You're an annoying retard.

There are two things I hate that I've noticed recently, when people post pictures online.

First, and briefly, it drives me crazy to NO END when someone puts "LOL" in something they've written. Like on Friendster, they'll have a profile that's like, "I like Str8 chillin' wit my homies, clubben, and gettin' my freak on. Maybe if your cool enough you can come to LOL"

Setting aside the fact that the word "Clubbin'"is spelled wrong, and to and your is used incorrectly, (UGH. THREE OTHER THINGS THAT ARE LIKE A BUTTER KNIFE ON MY SPINAL COLUMN.) this atrocity of a sentence ends, not with a period, but with LOL.

I hate LOL.

LOL is only for use in an instant messenger conversation. NEVER ANYWHERE ELSE. Not in a card, not in your Friendster profile, not on your match.com profile, not on your JDate profile, not in your lesbiansforsexnow.com profile. NO WHERE. It is not to be used in a thank you letter, it is not to be used in an email. I think if you want to denote humor or sarcasm in a written instrument, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but the proper way to express said emotion is through an emoticon. A smiley face. Simple, like this: :) 8) 8-D, or any combination thereof. NOT, HOWEVER, :o). That smiley face is for fuckups. It looks like a muppet with a cold or something, emphasizing that his nose is big and runny and stuffed up. I hate that smiley face. Any other smiley face is fine. Really. I swear. We're doing much more written communication, and much of it is, admittedly less formal than before. As a result, humor and sarcasm creep in, but it's impossible to know if the writer is being humorous or sarcastic sometimes, without an emoticon. So, sometimes, they're fine. But not to be overused. I overuse. I'm guilty.

For Christ's sake, STOP THE INSANITY, PEOPLE. Ugh. Whenever I see some badly-written description involving the words "wit," "da," "your" used incorrectly, verbs ending in "in'," verbs that should end in "in'" ending in "en..." Ugh... do you know how I read that to sound? In my head, it's some stupid, ignorant West-Miami fuck, with cheap shoes and brandless gray worsted cotton pants, purchased on clearance at Ross, and a Hialeah accent saying it, just before hopping into the purple Nissan Sentra without a rear bumper, and heading out to Club Deeeeeeeep!

It makes you sound like an idiot. And on top of that you usually end the profile with LOL, thus, putting the cherry on your proverbial dipshit sundae.

If you use LOL, outside of an IM conversation, I hate you.

To further fan the flames of my ire, these people usually have a picture posted. This picture normally confirms to me what drooling mongoloids these people are. They're usually "hard thuggin'," while sprawled out on a flouncy, overstuffed floral couch, their first grade picture in a yellowing plastic frame on a bent-wood and wicker sofa end-table. Through the ghastly brown and green window-treatments, the viewer observes that the view out the window is of a chain-link fence and the iron-stained concrete walls of the hovel next door. It's sort of hard to hard thug, next to a picture of you in a cardigan and tie, so the ingenious subject devises a plan...more on that in just a moment, I'm setting the scene. If the subject is not on a loud couch, they're standing in the middle of a disgustingly messy room from the looks of the background of the picture, with sad, dusty Venetian blinds, cheap track lighting and an unmade bed. The subject is attired in a wifebeater, and pair of gray sweatpants, doubtless with elastic at the ankles, pouting "hard" at the camera. In both of these pictures, the subject has slicked back his hair. Now for the important similarity:

In both pictures, the subject is holding a pre-paid minute cell phone to his ear. No, sir, Pimpin' ain't easy, is it? We are to infer a few things from the fact that the subject of the picture cannot put down his cellular telephone for one minute to have his picture taken. First off, the subject is rollin' in the Benjamins. The large rectangle he holds to his ear, akin to something Zach Morris would recognize, means that he has cash to spare, and can take a lady out (and can be contacted by said lady) to a fancy meal at Red Lobster or Olive Garden - wherever her little heart might desire, and she can order anything off the sandwich menu! No entrees, though. At $14.99, what does she think he is, made of money!?

Yes, with a phone like that, he is living the American dream. Accessibility to him, for all the bitches in the hood, with their over-sprayed ringlets, French tips, faux color-pattern Louis Vuitton bags, and cornflower-colored bootyjean bellbottoms. As long as he remembers to charge his Verizon card with money that he gets from "working" at the computer technology help desk at FIU. He has money to afford the finer things in life. Like a cell phone, clearly. Luck is on his side. He has 20 dollars in his pocket, and a fist full of dreams.

With this success and freedom comes popularity, the main reason that he can't get off the phone for the 1/20th of a second it takes to be photographed. That phone is always attached to his ear, or his hand, whether he's yelling inane drivvel into it on speaker phone while at Publix or on the Metro, or whether he's yelling inane drivvel and receiving staticky responses from Manny and Brah, telling him where they're gonna ride after he's done watching this movie, that he's watching in the theater, right now, at this very second, with hundreds of other people, who, obviously, would rather hear him sort out his 20-year-old's plans, than listen to the dialogue of the movie, which they have shelled out ten bucks to see. Banga' be a playa, and banga' got people to see. The voicemail and text messages clearly pile up for this industrious young lad. His mother gets shushed so he can take a call. He calls no less than eight people in the span of five minutes and engages in earth-shatteringly important conversations with all of them.

And this, ladies, is what you'll get, when you finally land this young stud. Plans beyond your wildest dreams. A night hanging out in front of Gameworks at Sunset Place. All the cruising 8th Street and Le Jeune you can handle! Late-nite trips to the Winn Dixie to buy cigarettes!

All this conveyed by the simple fact that this gentleman is on the phone in his pictures. If he has more than one, in both of them. He smirks and he poses, careful to crook his elbow so that it does not obscure his face, and hold his phone with the fewest number of fingers possible, so that everyone can see his beloved phone, clearly the centerpiece of the picture. This begs the question -

Why not just put a picture of your phone up? Hmmm? I mean, you made no effort to dress yourself or anticipate how your surroundings would make you look. Why not just lay your phone down on a sticky, glass-topped kitchen table, surrounded by vinyl-covered chairs, and photograph your phone?

Find another picture. You look like a complete ass. No, you didn't just get "caught!" on the phone, in a surreptitious candid photo. You stood there, cajoling your little sister to photograph you, telling her where to stand and forcing her to take at least 15 pictures of yourself, while you posed with your telephone, talking to no one.

You're not fooling anyone. It's just sad. It's sad, it's utterly pointless because no one is impressed that you have a phone to your ear (it's not 1994 anymore) and it makes you look like a dipshit. Put on a shirt, go to a party, and get your pictures taken there, man.