number 1 movie in America.  I didn’t really see any previews for this movie and I really don’t know who Tyler Perry is, but apparently a lot of other people do.  I wanted to learn more about this movie so I dug a little more into some statistics for the movie.  Here are the statistics for the top 5 movies this past weekend (February 20, 2009) from Rotten Tomatoes:

If you look at these stats Madea Goes to Jail crushed all the other movies in the top 5 when it comes to amount of money generated per theater at a whopping $20.2 k.  Never mind how the critics gave it a 26% rating (rotten tomatoes averages all the critics reviews and calculates a rating), but if it manages to be as successful this weekend then it will be on target to blow Slumdog Millionaire out of the water!  I was looking online for the budget for this movie and some guy estimated that the budget for Madea Goes to Jail was maybe around 10 million dollars.  If that is the case this movie is going to make a killing for the studio and its investors.  Contrast that profit with that of Coraline.  Coraline’s budget was set around $75 million and took 5 years to make.  So far it has made only $53.8 million which means it still hasn’t broken even.  Who needs fancy movies with 3d effects and plot?  All you need is Tyler Perry in a fat suit and a dress. He’s the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I’ll be honest when I watch trailers for movies normally I group which demographic is probably going to watch it.  My judgment is not very politically correct and typically involves lots of stereotypes, but that’s how I organize movies.  Examples:

• Sex and the City: bitter White women
• How Stella Got Her Groove Back:  Black women
• Paul Blart Mall Cop:  White people and their kids
• He’s Just Not That Into You:  bitter White women again
• Street Fighter the Legend of Chung Li:  Asian people, especially those who played the video game
• Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail:  Black people

In the case of Madea Goes to Jail, I’m not sure if only black people went to go see this movie.  According to this yahoo news article:

Women accounted for 71 percent of the audience and blacks 72 percent — typical for Perry releases… The Hispanic contribution jumped to 13 percent from 5 percent, while the white audience was steady at 6 percent.

So it would seem if these numbers are correct black women are a big fan of Tyler Perry, Hispanics have increased their affinity to Tyler Perry, and the same white people who watched his previous movies came out again.  I always forget just because it’s a movie I wouldn’t watch that it doesn’t mean the rest of America feels the same way.  But what I really want to know is who watched Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail, why did you go see it, and what did you think of the movie?

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The first part is pretty standard and what you would expect to find in an item description for penis shaped candies:

Chocolate Erotic Penis Candies will add flair to your bachelorette party snack table. Penis-shaped party favors are always a big hit at bachelorette parties, and the Chocolate Erotic Penis Candies are a tiny treat that will amuse and charm your guests.

So I can kind of agree with this first part of the description…a bunch of girls giggling when they are snacking on some chocolate penis candies at a bachelorette party.  However, the second part of the description gets more interesting:

Chocolate Erotic Penis Candies are a great choice for an African American bachelorette. It is hard to find bachelorette party items for black women to enjoy.

WHAT!? Penis shaped candies are a great choice for African American bachelorettes?  Where did they come up with that? Why do African American bachelorettes like penis shaped candy?  Is it because they like penises or is it because like African Americans chocolate is also black in color? Without any additional explanation I can only conclude the following:

• If you are an Asian or Caucasian bachelorette you would not enjoy snacking on penis candies as much as black bachelorettes
• Black bachelorettes enjoy penis-related items more than bachelorettes of other races
• Black bachelorettes are hard to shop for

In case you don’t believe anyone would write a product description like that (or in case the website changes the description) I have included a screen shot of the description:

Yeah, I think this pretty racist and un-called for, but at the same time it definitely makes typically boring product descriptions much more interesting.  Imagine if Amazon started doing product descriptions like this:

If you are going to be racist, you might as well go all the way…

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Thanks to the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT) a friend of mine sent me to take I have learned that I’m racist.  Harvard doesn’t directly call me a racist, but say that my results “suggest a moderate automatic preference for European American compared to African American.”    If European American = white and African American = black then I automatically prefer white over black.

How did Harvard come up with this conclusion?  Through the process known as Implicit Association Testing.  What is that?  It’s testing through various association tasks to uncover biases and pre-conditions we aren’t (or wouldn’t admit) to ever having.  Here’s a little more background coming straight from Harvard’s mouth:

Psychologists understand that people may not say what’s on their minds either because they are unwilling or because they are unable to do so. For example, if asked “How much do you smoke?” a smoker who smokes 4 packs a day may purposely report smoking only 2 packs a day because they are embarrassed to admit the correct number. Or, the smoker may simply not answer the question, regarding it as a private matter. (These are examples of being unwilling to report a known answer.) But it is also possible that a smoker who smokes 4 packs a day may report smoking only 2 packs because they honestly believe they only smoke about 2 packs a day. (Unknowingly giving an incorrect answer is sometimes called self-deception; this illustrates being unable to give the desired answer).

The unwilling-unable distinction is like the difference between purposely hiding something from others and unconsciously hiding something from yourself. The Implicit Association Test makes it possible to penetrate both of these types of hiding. The IAT measures implicit attitudes and beliefs that people are either unwilling or unable to report.

