Welcome back, readers, to the home edition of the Fractalbook Network’s much loved game show: Name! That! Comment!
Now, finally, through the mystery of OT technology, you can continue honing your somewhat-fractal-related social networking skills and never miss a beat stroking your virtual artist-friends while sitting alone at home in a room by yourself. Just as you do daily in assorted art communities. Just as you might be doing right now.
Remember how we play? A quasi-artistic, fractal-type image is first shown and subjected to your critical scrutiny. Then, you are provided with four comments. Three are imposters. You must correctly select the one comment that was actually posted to the given art-type-object.
Round One features work and chat from Renderosity‘s fractal art sub-cave. That’s the Fractalbook conclave, you know, where the artists are supposedly more serious. Each correct answer is worth 200 points.
Mommy Can We Just Play? by cricke49
1.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ Sorta seems like Mom’s dandruff is getting worse.
(b)_____ Rather appears your dying star has cancer.
(c)_____ Kinda looks like Mom has them wrapped up in concertina wire.
(d)_____ I don’t like this new playground, Mommy.
Donkey Butts by fantasticfractals
2.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ "Are my kids cute, or do they make people uncomfortable."
(b)_____ I do not care to see your pet’s colonoscopy.
(c)_____ That Circle Jerks’ song "World Up My Ass" suddenly makes sense.
(d)_____ There are no comments yet.
Peeking Outside by greyone
3.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ Hiding under the mobile home with some creepy growth around.
(b)_____ Metallic Voice: "John Conner. I know you can hear me. You have thirty seconds to come out from under there."
(c)_____ Thanks for giving me the second season of Fringe DVD.
(d)_____ No wonder the road not taken was not taken.
Bad Worm by gateman 45
4.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ How do you know the worm is bad? Maybe he’s just misunderstood.
(b)_____ I’d love to feel the shapes.
(c)_____ Alright. Which one of you geeks deconstructed Snoopy?
(d)_____ I think I found the perfect bait to catch mechanical sharks.
Bottom Feeders by Lenord
5.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ "Why, oh why, didn’t I take the blue pill?"
(b)_____ So if I look very close inside a fish tank I’ll see these on the bottom?
(c)_____ I wanted a flashy yellow Autobot. What good is a desk lamp that transforms?
(d)_____ That’s the last time I ever order stir-fried squid.
Okay, players. Mark your ballots. And don’t touch that dial. We’ll be right back with Round Two after this word from our sponsor.
Advertisement
********************
Hi again, kids. David X. Machina here for Compliment-O — the software designed to make commenting on so-called art faster and easier — so you can get back to doing what’s really important — smoozing with your virtual friends.
Compliment-O uses cutting-edge algorithms to scan, mine, and extract random comments from various Fractalbook compliment repositories. Why resort to uncomfortable and time-consuming activities like critical thinking and aesthetical reflection when all that’s required is a simple (and, hopefully, joint) exchange of flattery?
And Compliment-O is so easy to use. Turn the on switch to the SUCK UP setting. Choose the appropriate level of laudation — ranging from LACKEY to BOOTKISSER to SYCOPHANT to TOADY — and you’re ready to get straight to the verbalized stroking. Think of the convenience. Why, before you know it, you’ll never have to face the unpleasantness of actually having to look at art in an online art community again.
Let’s take Compliment-O for a test drive, shall we? Here, for example, is an alleged art object that our crack scientists culled randomly from cyberspace without first asking permission because Fair Use ensures for the purposes of satire and reviews that we don’t have to so there:
Overwrought by Damien M. Jones
Yes, Compliment-O takes the thinking out of thinking about art. If you actually took the time to examine the image above, you might conclude it looks like a fibroid tumor or arterial blockage. But, of course, you can’t actually say what you think on Fractalbook without risking shunning — or, worse, unfriending. But, with the exertion required for one mere mouse click, Compliment-O appropriates and recycles several on-the-Internet-forever potential selections allowing you to quickly crib the perfect comment — like these:
Option 1: The coloring — austere, mournful, and at times apocalyptic — often produces an emotional response in the viewer of the art.
Option 2: Actually, I feel that the big debate is a bit overwrought.
Option 3: You’re speaking out of your ass on this one.
Option 4: Further evidence of your ugly and despicable personality.
Um. Well. I’m sure any remaining bugs in the program will be redressed in the next iteration. And, fortunately, our upgrade fees are perniciously modest.
One caution with using Compliment-O. Be careful not to accidentally switch Compliment-O from SUCK UP to EVIL mode. The latter setting uses a secret heuristic code designed to deep scan an image and immediately blurt out unfiltered emotional reactions. Of course, such direct and reliable comments have no place in everyday Fractalbook confabbing. Remember Fractalbook’s rhetorical campaign slogan: Friends don’t let other friends comment honestly.
