How to Use Facebook Like a Badass

By Kyle B. Stiff

It’s come to my attention that you guys are logging in and out of Facebook twenty times a day and checking your notifications rather than being hardcore winners at life. This is not going to work out for me; I don’t want to live on a planet populated by people who got played like a game of FarmVille. I want to live in a world filled with badasses. To that end, I’m going to show you how I use Facebook.

What’s the big deal with my Facebook technique? Why do I think it’s superior to everyone else’s Facebook technique? And why should anyone be using Facebook at all? Or at the other extreme, why not let Facebook win?

The thing is, you can use Facebook and still achieve victory in life. It is possible. In fact, it’s been my experience that once the Book of Faces has been opened, it cannot be shut. The best we can do is limit its power over us. I’m going to show you how to enjoy using it without letting it use you.

First, we’ve got to talk about your friends. Let’s face it: Most of them aren’t that interesting. Don’t you know that you’re only truly friends with a few people on your list? The rest are family, coworkers, acquaintances, and people you’re stalking. Just seeing their status updates makes you feel anxious. To make things worse, a surprising number of people that come up in your newsfeed say things that piss you off, or make you resentful, or you look down on them, or sometimes they even give you a non-specific and generalized sense of feeling like shit.

True friends!

So what do you do, unfriend them? No, that’s not necessary, and it could lead to a backed-up toilet full of drama. Here’s what you do: When you browse through your news feed, hide a couple of people. Only a couple. The next day, hide a couple more. Don’t think about it too hard, just hide the biggest loudmouths that post the dumbest shit. It’ll be easier than you think, because your feed is most likely an un-weeded garden filled with schmucks with nothing to say. I know it sounds harsh, but the truth is that once those dimwits are gone from your feed, you will never, ever miss them!

Question: What if someone finds out I hid them? Won’t they be mad at me?

Answer: No one will ever, ever find out that you hid them from your newsfeed. For one thing, they post so much stupid shit that they have no way of tracking who sees what. For another thing, everyone’s newsfeed is so jam-packed with stupid shit that if some moron says, “Did you see the awesome thing I posted?” then the only honest and air-tight answer truly is, “No, I have too much dumb shit in my newsfeed, I missed the awesome thing you posted.” (Note: Try not to roll your eyes when you say “awesome”. In a real-life encounter, you must lie through your teeth in order to avoid drama from needy simpletons.)

In a few days, this seemingly difficult first step will become intoxicating. You’ll start hiding people from your feed left and right, and it’ll get easier and easier as you go. In time, only a few people that you truly like, or who actually have something to say, will be left.

Once you’ve finally cleaned up your feed, it’s time to make your feed impressive; after you weed a garden, you gotta put some roses in there. The second step toward using Facebook like one of life’s winners is to start friending or subscribing to groups or people (rather than friends) that represent your interests. This step is necessary… but it’s also dangerous.

For one thing, don’t interact with these people. In fact, it’s necessary that you not think of them as people. They are not your friends and they will never be your friends, and that’s exactly how you want it. Why? Because you’re too busy achieving victory in real life to make friends online.

Another danger lies in the fact that you might subscribe to interests that don’t add to your joy of living. You’ll want to subscribe to groups or people who post stuff ONLY if it relaxes you or engages your brain or your soul. This is easier said than done. For example: Are you into politics? Then you should subscribe to a feed that’ll keep you up to date on the latest political news, right? WRONG. Better yet: DEAD WRONG. If you’re into politics, then by all means go to a protest, debate with someone, vote and pray that the voting machines haven’t been tweaked. But DO NOT clog your feed with a bunch of nonsense that’s only going to get your pulse racing and heighten your anxiety.

You might be shaking your head, but trust me. When it comes to your Facebook feed, you’re going to have to skirt around a lot of nerve-wracking horseshit. Politics is the worst offender when it comes to ruining Facebook feeds. It’s been said that the revolution won’t be televised; I know you want to be informed, but believe me, the revolution isn’t going to be on Facebook either. Conservatives, try not to subscribe to groups that post pictures of dead babies and feature misspelled warnings about Obama making abortion mandatory for all heterosexual couples (note that If those babies were born, you would just end up friending them on Facebook and their status updates would clog up your newsfeed). Liberals, try not to subscribe to groups that whine about how teachers need to make over a hundred grand a year (note that those teachers would end up buying the same cars that rappers drive and they would still complain about their jobs).

