Lions and Tigers and Bears: The Internet Strikes Back

by George Takei

  If you’re having trouble reading the text in the image, here is the text of my status update and the fan comment:

  A MOST BEAUTIFUL SONG, SUNG BY A MOST BEAUTIFUL ANGEL. AND IT’S A FREE DOWNLOAD TODAY, FRIENDS. YOU’LL SEE WHY I’M TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY EXCITED FOR THIS. [LINK]

  [COMMENT] I LOVE MOST OF YOUR POSTS BUT I’M SO OVER EVERY ONE OF THEM ENDING IN A LINK TO YOUR BOOK OR YOUR PLAY. CAN’T IT EVER JUST BE ABOUT SOMETHING FUN OR FUNNY WITHOUT YOU PLUGGIN YOURSELF?

  Of course, it was pure exaggeration on this fan’s part to suggest that “every” one of my posts ends in a link to my book or my play. Indeed, that accounts for a mere fraction of my posts. She was “so over” it, apparently, because it couldn’t “ever just be about something fun or funny” any more. Apparently, she’d missed the four other posts that day that were purely for fun. (By the way, I did not miss the fact that “Ryan Reynolds” liked my link. Oh myyy.)

  I am grateful, however, for fans who come to my defense in moments like these, reminding these hangers-on that I am not exclusively set up for their own entertainment. Here were some fan responses to that reader’s particularly whiny post:

  And again, if your eyes, like mine, are growing too weak to decipher the above, here is the text of the comments for your convenience:

  UNCLE GEORGE TAKEI - I LOVED THE OPPORTUNITY TO DOWNLOAD THIS SONG FROM YOUR PLAY, ALLEGIANCE!

  WOW! IS SHE SERIOUS? KEEP ON PLUGGING MR. TAKEI!

  I HATE TO SAY THIS, BUT “OH MY.”

  BTW.... IT’S SUPPORTING A TRULY WONDERFUL SINGER WHO, BECAUSE SHE HAPPENS TO BE ASIAN, IS LIMITED IN WHAT IS WRITTEN FOR HERE AND BTFW THE FACT THAT ALLEGIANCE EVEN EXISTS IS A TREASURE SO THAT WE GET TO HEAR THIS TRUE ANGELIC VOICE. I COULD BE MORE PISSED BUT I DON’T SEE HOW. ARGH

  For some time I would try to explain, with as much patience as I could muster, that yes, I do indeed have an agenda: to discuss issues of equality and justice, and to promote my show Allegiance (indeed, that was the very reason I got started in social media). If they can’t give a bit of their time to listen to my spiel, then they are free to ignore me. I also find myself having to remind fans that, as to matters like my book, I am self-published and therefore some amount of sales pitch is necessary, that I nevertheless attempt to make each promotion as entertaining as I can, and that they are under absolutely no obligation to buy anything, let alone click on an ad. If it’s easy enough to fast-forward through commercials on your DVR, it is surely just as easy to scroll past a post that you don’t want to click. And if I happen to have piqued fan curiosity with my description of a link, I suppose it’s up to them whether they want to click it or not.

  Lately, I’ve concluded that it is precisely because I have made an effort to render even my promotional posts amusing that I receive this level of fan pushback. If someone spends even two seconds of their online time clicking on what amounts to a promotion for my book, this means, in their own mind, that they were had, because all they ever expect and want from me is more free funnies. The irony, of course, is that the very next thing they do is waste minutes of their bitter and embattled lives crafting a long and wrenching complaint about their experience of having been bamboozled into clicking on an advertisement. No matter that Facebook itself is now replete with sponsored ads that no one signs up to see, and which take up space on our newsfeeds unbidden. These are the same fans who believe that everything in life should come to them free of charge and perfectly explained and laid out for them to enjoy. In fact, my occasional promotion of my book is precisely what does permit them to enjoy my funnies for free.

