“You made me hate my guts last night.”

I haven’t looked in my Spam folder in ages,  and the other day I needed to find a password-reset email that went in there.  Besides the usual “Make ur dick So harddd!1!!1” crapola, I was highly amused to see these ridiculous emails accusing me of something.  It’s such an obvious attempt to get a response, but I’m sure some idiot(s) out there replied to them and opened the floodgates to a shitload more spam or worse.  These are hilariously transparent and pathetic, so I thought it would be fun to share them with some responses.

Subject: Get the hell out of my life – F U
From: “Rebecca\ E.J” <Amy@cbbp.erasmunipod.com>
Date: Sun, 07 May 2017 13:15:27 -0400 (EDT)

Hi ________,

I just wanna tell you that you suck. I will never forgive you for what you did to me, you piece of crap. ASSHOLE! Do not you dare to talk to me again. Believe me, you don’t wanna see my other side, ask your goddamn sister, she has seen it.

F U,
T.B

Yeah, well my slag of a sister knows your dirty secret.  You know, the one about the goat.  Yeah, that one.  And I’m tellin’ everybody on Facebook!  Oh wait, I don’t have a sister.  Nevermind.

Date: Mon, 15 May 2017 04:43:49 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Cut the cr*p and stop stalking me
From: “Vanessa E.J” <reply@economicslearn.com>

Hey Scumbag,
Stop stalking me and my friend or I will report you. You piece of shit, cock-sucker douche. I do not know why you are doing this! You slept together once, only once. It does not mean anything. Have not you heard of hook up?
So, f*** off and leave us alone

I slept together?  What the fuck does that even mean?  Get your story straight, asshole.  I don’t have time for this mealy-mouthed nonsense, I have to get back to stalking you.  Whoever you are.

From: Inbox Message <hello@lookient.com>
Subject: About Last Night Dick
Date: Tue, 09 May 2017 14:28:43 -0400 (EDT)

You mad bitch! You made me hate my guts last night. You are an ASS. You disgust me. It makes me wanna puke when I think of you. YOU SON OF BITCH. Do not you dare to do that to me again, sucker.

Oh you deserve every bit of whatever it was you got last night!  You know why.  And I’ll do it to you again any time I want…as soon as I figure out who and where you are and whatever it was I did that pissed you off so much.

This one’s a little different, but no less ridiculous:

From: Brittney <reply@wattapelmicro.com>
Subject: why aren’t you answering me ?
Date: Fri, 5 May 2017 12:05:52 -0400

Its been a while since the last time we talked, a longer time since we saw eachother
Some say time fixes everyting but honestly its not working out for me Today I miss you more than ever
I guess I should’ve told you that when I could, now it might be a little to late
I guess you’ll never understand how much you mean to me even though I told you a million times
Hurtss to know forever ended so soon.

Oh Brittney, Brittney, Brittney.  You should have known it was just gonna be a quickie in the back of that U-Haul trailer, nothing more.  It would never have worked out anyway, with my uncontrollable gayness and you having a vagina and all.  Farewell, my love…whoever you are/were.  We shan’t meet again…

Betrayed by President Cheeto

Extremities are to scale.

This probably makes me a bit of an asshole, but when I read about Trump supporters who are now feeling fucked over, I get the giggles.  This guy’s troubles really aren’t funny, of course, but I do feel more than a little bit of schadenfreude reading about the extraordinary lengths he went to in supporting the Orange One.

‘Trump Troubadour,’ who attended 45 Trump rallies to honor his late son, feels ‘betrayed’ because of health care

Beginning in January 2016, Kraig Moss traveled to 45 rallies, belting out songs in support of Donald Trump and telling the story of his late son, Rob, who died three years ago from a heroin overdose.

Wow.  A little extreme, but he really believed in Trump’s promise to “help young people”, whatever that means, and there’s nothing wrong with following your passion.