So what should you subscribe to? Anything that won’t make you feel anxious, but shows you something you might not have found on your own, is fair game. When I began cleaning up my feed, I subscribed to a lot of people who do nothing but post pictures of art all day long. I stick to old paintings done with a level of skill we don’t have these days, with a few comic book artists thrown in for fun. Once you manage to find a few feed-enhancers, you’ll find better ones later by accident. Trust me, logging into Facebook and seeing a work of art done by Michelangelo or Moebius is a thousand times better than reading a status update about someone’s car taking a shit and making them late for a job they hate or perhaps don’t deserve to have.

(Note: Try to stay away from abstract postmodern shit. Nobody’s going to take the time to look through your profile and judge your interests, so you won’t get any brownie points from anyone by clogging up your feed with pictures of colored blocks that cleverly use empty space to get across a message about man’s inhumanity to man. You won’t be taking more than five seconds to look at this stuff anyway, so find stuff that looks nice and doesn’t jack-hammer your anxiety levels.)

But that’s just a starting point. What about cute animals? It’s never a bad idea to have random pictures of kittens and baby ducks and lobsters show up in your feed. The only thing to watch out for is that you don’t want cute animal pictures to have any stupid meme text pasted on them – you want to smile involuntarily because you got surprised by somethin’ heartwarming, not smirk like a dipshit because you “got” some other dipshit’s lowbrow joke.

What about handmade goods? Futuristic crap? Books in general? Pictures of mountains with lava spewing out of them? Famous corpses? Clouds that look like nothing other than clouds? Guns made to shoot bullets rather than act as political argument pieces? That’s fine – all of that stuff is perfectly acceptable to have in a feed, and can enlighten the hell out of you when you’re in the mood to waste time in style.

That’s it: Two steps toward tailoring Facebook to suit your needs. Few of us are strong enough to simply walk away from the Book of Faces, but that doesn’t mean we have to be notification-whores click-click-clickin’ away until we find ourselves on our death beds with no victory to show the gods. When Death Itself clicks on the notification that says our tomorrows have ended, none of us wants to go through a life-review filled with moments where we habitually checked something that only brought us down and made us feel like something less than the badasses we truly are. When we go out in a blaze of glory and stand before the gods in judgment, and they look at how Facebook affected us, let’s be ready to tell them, “I didn’t get bent out of shape over status updates written by needy simpletons. I remade Facebook in my own image; and there I saw volcanoes raging, and the cuteness of kittens, and art made by masters long since passed away, and many other badass things full of wonder.”

Hey readers! If you liked this post, you should check out some of my books. I’ve got an epic series called Demonworld, which is equal parts Mad Max and Lord of the Rings (think “science fantasy”), and a much-loved gamebook series called Heavy Metal Thunder which is currently a hyperlinked Kindle book but will be a fancy phone app any day now.

In Horror I Realized that Metal Gear Is for Children

By Kyle B. Stiff

 Like a lot of nerds, I was blown away by the first Metal Gear Solid. A Western focus on modern military themes and conspiracies mixed surprisingly well with an Eastern flair for sentimentality and over-the-top characters. I’m also one of those pretentious types that loved the second game. In fact, I attribute MGS2: The Sons of Liberty with my “wake up” call that turned me into a full-blown conspiracy nut. And I nearly cried at the end of the third game; the fact that only Snake understood Boss’s sacrifice, which only helped turn him into the unfortunately-named Big Boss, really hit me in my soft underbelly. I even got a little blubbery during the ending of the Portable Ops game when Big Boss’s Russian troops are being rounded up by the Americans – but then they salute, and we realize that Big Boss has gone beyond the nationalistic concept of “king and country” and united his troops based on their common humanity. That’s some heavy shit, no doubt about it.