  The online media has plagued me with its own set of exasperating practices. Despite being self-appointed “Internet journalists,” who presumably spend much if not all of their professional lives scouring the web, some members of the online press demonstrate distressingly unprofessional and unsavvy journalistic methodologies, which, in my view, even border on unethical. The most startling example of this I detail later in this book in “Ghostwriters on the Storm,” where a misinterpreted statement (by someone I’ve never even spoken to or met) was reposted by a single blogger, then churned into a full-blown false story by the online media, which was repeated often enough by others that it became in their minds the truth.

  Another example of irresponsible net journalism showed a decided lack of understanding of the way Facebook works and the way I manage my posts, which happily is increasingly under the careful guidance of my net-savvy staffers. During the New York City 2013 mayoral campaign, I endorsed Supervisor Christine Quinn for mayor, who would have been the first lesbian mayor of a major (indeed, the major) U.S. city. I wasn’t expecting that my endorsement of her would be met with quite such a hue and cry by supporters of her primary opponent, Bill de Blasio (who later defeated his Republican opponent and is now mayor). “Stay out of our politics, George!” “Don’t back her just because she’s a lesbian, dude” and “DISLIKE, UNFRIEND” were common wall comments. Politics is never an easy subject, and it’s even more difficult online. As to staying out of NYC politics, why should I? I noted patiently to fans that I own an apartment in New York, pay local and state taxes there, and consider myself to be actively involved in many New York matters, not the least of which is my upcoming Broadway-bound musical Allegiance, and thus have as much right as anyone to have an opinion on New York politics.

  The most curious upshot of my endorsement, however, was an article that gleefully observed that my endorsement post had only garnered “a few thousand likes” on Facebook, rather than the typical tens of thousands my other posts generally receive, and then breathlessly concluded that this proved “even George Takei can’t save Christine Quinn.” This was Internet journalism at its poorest. If the reporter (who, by the way, was from a major news media outlet) had bothered to contact me, or any member of my staff for that matter, he would have learned that I intentionally had limited my endorsement geographically to the state of New York, so the base of fans who would even be seeing the post was just a fraction of my total. I learned last year that geographic targeting of posts was possible, and thus, at appropriate times, my staff has helped me limit individual posts to their intended audiences. After all, why place a local political endorsement for a NYC mayoral race onto the already busy newsfeeds of fans in Missouri or Luxembourg?

  Add to that the fact that, among even those fans located within Greater New York, there would be many who would not be voting in the primary (for example, independent, Libertarian, Green or Republican voters) and therefore simply would not be that interested in the Democratic candidate for mayor and no reason to voice their opinion on my endorsement. I was actually quite pleased with the number of “likes” my limited endorsement post received. But that didn’t stop the media from running with the story that a perceived tepid response to my endorsement spelled the doom of the endorsed candidate.

  Another constant battle I wage these days is against spammers. With nearly every post I make, someone in the world is ready to comment not with words germane to the post or to the dialogue among fans, but with promotions of their own businesses or causes, or worse still, with malware or a link designed to ensnare unwitting fans. The peskiest of these spammers offers fans the opportunity to “Change their Facebook Page Color” to one of their own choosing. My understanding is that this is just a “phishing scam” to gather user data, but the dangerously clever part lies in the fact that it is programmed to appear at or near the top of every comment stream and thus is far more likely to trick the unwary. By way of background, sometime in 2013, Facebook began to reward “popular” comments (that is, comments with many likes or replies) by placing them at or near the top of the comment stream. The scam in question leveraged that functionality by automatically giving itself numerous likes, ensuring its placement as a top comment. The only way to rid the stream of this spam was to monitor each and every post, delete the offending spam and ban the user. The problem was, however, that even after being banned under one account, the spammers wo
uld simply create a new account and begin the process all over again.

  But even this was not as annoying as the pornographers. These woeful miscreants began taking to my wall to post messages that often read something like this:

  < ---------- WATCH FREE SEX VIDEO

  with the arrow pointing straight at a profile pic that, shall we say, plainly violated Facebook community standards. Again, deleting each post off the wall (and there were usually ten or so per day) and even banning the offending poster did nothing to stop the pornographic appropriation of my wall, because the porn purveyors simply created a new account and resumed their “porn bombs.” I felt as if we were guiding a ship that increasingly was overburdened with clingy barnacles that we had to scrub off each day by hand. The situation eventually became so intolerable that we elected to hide the fan wall post box from the page, so that they are now accessible only if you elect the “Other Posts” view.