…He stopped making his mortgage payments and sold the equipment for his construction business to stay on the campaign trail, galvanized by Trump’s promise to help young people — like Moss’s late son — who struggle with drug addiction.

Holy shit.  This guy really had it bad for our future Puppet-in-Chief.  Most were content to just wear one of those stupid red hats and wave an American flag while shouting at brown people.

Trump made this promise to Moss personally at a rally in Iowa in January 2016. Speaking through a microphone to the crowd, he addressed Moss directly: “The biggest thing we can do in honor of your son … we have to be able to stop it.”

Wow, that’s awesome!  Trump really cares.  It’s not like he’s just saying this stuff to get votes.  I mean, that would make him a lying, pussy-grabbing sack of badly-coiffed shit, right?

But about two weeks ago, Moss caught his first glimpse of the Republican proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act. The proposed health care bill … would eliminate a requirement that Medicaid cover basic mental-health and addiction services in states that expanded it, a mandate that covered nearly 1.3 million people.  “This bill is just the absolute opposite,” Moss told The Washington Post. “I felt betrayed. I felt let down.”

Whoops.  Sold his business and lost his house, all in order to follow a third-rate Hitler cosplay enthusiast around the country singing songs about his greatness.  Now, like so many others, he’s finding out that he was being conned on an epic level.  Awww.

Moss said he initially supported many of Trump’s other promises as well, such as his pledge to build a border wall with Mexico. But lately he has been upset hearing the stories of families being separated by deportations.

Oh really?  What did you think would happen when you hand the highest office in the nation to a cheese-colored bag of jingoist raccoon farts?  Christ on a cracker!  Too bad about his son, but I have zero sympathy for people like this who blindly supported a widely-known con artist and big-business bullshitter.  The only good thing to come of his election so far is the vast amount of epithets invented to describe him as anything other than “President Trump.”

So to you disillusioned Trumpites, all I can say is:  boo-fuckin’-hoo.  Now you’re paying the price with the rest of us.  Enjoy!

80’s Therapy

Listening to music from my childhood and teenage years has not only fed my hunger for nostalgia — it’s also helped me cope with the terrifying reality of our new authoritarian nightmare.  We all have to do what we can to stay sane, right?

I grew up in a small Arizona town which was surrounded by radio stations that played nothing but country music, and as a teenager in the 80’s it didn’t appeal to me at all.  I had to settle for buying the occasional tape or record from the Flagstaff Mall which was an hour away (which seemed like days away at the time).  This was before the internet and file-sharing, so I usually discovered music via friends at school or on MTV.  Yes, they used to play music videos.  Shocking, I know.

I can’t even begin to imagine how many of these I filled up with radio recordings and homespun mixes.  Truly, I am an old fart.

One day I discovered that our local TV cable company carried FM stations, and by touching the CAT5 cable directly to my radio antenna, I could magically pick up all the stations in Phoenix!  It opened up a whole new world of music for me, and I discovered a lot of music that helped shape my tastes as an adult.  So when I hear songs from the 80’s today, it brings back a lot of great memories of that time of discovery, when I’d listen to the radio constantly and record songs on cassette to enjoy many times later.

It’s not necessarily the “good” songs that do this to me.  Even when I hear a shitty 80’s song, I’m transported back to my teens just by that 80’s sound.  You know it when you hear it:  the way the synths sounded, the cheesy and (mostly) programmed drums, the weird sustain effect they put on the vocals for that “stadium” effect…I love all that stuff, even if the song is a turd.  And that decade produced a lot of shitty music, let me tell you.  (This sound has made a comeback in the past 10-15 years, but most bands trying to emulate it can’t quite get it right.  I can always tell a legit 80’s band from a group of poseur millennials trying to replicate the “oldies.”)

