You have all seen these Bitstrips, right? Those obnoxious little cartoons that popped up out of nowhere and dominate your newsfeed now? Lord knows I have and I cannot stand them. The site pumps out about 300,000 of these each day, and it is spreading like a virus. They are, simply, the worst thing ever.
Why? Because I don’t need a cartoon version of my friends speaking to me in third person about stuff that is just as easily relayed with a sentence. Or, sometimes better yet, not relayed at all. Do you think I don’t know you are a pain in the ass before you’ve had your coffee? Is it even remotely possible I don’t know how you ended up in hell? Or that you have trouble waking up? No. You know why? Because I KNOW YOU. Bitstrips have become a way for people to update everyone on the silliest little things and it’s beginning to drive me crazy.
Like most of you, I have some Facebook friends who comment on everything they do. All day. I have one in particular that, I swear, posts about everything she sees. Here are some great examples (slightly edited for anonymity’s sake, but you’ll get the idea):
“Woke up this morning! Had a shower, ate breakfast, and now I’m off to work!”
“Came home today and tried to mow the lawn! I got halfway finished when it started raining! I went inside and made a snack and waited but it’s still raining! I sure hope I can finish the lawn today!”
“The rain stopped so I finished mowing the lawn! Now off to Chili’s for dinner!”
How many people need to know that kind of detail about your life? Does every sentence need to end in an exclamation point? There was even one about going to the lady doctor and finding out everything was okay. NO THANK YOU. And no, I can’t hide the posts because they are just that good, so don’t ask why I haven’t yet.
How is making any of that a cartoon better for anyone involved? It isn’t, so stop it.
Bitstrips allow people to take the most mundane parts of their lives and turn them into cartoons because, somehow, that is supposed to make it more tolerable. I would rather see pictures of you getting coffee, hating work, and waking up grumpy than a cartoon version of you doing the same thing. Bitstrips accomplish the same exact thing except they take up a lot more real estate on the ol’ newsfeed.
The worst part about Bitstrips is watching your friends try to be funny and fail, usually in a miserable fashion. Take this one for example:
Oh, I get it! You’re dying but it’s because he’s fat and not the mass of the water filling the 3,500 pound car, quickly pulling it – and you – to the bottom of the lake.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAsigh.
Nowadays we’re all a bit more disconnected with what is happening around us because sites like Facebook and Instagram allow us to check in on our friends and family without actually speaking to them. Now we have Bitstrips, which allow us to send useless “news” to our friends without actually including ourselves in the process.
Instead of making unfunny and annoying cartoons, turn your life into the cartoon. Do things that are funny and informative using your camera and/or your words. Knock it off with these stupid Bitstrips. If I wanted to see a one-panel comic that isn’t funny I’d read “Family Circus”.