But I’ve stopped playing Metal Gear games. Once I became officially old as balls, something started bothering me about the series. It’s been years since I made Rosemary’s jugs bounce via telekinesis during a codec conversation in the fourth game (how embarrassing was that bullshit, gamers?), but now I know why I can’t play these games without twitching uncontrollably. It’s because Metal Gear Solid is targeted toward a young audience. And, as I’ve said before, I’m old as balls.

Don’t think that I’m trashing the series. I’m not. In case you haven’t seen the new trailers for Metal Gear Solid 5, here they are. Please note that they are all incredibly awesome. However, also please note that one trailer contains an event that lasts for about three seconds but makes my intestines curl up with fear about how awkward the next MGS game will be. More on that later.

Here’s a trailer that wasn’t pushed as a Metal Gear trailer, but people figured out pretty quick that it was a Metal Gear game. The sense of horror and helplessness are very, very powerful. Some narrative text even wonders: “Have I gone to Hell?”

Here’s the latest trailer, which merges the hellish Phantom Pain narrative with clips from the unfortunately-named Ground Zeroes segment, which I’ll post last. Again, it’s pretty awesome. The inclusion of mythical beasts adds a dreamlike element often missing from the usual military aesthetic, but hints at alternate realities like we saw during the battle against The Sorrow in the third game. Also there’s the fact that Big Boss may be somewhat insane; he certainly wasn’t introduced years ago as a mentally stable hero, but as a megalomaniacal villain.

Now, here’s a trailer based on the beginning of the new game. It’s a slow crawl through a military base lashed by rain and run by someone covered in burn scars. As good as it is, the narrative conversation makes me wish that Kojima would learn to edit himself; I understand that Paz and the kid are being held in a military base, there’s no need to beat it to death.

That’s an awesome trailer, right? But here’s the thing: At 8:25 the camera zooms in on Big Boss, who takes off his goggles, looks directly into the camera, and says, “Kept you waiting, huh?” Don’t try to kid yourself by thinking that he’s talking to the other dude and the camera just happened to nearly slam into his forehead. No, Big Boss is actually talking to the goddamn audience. He’s referencing the fact that it’s been a while since we had a new MGS game available for a console, and Snake knows that we might be excited by seeing him again.

This is not cool, dear readers. This is really lame and awkward. There’s a reason why movies don’t show characters turning to the camera to spout off a one-liner unless said movie is a comedy. It’s goofy. It’s not something that an adult gamer wants to see.

I don’t mean to sound like a nit-picky, whiny little bitch, but the MGS series has always been hamstrung by lame attempts at humor in what should otherwise be a serious story about individuals being ground up by powerful forces that will do anything to extend their control.

But the compulsion to put lame jokes into a serious story is indicative of something far darker. That compulsion stems from the fear of telling a serious story, a story that could influence people because it closely mirrors reality.

For example: What was up with that goofball ending for the fourth MGS game? There were many, many great moments in that epic story. Who among us had ever played anything like it before?! There even came a point when it was understood that the hero, Solid Freaking Snake, would have to kill himself at the end of his mission so that humanity could live. He deserved only reward and adoration, but instead, he found out that he was a biological time bomb, and the final boss he would have to kill… was himself. I mean, a shot of Snake standing alone in a graveyard with a gun to his head, followed by a short five-minute cutscene of Hal Emmerich at a wedding explaining to some kid why Snake had to die alone, would have been soul-shattering and beautiful.

So what happened? Instead, we get some goofball antics with Meryl marrying some genetically unfit comic-relief dufus (this was after their painful flirtation during a final battle where bullets seemed unable to hit them), Emmerich cried for twenty minutes about Snake’s suicide only to have the scene undermined by an awkward phone call in which Snake said he didn’t have to do it after all, and he quit smoking, and he wants to hang out (to do what?!), and Big Boss came along and rambled for forty-five minutes while tripping over graves like he was in some kind of slapstick comedy sketch. It’s funny, that’s for damn sure, and the only thing that would have made it any funnier would be Meryl’s new husband throwing his ankles behind his ears and lighting farts during the wedding scene.