So, as you can imagine, I was soooooper excited to find this astonishing collection of 80’s DJ mixtapes, lovingly curated by a guy who created the San Francisco Disco Preservation Society.  This was recently profiled on the SFist blog and it’s a fascinating read:

The art of the club mix — equal parts curation, imagination, and rhythmic skill — is something that’s evolved over the decades in different ways in different cities, with DJs finding influences both locally and internationally. But before the explosion of file-sharing in the early 2000s and the widespread accessibility of digitized music a few years later, DJ sets were things you only ever experienced live in the nightclubs themselves, unless your friend was a DJ and copied a cassette for you — or unless that DJ was famous enough to have a record label and a few CDs.

Hopkins wants people who went to SF nightclubs like Pleasuredome, the I-Beam, and the EndUp back in the day to be able to hear some of these multi-hour mixes that they may only have the haziest memories of, and he wants to introduce a new generation of DJs and nightlife mavens to the talents of their forebears.

Some of these mixes were on cassette tapes, but others were recorded on big reels which go for 2-3 hours, recorded directly from the soundboard.  He even went through the trouble of scanning the actual tapes and reels so you can see the DJs’ scribbling on them.  This extra level of detail proves how serious he is about it.  I’m a serial archivist and I totally get off on collecting and curating hoards of different media (music, ebooks, digital comics, photos, retro games), and including the scans is exactly how I would have done it.  I tip my Pac-Man hat to you, sir! 😀

There are many hours of music available to play and/or download.  Some the mixes I love, others not so much, but it all depends on your tastes and what was hot at the time.  I’ve been playing these while I work since they make surprisingly good background music, and every so often a song comes on that just lights up my face with nerdy delight.  Stuff I haven’t heard in what seems like a thousand years.

So go explore it if 80’s music is your thang!  He also has a collection of 90’s stuff which I’ll have to dive into later.  One decade at a time…

Unnngnggghghhhhhhh

Christ, what a week.  I had a post all ready to go, and then something else happened with Trump.  And then something else.  And then he did something even more stupid.  And, and, and…  It’s hard to keep up with this stuff while watching your country transform into a jingoist’s wet dream.  It brings out my apathy — it’s depressing enough just following the news, but why bother writing about anything when something even more awful is just gonna happen tomorrow?  But who cares, here’s what I had before the shit really hit the proverbial fan a few days ago.

————

Looks like Team Trump is already off to a great start!  First act as President:  tell your press secretary to tell a brazen, easily-verified LIE because the media reported something that your hurt widdle feewings.

When the media showed the world the tellingly dismal turnout for Trump’s inauguration compared to Obama’s in 2008, he was not happy.  Because, you know, when you’re a tin-pot dictator it’s more important to project a fictional image of yourself vs. deal with those pesky, provable facts.  And oh, does he hate it when anyone reports facts that embarrass him, even those with photographic proof.

The first days inside Trump’s White House: Fury, tumult and a reboot – The Washington Post

Trump has been resentful, even furious, at what he views as the media’s failure to reflect the magnitude of his achievements, and he feels demoralized that the public’s perception of his presidency so far does not necessarily align with his own sense of accomplishment.

So we basically have a child running the country, one prone to tantrums and foot-stomping when he doesn’t get his way.  Or, in this case, when someone tells a truth that doesn’t live up to the Successful Businessman Superhero fantasy image he’s created for himself.

What’s next?  Oh dear, now they’re all fighting for a spot at Trump’s teats.  Especially his son-in-law, whose appointment already reeks of nepotism.

Two people close to the transition also said a number of Trump’s most loyal campaign aides have been alarmed by Kushner’s efforts to elbow aside anyone he perceives as a possible threat to his role as Trump’s chief consigliere. At one point during the transition, Kushner had argued internally against giving Conway a White House role, these two people said.

Yes, folks, they’re proving to be the festering snakepit of sycophants we knew they were.  And speaking of snakes, you do not want to cross Kellyanne Conway.  Not only does she deflect important questions like Wonder Woman and her bracelets, but I suspect she can also unhinge her jaw and swallow her foes whole.  Best not to provoke that one.

Zdravstvuyte from Republic of Trumpistan!