But, just as a thought problem, and assuming you could find a work-around for the built-in quadruple super encryption, let’s examine an example of how the EVIL setting works. Again, our stellar research team set out the virtual drift nets and randomly snagged another arty thingie from the murky backwaters of the Web:
Rex’s Last Stand by Terry Wright
Compliment-O’s EVIL setting instantly produces four choice comment option samples for the image above:
Option 1: Rex needs a breath mint and should cut down on the jalapeno chips and picante sauce. Otherwise, he’ll be extinct before the big meteor arrives.
Option 2: Hey, I recognize that reptile from my visit to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. It’s the same dinosaur Sarah Palin rode in the Bible about 6,000 years ago. See:
Option 3: How ironic. Rex’s skin has the same color and consistency as fossil fuels.
Option 4: Is this the most negative, repressed psychopath expressionism you have ever seen?…This Wright-psycho posts dark images with negative and often violent titles…and his fractal art, if it can be called that, looks like mud after someone vomits on it.
Obviously, using Compliment-O’s EVIL mode is recommended for use only in emergency circumstances — like wanting to get in the last word when you find yourself enmeshed in anonymous flame wars occurring in threaded discussions.
Compliment-O cannot be ordered online. For your personalized copy encoded onto an eventually shipped Betamax cassette, rush $99 99 99 95 in cash to:
Compliment-O
Royal Scam Productions
1313 Orbit Trap Circle
Terryville, Nigeria
Compliment-O*. For those times when your own thoughts are just not good enough.
*[Over-caffeinated announcer voice]: Side effects of Compliment-O include: irrational belief in artistic credibility, illogical suspicion of being thoughtful, acute obsequiousness, servility beyond belief, long periods of virtual prostration, occasional cowering, a lifetime spent engaging in intense supplication, and erectile dysfunction (which, of course, is caused by everything.)
********************
Advertisement
We’re back, readers, for Round Two of Name! That! Comment! Now, in this round, the Fractalbook turf shifts to the cleared-wooded-area cult-meeting-setting over at deviantART — where both the points and the egos are doubled. Each correct answer is worth 400 points.
Random Fractal Thing by notadolphinig
6.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ How’d I happen to wander into the Barbie aisle at Toys R Us?
(b)_____ Even that execrable donkey butts pic is better than this one.
(c)_____ It’s…pink. And it burns my eyes.
(d)_____ "I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink."
Medusa’s Garden by micronomicon
7.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ OMG! Rapunzel definitely needs a better detangler.
(b)_____ LOL! Will viewing this fractal soon turn all my homegrown vegetables to stone?
(c)_____ OMG! I like this sooo much!!! It reminds me of a TOOL music video minus the creepiness.
(d)_____ LOL! This reeeally makes me want to grind my bones to make my bread.
wee it’s a tree xD by ko-yu
8.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ Wee wee. I’m a dog.
(b)_____ This is NOT fractal art…please put it in the proper category or it will be reported and removed.
(c)_____ "Trees and ferns are fractal in nature and can be modeled on a computer by using a recursive algorithm."
(d)_____ My kid could paint that. Hell, an invertebrate could probably paint that.
Reclining Nude Under Construction by fiery-fire
9.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(b)_____ ??????????????
(c)_____ wtfwtfwtfwtfwtf
(d)_____ Construction workers, in my experience, generally prefer nudity to be actual rather than implied.
Pantomime of Human Existance [sic] by DothackersDaichi
10.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ Or, perhaps, Shadow Play of Symbolic Overreaching.
(b)_____ Irony works best when what you’re actually doing is actually ironic.
(c)_____ Such a heart touching masterpiece and a soul ripping piece of art. Those brown mini duckies just show us the karma of those unwanted relationships, where we beseech a state of nirvana and the utter happiness which comes by eating too much chocolate.
(d)_____ This looks familiar. Is this a still from a Lifetime movie about a woman who went missing? I seem to recall the missing woman’s family was trying to get custody of her baby, or something, and the husband’s family thought they were crazy for suggesting that he’d murdered her. But, of course, he did. He killed her with a dumbbell.
Thank you for playing the home edition of Name! That! Comment! Once you have marked your examination sheet, you can then self-check your scores and status using the grids below. Until next time…
Scoring Grid:
500 points: Obviously Truckle Challenged
1000 points: Better Hire an Ass-Kissing Tutor
1500 points: Passing from Fawning to Kowtowing
2000 points: Servile to an Extraordinary Extent
2500 points: Cringing with True Submissiveness
3000 points: Bubbly Babs Lifetime Achievement Award
Answer Grid:
1. here
2. here
3. here
4. here
5. here
6. here
7. here
8. here
9. here
10. here