Monday, February 6, 2012

The Douchetag

An InformationWeek article today discussed the derision heaped on Samsung, after Samsung's Super Bowl commercial for the Galaxy tablet depicted someone using a stylus.  The Twitter quotes ran like this:
One of the great things about the #iPhone was abandoning the #stylus. Not sure why #samsung thinks bring it back is #innovation and #freedom
Yep: the "pound iPhone" and the "pound stylus."

This guy thinks communication and search technology today is so primitive that every significant term must be specially marked.  Why would you even use such a medium, in which you're not free to type messages normally?  This is like WordPerfect, circa 1985.

If you have to litter your communications with asinine codes in the present day, the medium is a failure.  Why pander to it?

One of the #great things about #search #algorithms is how they #rank #significant #words and #devalue #insignificant words, #DUH.

Pretty sure this guy uses douchetags.
Thankfully, a recent study showed that the use of douchetags reduces the appeal of content they're embedded in.

 UPDATE:  Here's another story about a douchetag user getting rightly reamed across the Internet.

UPDATE 2: There's a pattern emerging here: douchetag users = losers

UPDATE 3: Google's trying to create its own variation of the douchetag.

UPDATE 4: Michelle Shocked is the latest douchetagger to suffer the consequences.

UPDATE 5: Microsoft employee Adam Orth is the latest douchebag douchetagger to get publicly reamed.
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7 comments:

  1. UnknownSeptember 25, 2012 at 3:26 AM

    # = hash. hashtag.
    £ = pound. poundtag isnt a thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oscar GoldmanSeptember 25, 2012 at 11:50 AM

      Not "poundtag"; pound sign. It has been around a lot longer than the Internet. Easily looked up.
      See #2 and #3 here.
      And here.
      Some background here.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousNovember 19, 2012 at 12:52 PM

      You've never used a phone-menu system? "Enter your account number, followed by the pound sign."

      Delete
    3. TGMDecember 10, 2012 at 4:57 AM

      Ok, let's clear this up.

      UK Pound: £
      US Pound: #

      Delete
  2. AnonymousMarch 14, 2013 at 3:33 PM

    The French language institute just made it officially the "sharp-word" (as in the sign for a sharp note in music -- except the keystroke oddly is still the hashtag symbol, not the symbol used for a sharp sign. Of course it's probably going to informally continue to be called a hashtag, but that's a different story....

    http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/mot-diese.htm

    http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/193634/french-government-to-hashtags-non/

    ReplyDelete
  3. MichaelMarch 14, 2013 at 5:19 PM

    We call the # a hash in the UK. It is the US that calls it a pound.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oscar GoldmanMarch 14, 2013 at 10:37 PM

      Yep, because you guys already use "pound" for money.

      Delete

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