Today’s the day, comrades!  Donald Trump, America’s highest-ranking sexual assaulter and foremost expert on bullshitting his way to success, officially takes the highest office of the land.  Women, gays, and non-whites everywhere shudder with irrepressible revulsion.

He brings with him a parade of swamp trash chosen for his cabinet — a crew overflowing with conflicts of interest, shady business dealings, political assholery, climate change denialism, nepotism, histories of racism, religious zealotry, voting against women’s rights, disregard for the law, rejection of science, and a complete lack of any characteristic or experience that qualifies them for their appointed offices.

In short:  you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Not all of them will survive their confirmation hearings, of course, but some of them might manage to scurry under the door of a new office.  One of them has already slunk away in disgrace after being revealed as a serial plagiarist, so I’m hoping we’ll see a few more of them get the boot.

But back to the man of the hour!  And look, he’s already hacking away at all the progress we’e made in the last 40 years:

White House Website Scrubbed Of LGBT Rights, Civil Rights, And Climate Change Moments After Swearing In

Before today, the “Issues” tab of the website had a section devoted to climate change, the existential threat posed to our species that a scientific consensus holds is caused by human activity. That section is completely gone with the website revamp, along with any mention of climate change whatsoever. The Civil Rights section is also missing. And the LGBT section.

It’s only going to get worse from here.  All we on the Left can do is defy, obstruct, watch watch them very closely, hold them accountable for their actions, and vote the fuckers out of office next time we get a chance.  One website I’ll be reading daily is Corrupt AF, a site dedicated to tracking all the corruption of Trump and his team of toadies.  Sounds like a 24/7 job, doesn’t it?  I hope they’ve brought on extra staff…

And what of the depressed and outraged Democrats who are still trying to make sense of what happened?  I keep hearing this from certain corners of the Left:  “We need to reach out to the Trump voters to understand them and start a dialogue on how to proceed together.”  Well, I didn’t reach out but I did try to understand them.  I even learned a few things.  But you know what?  I haven’t seen anyone on the Right reaching out.  All I see/hear from them is the same ol’ shit: “You lost!  Get over it!  Stop whining!  We took our country back!  Too bad, snowflake!  You cucks blew it!  Benghazi!”  So until I see a lot more sincere “reaching out” from the Right on a national level, they can kiss my grits.

Actually, I have to admit that right now I’m not interested in interacting with these people — the borscht-like taste of illegitimate and tainted election results is still in my mouth — but maybe it doesn’t even have to be a dialogue.  I’m willing to settle for more public statements of “I shoulda voted for someone else” once they realize they’ve basically put a loaded gun into the hands of a child.  Tiny little baby hands.

I’m also tired of hearing about how we on the Left are in isolated bubbles here in our liberal coastal cities, shielded from the Heartland™ and ignorant of the needs of the real hard-workin’ Americans who like football and guns and Jesus and white neighborhoods.  That may be true for some people…but Trump voters are in their own bubbles.  They’re trapped in this delusional longing for the way America was when it was still great.  A time when gays didn’t exist.  Black people weren’t always whining about rights and stuff.  Mexicans stayed in Mexico instead of stealing ALL our jobs.  Everyone went to Little League games on Saturdays and church on Sundays.  Women stayed in the kitchen like God intended.  You know…that “golden age” we had.  If that’s the vision of America they want, and it appears it is, then I’ll stay right here in my bubble, thank you.

So I guess that’s it for my rant.  It’s time for my defensive mechanism for times like this:  pouring a giant goblet of wine and watching some Buffy.

Namaste, my ass.

Science!  Thank goodness we have these people around to explain in sooooper technical terms just what’s wrong with all those homos in the world.  It was so obvious.

Paranormal Organization Claims Gay Men are Possessed by Female Ghosts

According to a paranormal organization 85% of all gay men aren’t really gay, they’re just possessed by female ghosts that cause them to have attractions towards men.  The Spiritual Science Research Foundation (SRF), which has 12,000 followers on Twitter, claims, “The main reason behind the gay orientation of some men is that they are possessed by female ghosts. It is the female ghost in them that is attracted to other men.”