Plus we had to watch Raiden interact with his dumb kid. We already had all this awesome tension built up during the second game in which it was heavily implied that Rosemary wasn’t even a real person. She was a freaking memory construct, Raiden was an MK ULTRA mind control victim, and his masters were completely insane. THAT’S POWERFUL STORYTELLING – but wait! No no, it didn’t happen like that after all, Rosemary might have acted really weird at the end of MGS2 but don’t worry, she’s actually a real person and Raiden had a dumb kid with her and we get to see their awkward half-hour interaction at the end of MGS4. This was not long after a codec scene in which we find out that the player can telekinetically manipulate Rose’s tits while she helps deliver some dialogue during an otherwise serious scene. Totally makes sense… totally, totally makes sense. (It doesn’t really make sense, of course, unless we consider the fact that Kojima might be a virgin who has never touched or seen a breast and thus has no adult perspective on how embarrassing it is to see that stuff in his games.)

But there’s more. Why bother to have a heartfelt death scene for Raiden in MGS4 only to bring him back a few scenes later? It smacks of Joss Whedon and his inability to kill off a character because there might be at least one person who will feel a twinge of sorrow at the finality of death. As an entertainer, I would feel like a sack of shit if I tricked the audience into feeling sorrow at the death of a character only to – ta da! – bring them back later without a damn good reason. How could anyone feel any sense of danger while reading my stories if they knew that anyone I wrote about was effectively immortal and thus never in any danger?

Years ago, I thought it was brave of Kojima that he made it possible for Meryl to die in MGS1 based on the player’s actions (well, his ability to tap a button quickly during the torture scene), but her inclusion in MGS4 only proves that eternal life is canon in MGS and death is something that can only exist in an alternate non-canon universe full of endless horrors. Uh oh, here’s a plot twist, readers: Is that alternate dimension of horror actually the one we live in?

I guess my greatest concern is that I would really, really like to play this new MGS game, but I’m terrified that the ending will be lame and preachy. The ending of MGS3 and Portable Ops was pretty amazing, but the ending of every other game was mind-numbingly preachy. It seemed like every character gained this insight into humanity and existence, and then tried to pass that enlightenment on using strange non sequitors and sweeping generalities chock full of glowing optimism. Take MGS2, for instance. Raiden had to fight through a hellish nightmare, everyone around him went insane (and may not have even existed outside of his mind), he found out that his enemy Solidus was actually a good guy (sort of), he took part in an incredible hand-to-hand battle on top of Federal Hall, he made a human sacrifice of Big Boss’s closest genetic clone right under a statue of George Washington (where the “first patriot” was inaugurated) – and then what happened?

Oh, no big deal, Raiden and Snake just start preaching. “Life and stuff. It’s about being alive. Who am I? The decisions we make are the same as the choices we take. Is reality just a dream that wakes up and finds itself sleeping beside the choice to be alive?”

How does that happen? How do you experience the finest, most intense emotions that gaming has to offer, only to have it fall apart into something that might blow a fourteen-year-old’s mind but which ultimately sounds like a pile of horseshit? I hope this isn’t the case, but I suspect that, on some level, Hideo Kojima actually despises the audience of his games.

Think about it. Why are these action games that center on espionage and combat often hampered by sermons against violence? Does Hideo Kojima not understand that ANY AND EVERY hero’s journey must include violence because violence represents conflict and overcoming obstacles, which is a part of every human’s life? Or does he actually believe that violence in video games and movies has the power to turn a passive, idiotic audience into violent psychopaths? Why would he even make this assumption? How many war-hungry presidents and sadistic dictators and serial killers play video games? Really, how many? (Hint: The answer is zero.)

But… I probably will play MGS5. I admit, I’m looking forward to it. I didn’t bother to play Raiden’s solo game Revengeance, mostly because I suspected that Kojima’s hatred and disgust toward his audience had reached fever-pitch intensity. I decided that because 1) I remember my discomfort about the goofy ending to MGS4, and 2) the title is insanely bad. Not that I should have to hammer the point home, but do we understand that Revengeance is a really bad title? “It’s not just revenge… and it’s so much more than vengeance… it is: REVENGEANCE.” Why does it sound like the title of a comedy movie poking fun at action movie conventions? Is Kojima merely making fun of the audience? Or does he truly, truly hate the audience? Or is Kojima perhaps being more serious than we thought, and he trimmed the title down from the original and unwieldy THE MURDERKILLERS: RETURN OF THE RISE OF REVENGEANCE: THE FINAL BATTLE: THE DARK PROPHECY: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS?