So how do they uncover that you are racist (even though you would never admit it)?  You can find out for yourself by taking the test. On their website you’ll find a  list of different tests you can take.  I chose to take the Race test which looks like this:

I like how here they already state that most likely you are racist since “most Americans have an automatic preference for white over black.”  When I saw this I said to myself “Well, I’m not every American, I value everyone equally and lovingly.”  I was out to prove to Harvard that despite all their “scientific research” that I was not like most Americans.

After you select to take this test you fill out some basic demographic information about yourself like your age, race, sex, biases you think you have (ie you like or don’t like black/white people), etc… Then you are taken to the meat and potatoes of the research study, the actual test.  It’s a simple test where they have you associate a picture with a word.  Everything is grouped into two categories and you are supposed to select which category they fall into by selecting either “e” or “i.”

They start you off with identifying pictures of black and white people.  They show you an image of a black or white person and then you are supposed to hit “e” if they are black or “i” if they are white.  Something they tell you to do is to go as fast as possible (this way you are going on instinct rather than careful analysis.  Later on they start adding other terms that invoke feelings like “hatred, love, joy, etc…” and you are supposed to select the correct category they belong to.  It’s probably easier to show you how this work than to spend much more time explaining it.  Here’s a video of me taking the actual test (I added Yanni music to the test cause otherwise it’s kind of boring to watch…Yanni definitely spruces it up):

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you watch the video and pay attention you’ll notice that at times when a picture of a black person comes up I automatically select the key that lumps them into the “bad” category.  This could be an indication of my racist nature, but if you watch the video and take the test for yourself, I feel like they purposely try to condition you to associate bad things with the pictures of African Americans.  The first time they mix the feelings with the races you’ll notice they have the “e” key linked to European American or Good and then “i” key linked to African American or Bad.   I think the mind will naturally associate pictures of black people with bad feelings since they are training you to do so in this first part.  That’s just my non-Harvard educated self guessing at what’s going on.

At the end they give you the result which you saw posted above, but to make you feel better about your racist self they do provide you with a chart that says that most people are racist against African Americans.  A feel good chart that states that over 54 percent of web respondents are either moderately or strongly preferential to European Americans over African Americans.

The thing I notice now is they state these results are from “Web respondents.”  If these results are done by any of the number of people who comment on Youtube, then I would say these results are quite skewed.  People like to mess around online (though I’m not one hundred percent if this is the case for this test).

After this test a I was feeling a little dejected.  I wasn’t the champion for equality that I thought I was.  Part of me felt that their testing methodology was biased, so to test this I decided to take a different test, one which I was already part of the demographic they were comparing.  This time I took the Asian IAT.

Even though it doesn’t really describe what it’s testing, this test finds out whether you associate Asian Americans as American or not.  Myself being Asian American, I thought that if this test didn’t identify me as someone who DOES associate Asian Americans as American then this Harvard test is whack or I probably have some identity issues.  This one was kind of funny because they use some horrendous looking hand drawn pictures of Asian and European (white) people.  I had a hard time identifying Asians from non-Asians.  You can see the ugliness for  yourself.  If you watch the video you’ll also notice how I get a lot wrong (not on purpose).

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was a little surprised by the result.  I would have though with me being Asian American I would have been strongly associated Asian Americans as American, but instead my result stated…

I only have a “slight association” of Asian Americans as Americans according to Harvard.  Maybe they are onto something that I never realized before.  When I look into a mirror the reflection I see is not Ben Tao the American, no, Harvard says, I see Ben Tao, the slightly American.  Am I alone?  Apparently only 9% of the web respondents were just like me.

I’m curious to know the results of non-Asians who take this test and Asians who take this test.  My guess is that Asians Americans who are taking this test are the ones associating Asians as Americans and non-Asians are the one’s making up the rest of the results.  If you want to help me prove this theory take the test (scroll down to the Asian IAT test) and let me know how you do.  Alright, I’m off to go about my business being slightly American…

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Fast forward to now and this time he plucked his remaining good eye and ate it.  Now some might say that he’s faking it, but I don’t think so.  How many people do you know have been that desperate that have pulled out their own eye?  I had enough trouble touching my eyeball when I was learning how to put contacts on.  Remember there was a guy a few years ago who sawed off his arm since it was trapped under a boulder–I could see myself doing that before tearing out my own eye.  Just thinking about it gives me the heebie jeebies.   This gentleman sums up pretty well:

“He will finally be able to receive the mental health care that we had wanted and begged for from day 1,” Bobbie Peterson-Cate, Thomas’ trial attorney, told the Sherman Herald Democrat. “He is insane and mentally ill. It is exactly the same reason he pulled out the last one.”

The article doesn’t really explain what exactly “the reason” he pulled out his eye in both cases, but in my humble opinion if you tear out your wife and daughter’s hearts, pluck out one of your eyes, and pluck out your remaining eye and eat it, you got to be just a little insane, but I’m no psychologist.   For more insane information read the Associated Press article.

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