As you might imagine, they believe that lesbians are possessed by male ghost.

If this had any possibility of actually being true, what’s wrong with it?  I know plenty of people who could use a little Spirit o’ Fabulousness in their lives!  It might help them feel some acceptance towards people different from themselves — and the very least it could do is give them an appreciation for campy cult movies.

Pretty hilarious stuff…until you start wondering if they’ve ever tried exorcisms on people possessed by these imaginary spirits.  Innocent people are routinely tortured and killed by fundamentalist Christians trying to turn them straight, so I wouldn’t put it past these people to be into something similar.  They all kind of run in the same herd, you know?

Their website says you can “treat” gayness with Chanting, Mudra, and Nyas. I decided to fix their photo titles for them.

And if there’s any doubt about where these people are really coming from, all you need is this quote from their website about Pride parades:

Organizing such Parades in the name of human rights and freedom does not indicate that society is progressing. In fact, this evidences its decline.

There are groups who are opposing Gay Parades and these groups should be supported, even if such groups are in the minority in a particular country or city.  Remember that even if a majority of people think that something is right, this does not make it is true. For example, if the majority says that drinking and driving is acceptable, does this mean we should engage in such behavior?

So you’re equating the way I was born…with a deliberate and dangerous act like drunk driving and the decline of civilization?  Wow.  I guess my eye color makes me a serial rapist.  Probably causes global warming, too.

It just goes to show that you can dress up your bigotry in all kinds of pseudo-religious spiritual peepeecaca, but at the end of the day you’re still just a shitty human being.

TRUMPNECK

It’s hilarious that our new President (sigh) complains when unflattering photos of him appear online, so tonight I decided to start a silly little Tumblr with that in mind.  More will be added to it now and then.  I know it’s super petty and juvenile, but I don’t care… 😀

https://trumpneck.tumblr.com/

Disaster recovery

I’m still processing this election thing.  There’s so much depressing stuff happening, and so much of it is unprecedented.  The cronyism and nepotism with Trump’s staff picks…the rise of neo-Nazi fucktards who are publicly sieg-heiling him…his refusal to release tax returns…his dodging of the press…his lack of (immediate) post-election outreach to other world leaders…his retention of an unabashed white supremacist shit-stirrer as his closest advisor…the growing list of his conflicts of interest…his very clear intention to use the Presidency to advertise and enrich his private businesses… 

It’s overwhelming.  Trump and his imminent shitfest of a Presidency are omnipresent in all media.  Social media is especially bad, as usual — I can’t even open Facebook without being firehosed in the face with Trump-related memes and rants.  Everyone’s saying the same things about the same things and almost none of it offers any hope or optimism.  I completely understand and agree with everyone’s fear of what he’s going to do to our country, but there’s only so much of it I can process at once.

So my brain is just kind of frozen in place.  10-15 years ago I would have been blogging daily about every outrageous thing he does!  Bush was at least dumber than a box of hair which made him fun to write about.  But lately every time I want to write something about all this stuff, some shitty new thing happens in Trumpland and I just slump back into “Why bother?” mode.  When I read about Trump trolls spamming Amazon with 1-star reviews for Megyn Kelly’s new book (which none of them have read), or how Europe is freaking out about America’s embracing of neo-Nazis, I just want to go play some videogames or work on my photo projects.  Anything to tune it out for a while.  Apathy, thy name is…uh, apathy.

However, I have been attempting to understand more about why allegedly sane people would vote for this monster, because it’s not just as simple as “a buncha racists and bigots decided to elect him” (despite what I said in my last post  😀 ).  It’s deeper and more complicated than that, and it took me a few days for the shock to wear off before I was willing to try and sort it out.  Some good articles about this:

• Bug Hunt
• Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit
• How Half of America Lost its Fucking Mind
• The Stark Contrast Between GOP’s Self-Criticism in 2012 and Democrats’ Blame-Everyone-Else Posture Now
  

There are many more out there, it’s pretty interesting.  Hillary still won the popular vote by over 2 million, so…I’m not sure what to do with that yet.  It’s going to be dissected for the next few years in painful detail, so we’ll just have to see what happens.  Preferably in small doses!