Maybe this stuff really is made for children. When I was a kid, I was definitely one autistic sumbitch that liked complex storylines full of conspiracies and epic battles. Maybe I have faith that Kojima has outgrown his hatred for his audience and, as an adult, I will be able to write a glowing and worshipful review of METAL GEAR SOLID 5IVE: THE TWO GROUNDS ZEROES: THE PHANTOM MENACE PAINS: I WONDER WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO TOUCH A WOMANS BREASTES.

Hey readers! If you liked this post, you should check out some of my books. I’ve got an epic series called Demonworld, which is equal parts Mad Max and Lord of the Rings (think “science fantasy”), and a much-loved gamebook series called Heavy Metal Thunder which is currently a hyperlinked Kindle book but will be a fancy phone app any day now.

Kyle B. Stiff Has Accepted the Iron Writer Challenge!

Four writers, four random set pieces, three days, five hundred words, one winner, and no mercy. This is the Iron Writer Challenge, a no-holds-barred online event that smashes the bodies of writers and grinds them up for the entertainment of the crowd, and the only thing the winner walks away with is the right to live for one more day…

And now Kyle B. Stiff’s name has been drawn from the black box. His fate is sealed. He will take part in the Iron Writer Challenge near the end of April.

This is the first time he has been granted the honor of fighting and shedding blood for the pleasure of the crowd – on this world. But he has seen arenas in other eras, other lifetimes, even other worlds far from Earth. Many, many times he has put on armor dented by the kiss of blade and hammer. Many times he has lowered his helm and strapped it tight and heard the shouting muted by layers of gauze and steel. Many times he has walked along a row of weapons – sabers, nets, spears, shields emblazoned with corporate logos, shining crystalline axes, even chainsaws that drink gasoline as well as blood. Many times he has passed signs and gestures to his comrades before the gate is raised and he enters the killing grounds. Clowns and wild beasts caper in between shows, but when the light hits his armor he lifts his weapon and the roar of the crowd grows and grows, rippling and ululating like a single giant monster crying out in anguish. The crowd is dressed in the finest manner, each a respectable representative of his era and his nation; the faces, usually composed and respectfully stifling emotion, are now drawn out and shaking with pure insanity. He clangs weapon against shield but the sound is impossible to hear over the roar. He knows that untold wealth rests on his name, entire fortunes depend on him either killing his foe or dying in a pool of gore-caked wet sand.

The opponent steps forth and cuts a strange jig before the gladiators turn and face one another. They are similar in manner and temperament, but each opposes the existence of the other. All conscious thought withdraws; they cease to be human and become pure Entertainers. The crowd draws and holds its breath, then a bell or gong or electronic tone is sounded – and then the Game begins.

What I mean to say is: I can’t wait.

http://theironwriter.com/2013/02/16/the-challenge/

Kyle B. Stiff’s Favorite Movie

Today, Kyle makes a confession about his favorite movie. And yes of course it’s called CONAN THE BARBARIAN. Click here or here or even here to read the blood-spattered confession of a true baller.

Conan looking terrified as usual.

Kyle B. Stiff’s Epiphany About Open-World Games

Kyle B. Stiff sometimes has ideas that can improve video games. This is one of them.

Kyle B. Stiff is going to take you away on a wondrous journey full of unasked-for opinions continually vomited out by an overblown ego!

Gandalf’s Advice on the Subject of Aliens

Here’s all you need to know about the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life. For some reason, I incorporated Gandalf into it. Go figure! If you’re interested, click here.

Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Homefree Hero

By Kyle B. Stiff

 The latest hero to grace America with his presence is a Canadian who calls himself KAI. How old is he? He can’t call it. Ask him where he’s from and he’ll answer with a lie followed by a funny face. He likes to surf and wander the earth and he’s not real big on working full-time. But if you run into trouble, he’s the dude you want at your back.