  The necessity of this step was made even more abundantly clear by the rise in outright hate speech on my wall, which often carried with it the ugly threat of stalker psychosis and violence that only the use of ALL CAPS N ODD ABBREVS CAN DO 2 U. My own thoughts turned to the young people who look to my posts and my page as a place of acceptance and support, and how if we weren’t vigilant about deleting and banning such hate, they might yet again have to endure it, even on a page dedicated to the opposite result. I might be 76 years old and relatively impervious to this kind of immaturely-expressed hate and vitriol, but I am well aware of the effect such words might have on a young person still coming to terms with his or her sexuality. With the rise of online bullying and associated teen suicide, I don’t want my page to play any part in that.

  And so, the sub-title of this book is “The Internet Strikes Back” for a reason. Like the Force, there is both a light and a dark side to this all-encompassing phenomenon. And there is always the danger that the dark side, with all of its allure, pain and terror will win. But not on my watch, friends. Not on my watch.

  Admiral Snackbar

  To the chagrin of certain of my co-stars, it’s often the supporting characters who steal the show. Among scifi nerds, one of the most beloved is Admiral Gial Ackbar, who famously led the rebel forces on a mission to destroy the Death Star II in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Admiral Ackbar is recognizable throughout scifidom for his singular exclamation, “IT’S A TRAP!” These words were uttered when it became clear that the Imperial Forces had been awaiting the rebel assault. Despite the odds, Admiral Ackbar did not sound the retreat, and though they suffered heavy losses, the rebels succeeded in their mission, and the rebuilt Death Star was no more.

  In the movie, we learn very little about Ackbar. Why is he an admiral? What grudge does he hold against the Empire? And why is his name spelled with an extra “c”? Indeed, despite his high recognition among Star Wars fans (and thus, humanity in general), very little is known about Admiral Ackbar beyond his most attributed utterance. But, again, like that little old lady in the Wendy’s burger commercial — one line is enough. Indeed, the phrase, “IT’S A TRAP!” has now become uniquely associated with Admiral Ackbar. Just try saying it without thinking of him. It’s impossible.

  Part of the appeal has got to be his delivery. Admiral Ackbar, let’s face it, resembles a squid, making the name of his race, the Mon Calamari, rather curious, and not only for its awkward mix of French and Italian. As a result of his physical limitations, his speech is, well, a bit muddled by excess flaps of skin, a particularly wide mouth and wobbly gullet. Your mind’s ear can easily hear him bellow it now: “IT’S A TRWAPP!”

  As these things so often go, the Internet decided to seize upon Admiral Ackbar and his well-known exclamation and produce several hilarious spoofs. One of my favorites is by cartoonist Scott Johnson (with the idea from Mark Turpin). They imagine that, after destroying the Death Star II, Admiral Ackbar has fallen upon hard times and taken to selling roadside food at a stand:

  By the bye, this scores triple points from me: 1) fine wordplay on his name (Snackbar is just too, too good), 2) fine wordplay on his signature phrase, and 3) backstory on what happened to him after Return of the Jedi. If this were an MTV special on “Where Are They Now,” the galaxy could shake its collective heads at how far the mighty have fallen. (For more funnies by Scott, visit his website at myextralife.com).

  Another meme imagines the Admiral as a spokesman for Starbucks Coffee, which apparently has left the confines of Terran soil and expanded, as surprised no one, to the far reaches of the Galactic Empire. In fact, I’ve heard that on the Death Star there are over 100 Starbucks franchises, sometimes one just on the other side of a blast door from another. May the froth be with you:

  This one scores points for the detail on the Rebel Alliance insignia on the logo and the cup — and makes the difference between laughing at the joke and being totally in on it. The backstory here, of course, is presumably quite different: Having successfully led the assault upon the Death Star II, Admiral Ackbar can now write his own endorsement deals! And who better than a Starship Admiral to be the new face of Star-bucks? After all, is it really that great a leap from a mermaid to a calamari?