America 2: The Whitening

As you can imagine, I’m not happy about the elections. I’m glad there wasn’t as much violence as I predicted, though I think if Hillary won things would be much worse out there.  Y’all know how angry mobs carrying firearms can be.

Naturally my first impulse was to hammer out a bunch of nasty things about the unsavory people who voted for him, but in the middle of it I thought, “Why resort to insults?  Isn’t that what Trump supporters do?”  Yes!  I should strive to be better than that.  Here’s some of what I almost posted:

Not everyone is upset at Trump’s tiny-handed rise to power, of course.  After all, he and the GOP went out of their way to include all the lovely colors of the shit-tinged Republican rainbow.  White supremacist douchenozzles!  Anti-woman fuckfaces!  Homophobic shitmonkeys!  Extremist Christian troglodytes!  Self-hating gay Republican dipshits!  Tax-dodging billionaire asswipes!  Sscience-denialist fucktards!  You name it, they’ve got it.  If you’re one of these types or even just leaning in their direction, you’re A-OK in the GOP’s book and you’re bound to be super jazzed with what the new regime comes up with next.  Your generous vote will allow him and the GOP live out all their fascist fantasies in the new American theocracy, even though they’ll probably end up fucking you over as well.  But at least ya got revenge on them libtards for electing that black guy, right?

Whew, I’m glad nobody will ever read that!  I’ve decided not to insult his supporters in such a manner…because that would be distasteful.

Instead, why not look at the effect Trump has had on America in these few days after his election?  His supporters are already out there working hard to bring about the change they feel our country needs.  So in the spirit of uniting us as Americans, here are some of the deeds Trump has inspired so far.

Trump supporters brutally attack gay man in California

Calgary filmmaker Chris Ball said that he was watching the election results when supporters of the Republican candidate began to lob epithets.  ‘We got a new president you fucking faggots,” they said, Ball told Metro Calgary.  When Ball left the bar alone later in the night, Trump supporters followed him to an alley way and assaulted him, Ball said. The last thing he remembers before awaking bloody on the pavement was having a beer bottle smashed over his head. Friends took him to the hospital.

But wait, there’s more!  These brownshirts Trumpers have so much to give.

• Day 1 In Trump’s America
• Neo-Nazis hold rally at Penn. Capitol, draw hundreds of counter-protestersThe Ku Klux Klan says it will hold a Trump victory parade in North Carolina
• Video catches students shouting ‘white power’ while marching with Trump sign at Pennsylvania school
• ‘Trump is our president now! Get out of our neighborhood now FAGGOTS!!’
• Students at York Vo-Tech “being spit on, attacked, and called names because of their race or perceived Immigrant status”
• ‘F*ck n****rs’: Pro-Trump ‘whites only’ warning greets Minnesota students day after election
• KKK distributes fliers in Birmingham after Donald Trump elected president
• Muslim Women Wearing Hijabs Assaulted Just Hours After Trump Win
• After the election, hackers target think tanks with phishing attacks
• People Share Frightening Images In The Aftermath Of Trump’s Victory

…and on and on and on.
But seriously, folks…  This harassment and violence will continue in Trump’s name for years.  He’s encouraged it and made it part of his platform, after all.  He’s empowered bullies and worse, reframing the worst aspects of human nature as patriotism.  It took him almost a week to finally come out and half-heartedly tell them to stop, but he wasted almost no time getting on Twitter and pouting about all these anti-Trump protests springing up around the country which are, as we all know, totally legal (minus the idiots who are breaking stuff and hurting others).  We needed to elect a leader, but all we got was a whiny little bitch with Putin’s hand up his puppet ass.