For the handful of you all who have never heard of him, and are possibly logging onto the internet for the very first time and stumbled onto this page and need to catch up really quick, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of Kai: He was hitch-hiking around California and was picked up by a well-to-do psychopath. The psycho started bragging about raping a fourteen year old girl (which he paid to do), then told Kai that he was Jesus and could do anything, then plowed his vehicle into a black man. He got out and grabbed the nearest lady. This is what we in America call a rampage, and it was only beginning. Fortunately Kai keeps a hatchet handy. He grabbed his trusty weapon and bashed the psychopath three times in the head, thus ending a shit-storm. A local news person came along and filmed this:

 

Basically the guy’s a badass vigilante and possibly even a messiah whose symbolic work is all about ushering in the Age of Aquarius. The establishment has already tried to woo him. He didn’t react against it like an angry fucktard pushing an ideology in a vain attempt to cultivate a personality, but he also hasn’t gone along with it and become the sad and laughable icon of a reality TV show. Here he is in an interview with so-and-so. Note how he’s equal parts friendly and awkward.

 

And here’s another interview where we learn a little about the dark stuff that scarred him early on. He could have become a violent goon or a manipulative little shit with a chip on his shoulder; instead, he became a hero. Damn, what a dude!

 

There’s things about Kai that make a lot of Americans uncomfortable. A conservative might respect the fact that he dispatched a psychopath with a hatchet, but Kai readily admits that he’s “jacked hella shit” from Wal-Mart and Target – which is a big no-no for hard-workin’ Americans who believe that a trip to Wal-Mart or Target is a reward for forty hours of hard labor every week. Kai’s hair is long and his philosophy on self-love and tolerating others sounds way too much like something Christ would say, and Christian conservatives hate that hippy shit. Not that he’s some liberal posterboy, either: Kai saw a psychopath laughing as he plowed his car into someone, and instead of calling the police and waiting for them to show up forty-five minutes into the massacre, Kai pulled out a hatchet and took out the trash on his own. (Then again, the psychopath wasn’t using a gun, so it’s not like the incident could be used politically – whoops, I went there!) Also, Kai’s speech and mannerisms show that he doesn’t give a shit about looking intelligent or educated or even especially civilized. One video even shows him talking about a theory concerning how the earth’s molten center is somehow analogous to a battery; you won’t find that in any textbook, and liberals hate fringe theories. So he’s rough as hell around the edges. Most characters that we see on TV are usually tailored to appeal to one of the two camps into which America has been divided, but Kai is a blast of fresh air; he doesn’t fit on any grayscale spectrum.

Not that I’m on some moral high horse looking down on “normal” people that don’t “get” Kai. This heroic dude would have little to do with me in real life. I’m chained to my computer most of the day, I worry about money, my little home looks as if it’s been built around a TV which looks no different from an altar of religious devotion, and my poor Xbox has been rode hard an’ hung up wet, as they say. He would probably think that my morbid fascination with how he dealt with a psychopath is evidence of my own ghoulish character; I’m like a redneck mostly hemmed in by routine rather than a well-rounded person with the strength to relax and enjoy life.

Then again, maybe not! If we consult the opening text of the Book of Heroes, the first chapter in the Third Testament, it clearly says that King Kai’s first words to humanity at large were:

No matter what you done, you deserve respect. Even if you make mistakes, you’re loveable. And it doesn’t matter, your looks, skills, or age, your size, or anything – you’re worthwhile. No one can ever take that away from you.

Thanks, Kai! You’ve inspired me to take up the Hatchet of Truth. And if I get pinned between somethin’, I won’t move that shit (otherwise I’ll bleed out).

 Hey readers! If you liked this post, you should check out some of my books. I’ve got an epic series called Demonworld, which is equal parts Mad Max and Lord of the Rings (think “science fantasy”), and a much-loved gamebook series called Heavy Metal Thunder which is currently a hyperlinked Kindle book but will be a fancy phone app any day now.