  I had some fun of my own posting an Admiral Ackbar meme. I know from experience that some of my most popular updates are those that forge unexpected bonds among fans. How many fans, I wondered, would “get” this possibly obscure pop reference? (I added the caption, “You know you want to say it.”)

  Turns out, nearly 70,000 fans “got” it, and more importantly, another 22,000-some shared it. And this got me to pondering: What causes people to like and share these kinds of images?

  Sure, they’re funny. But there are lots of funnies out there on the Internet. What a funny like this does is something more. Perhaps it says, “Ah, this was a part of my childhood.” Or “I took my children to see this.” Liking it means you’re part of a club, an instant community, if you will. We all mysteriously remember this precise moment in Episode VI of Star Wars where this supporting character warned, “It’s a trap!” and charged ahead anyway.

  But sharing this image means something else, too. That act not only says, “I find this funny,” but also “I think you, my friends, will find this funny, and possibly ‘like’ it too, because we have a similar sense of humor and a common background. Moreover, if something is both funny and “cool,” and someone finds it on the Internet, that “find” has some value. So when that “find” is shared, that act itself is one of generosity (or, for the more cynically-minded, a way to affirm and broadcast your coolness). Finally, sharing something someone cool has shared — someone, say, with a great number of friends on Facebook — might also lend some coolness to the sharer, dare I suggest. Cool by association has always been a ticket into the “in” crowd in high school, and in life.

  To extend the pop-up community that formed around this single image, fans presented their favorite Admiral Akbar memes in the comment stream below the image. Because Facebook now rewards “top” comments (those with the most likes and/or replies) with “top” placement, the best material can literally float to the top and be enjoyed by anyone who wants to stay and play a bit longer. Here was what rose to the top in response to one of my posts:

  It’s actually hard not to smile at the notion of Admiral Akbar holding this and shouting “It’s a tarp!” There’s a good chance you probably just heard that in his voice, in fact. That the top comment to my post itself got over 2,400 likes tells me that many, many fans understand the absurdity of their random connectedness through the good mon calamari.

  Other fans chimed in with their favorites. On the low-brow end of things, there was this, dare I say it, “nugget” which many uber-fans insisted they wanted to replicate on their own toilets:

  Here again, extra points for a font and design that evoke the franchise.

  Among the other submissions, I preferred this next one, in part because it mixes two of my favorite genres (Broadway and scifi), but also because it demands a bit more cult
ural literacy from its viewer:

  Finally, recently I checked my Facebook wall, and someone had pointed out that there is an odd connection between our current president and the admiral. I imagine many might stare at these images without getting the joke, so some textual context was added.

  Ah. Perhaps now we know why he spells his name that way.

  Earworms

  We’ve all had them: songs, or bits of songs, stuck in our heads that we can’t seem to shake, except possibly by substituting another song, which merely replaces one problem with another. These are what we call earworms—sneaky, burrowing little bugs that cause something inside our brains to repeat a ditty over and over, as though teetering on lunacy.

  Earworms are not only bothersome, they are highly contagious. All it takes is one person humming the chorus of “We Built This City” to get a whole room thinking, “on Rock and Roooooooll!” In fact, merely reading the words “We Built This City” may have already infected your own ears, just now, with that insipid melody.

  I figured, if a room can be infected by just one person, what would happen on the Internet? In theory, by way of a single viral post, hundreds of thousands of people literally could be tuned to the same musical wavelength, not just in America but all around the world. For the earworm, properly planted, is far more than an individual, personal experience. It is quintessentially communal. The songs we all knew and loved in our earlier, more carefree days could at any moment come crashing back upon us, even from just a single line of a song. By some twisted trick of nature, we recall not just the tune, ah, but the lyrics! This is possible even though we can’t remember what we ate for breakfast, how to do long division, or where we put our keys just ten minutes past.