So yeah, I’m still bitter.

I’ve been watching the overwhelming torrent of anguish and despair from all over the internet and social media as people begin to realize the horrific things that will be coming from our newly-Republicanized government.  People are losing their shit out there.  Kinda like how conservatives freaked out when we elected Obama…except this time there are real and rational reasons for being upset. (Eight years later they’re still waiting for him to take away their guns and turn this country into a Muslim police state.  I guess he still has a few weeks left to do all that, so stay tuned.)  This time the rights of innocent people really are in danger of being snatched away:  womens’ rights, healthcare, marriage equality, religious freedom, immigrants’ rights…it’s all on the chopping block.  It’s like Christmas morning for these white supremacist Alt-Right twats.

If you’re not a straight white Christian male, your hard-won rights are now hurtling towards a cliff.  They’re going to roll civil rights back 40 years in this country.  It’s going to be ugly.  So prepare yourselves, folks.  That whole election circus was just the opening act of something much, much worse.  I really, really hope I end up being wrong, but right now things are looking grim as hell.

I’ve also been reading some interesting stuff about why people voted for him in spite of his bigotry, in an effort to better understand it, but this is all I can squeeze out for now…

This post was written at a discount for my honest and unbiased opinion

File this one under #firstworldproblems…

Shopping on Amazon has become increasingly annoying over the past couple of years thanks to a tidal wave of phony reviews that skew product ratings.  I call them “phony” because they were written by people who got the item for free or at a steep discount, and all Amazon required was that people state “I received this product for free in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion” somewhere in their review.  As a seller, you can sell a completely shitty product and still have great reviews if you provide enough freebies in exchange for “honest” reviews.  And these reviews have been proven to be overwhelmingly positive, because (duh!) the reviewers want to continue to get free/discounted stuff.  Here, check this out:

Amazon has been completely overrun with this crap because it works wonder for sales — it got to the point where 90% of the reviews on a product were incentivized.  And if you looked at the negative reviews, you’ll find that they’re the ones who didn’t get it for free.  Nope, nothing shady about that!

Amazon wasn’t doing anything about it despite massive amounts of complaints in their customer forums, so eventually I (and a lot of others, apparently) began to just mark them all as Unhelpful whenever I saw one.  It’s kind of an asshole thing to do because I’m sure some reviewers really do try to be honest, but these reviews are also making Amazon an unreliable place to research products, and therefore the reviews are useless.

Eventually sites like FakeSpot.com began to pop up.  They will analyze product reviews from a variety of businesses and grade them on how honest the reviews appear to be.  If it spots a lot of incentivized or paid reviews, it’ll let you know.  I began using it on almost everything I bought on Amazon.  I could just do my online shopping elsewhere, but it really is hard to beat Amazon for most things.  I’m a slave to Prime…

The interesting thing about these phony reviews is that many reviewers really get into it, presumably to show the company who sent them the item that they’ll do and say anything to keep getting free stuff.  It’s not uncommon to see an exhaustive 5,000-word review for a cheap $9 iPhone case.  It just seems kinda gross and desperate.

Case in point:  while looking around on Amazon for a good motion-sensing hallway light, I came across this one which looked decent.  One of the “most helpful” reviews comes from someone who obviously writes them a lot…because it is EPIC.  This is one of the longest pieces of puffery for a $20 product I’ve ever seen.  It’s a LED light, for fuck’s sake!  You’d think he was reviewing an expensive piece of electronics with dozens of features that need in-depth detail.

Super convenient, perfect size, and rechargeable motion sensor light for those hard to reach dark places.

By Kermit “Indieviewer” Jones, Jr. on September 25, 2016

WHAT IS THIS, AND WHY MIGHT I WANT IT?: These are stick up lights with motion sensor that are convenient for closets and small spaces where you just need occasional light, but don’t want to go through the process of wiring or having a plug. They have built-in rechargeable batteries, and the LEDs last for for a surprisingly long time.

FIRST IMPRESSION: Nice, clean white appearance. Wasn’t too sure about the plastic “hanger” but it does a good job of letting you pop up anywhere temporarily, with even a thumbtack. Pretty bright, given their small size. Silver trim is a nice touch.

ASSEMBLY: Not much to it. You can hang them on a wall or mount them with the included double-sided 3M mounting tape. To recharge the battery, just twist the light off of the base (sort of like a smoke detector). Goes back on very easily.

FUNCTION: Charging is easy, and the light glows red to let you know. It goes off when charging is done. If you see the video, it shows that even after 5-6 hours of being left on, there is still enough useable light. So if you’re just using these for a few minutes at a time, expect it to last a very long time. The switch is clearly labeled with On, Off, Motion.

I have mine in a closet where we keep over the counter medication in the basket. These lights work well because they automatically come on when I open the door, allowing me to see without having to pull the basket out of the closet. However, while the motion sensor works, it’s not as consistent as I would like, which is why I’m taking off 1 star.

FIT & APPEARANCE: These lights are 3 inches in diameter. White plastic with white light and nice silver trim. There are 5 LEDs that are very bright.

FEATURES: I don’t want to duplicate the description, but a few things to note:- Rechargeable battery! (most of these type lights require AA or AAA)- Convenient to hang or mount- Easy to twist off for recharging- Glow lets you know when it’s charging- Motion sensor is a bonus

BUILD QUALITY: Really good build quality. They don’t feel “cheap” which is nice.

WHAT YOU GET: Two lights with base. Two hangers. Two mounting tape pieces. Two micro-USB charging cords (which is awesome since many manufacturers cheap out on this!). Instructions.

WHAT YOU DON’T GET: No complaints here!

PRICING & VALUE: For the price (and even with the motion sensor issues), this is a good deal. While you may find some that are cheaper, they normally require batteries. The rechargeable batteries, with the 2 included USB cables, make this a really good deal.

NEGATIVES: My only issue is that the motion sensor seems to be a bit random. About 25% of the time it doesn’t work or it is delayed. Not a huge issue for me given the other features, but it is the one thing keeping me from 5 stars.

BOTTOM LINE: Super convenient, perfect size, and rechargeable motion sensor light for those hard to reach dark places.

Don’t forget to check out the video for some other comments that may not be here.

Hey folks! Reviews are a tricky thing… I mean, who do you trust? I also realize that a review of a free product may be considered fundamentally different from that of a product for which one has paid. However, I also believe such reviews can be useful when the review process is respected. I’ve tried to do that here because I want to help others in their decision making process. This product was provided as a sample for my honest and unbiased review, but I hope the detail I have contained herein provides legitimacy in helping you decide whether or not to purchase, regardless of my rating. Please leave any comments below and I’ll get to them as soon as I can.

I can appreciate that he tries to appeal to our skeptical nature with that disclosure at the end, but holy shit…this guy’s hardcore.  Still, I had to check FakeSpot.com out of curiosity and what do you know?  They graded it an “F” with an estimated 56% of biased reviews.   Needless to say, I didn’t end up buying one.

Suddenly, in October Amazon did what we thought was impossible:  they banned incentivized reviews!

Amazon is cracking down on biased customer reviews

Amazon updated its community guidelines today to prohibit so-called “incentivized reviews,” which are customer reviews of a product that was received for free or at a discount in exchange for an online write-up. The company says these types of reviews make up a tiny fraction of overall Amazon.com reviews. Yet studies have shown that incentivized reviewers are less likely to give products negative feedback and review hundreds of products on average, potentially affecting the overall sales performance of otherwise mediocre items.

They won’t remove all previous biased reviews, but they’ll apparently do some cleaning-up in that regard.  O happy day!  Now I can read a review of a $3 keychain flashlight and know that the six-page review was written by a genuine crazy person, not someone who got it for free.