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Picking out the caterpillars from the information salad
Last month I wrote about the Church of Scientology's desperation to gain web awards, and I suggested that perhaps I should start Mathew's Award For Web Sites Which Are Obviously Desperate To Have Lots Of Awards But Can't Get Any. Well, Bryce Anderson wrote to me saying that if I was going to go into the meaningless awards business, he thought his web site deserved serious consideration. He outlined its special features; I quote:
Several broken links! Any site can have links that WORK, but it takes a special something to get you to the "The Link You Are Looking For Is Either Broken or Missing" page.
A picture of me in my Army Class A's. It's the only picture on the site, and I'm very proud of it.
It's a Tripod page! Not just anyone can get a home page from Tripod. It takes a special type of person to get one (namely, the type of person with a modem.)
His site has a couple of other compelling features too. Like the hit counter; that's just soooo 1996. The fact that I was visitor 168 didn't make it look any less desperate. Then there's the delightful pop-up Tripod ad; an ugly banner ad on the page would merely be annoying, so Tripod make theirs pop up a whole separate window -- which itself contains another banner ad. Ads within ads... is it ads all the way down, I wonder?
Thanks also to 'modemac', who reminded me that The Corporation have an excellent archive of stupid web awards which you can give yourself.
As you can imagine, writing a column like this makes me a target for religious spam. Some of the spam-advertised pages make Bryce's page look like WIRED News. One example had the intriguing URL http://come.to/christianz/, which sounds to me like the effect of a severe head injury. ("Well, Doctor, they were beaten senseless with baseball bats, we think they're going to come to Christians.") The site itself doesn't bear much comment -- except that typically, people spell "Millennium" wrong, whereas these guys manage to get it right, and then mis-spell "disciple" in the window title bar instead.
Another bunch of bozos who invited me to visit their web site are the Raelians. They sent me over 70K of JPEGs and text advertising www.rael.org, so as you can imagine I'm only too keen to comment on their site.
The Raelians fancy themselves as Earth's ambassadors to the extraterrestrial community; to this end, they're hoping to build the first official extraterrestrial embassy. Judging by the picture on their web site, it will look like a leftover set from an episode of "Space:1999", but that's probably just because it was designed in 1973. Let's just hope the aliens like lava lamps and leather sofas. (Doesn't the Sci-Fi Channel Store have an X-Files alien fetus lava lamp yet?)
The Raelian logo is cute: a Star of David ("representing infinite space") with a swirl inside to represent our galaxy. They say our distant ancestors were a race of extraterrestrials called the Elohim, who created mankind through genetic engineering and gave us the books of the Bible. Through some kind of misunderstanding, we thought they were gods. Somehow I'm reminded of the Momus song "Space Jews" (check out the lyrics if you don't believe me)... Obviously the Raelians believe that the Elohim aren't the cattle-mutilating anal-probe-administering kind of extraterrestrial. Perhaps that's another little misunderstanding?
I also recently got spammed by investors trading in Beanie Babies. Usually Christians are quick to grab trends and twist them to promote religion, so I found myself wondering if there was a Beanie Jesus yet? Perhaps he would have a velcro cross you could stick him up on?
Well, no luck finding Beanie Jesus, but the search did turn up some other lovable cuddly transitional objects. Take Boinger, for example. He's a rabbit with a gangrenous nose who wears too much lipstick, and in the accompanying story books he has been given the power of time travel by God so that he can take children back to Biblical times to show them the true events described in many classic Bible stories. I notice that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is conspicuously absent from the list -- and perhaps it's just me, but doesn't a twelve inch bunny named "Boinger" with big red lips sound somewhat... suggestive? Still, I'm sure Christian children have clean minds and won't think anything of it.
Meanwhile, Christ's Place offers books about Beanie Babies, anointing, and why Jesus died. No books about anointing of Beanie Babies though. And according to CNN -- a phrase which doesn't have quite the same ring of authority these days -- there's a mini-craze going on for What Would Jesus Do? bracelets, a craze rivalling Beanies in its intensity. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone produces WWJD bondage gear.
My search also took me to the wonderful pages of Sister Rossetta. Make sure you check out the pictures of Areala, Warrior Nun. And if all the hype about Beanie Babies makes you sick, you'll like what the Denver Westword did to one. Let's just hope somebody buys a nauseating Let The Little Children Come To Me 16" Jesus doll (complete with adoring tots) and gives it a similar pyrotechnic send-off (with scanned photos).
My favorite site this month is the Jesus of the Week page by Peter Gilstrap. See Jesus as a Hawaiian surfer boy, Jesus with dreadlocks, Jesus as a bearded version of Mary, a paint-by-numbers Jesus on black velvet, a Jesus vase, a Jesus doormat... Poor Jesus. He must be the second biggest kitsch icon after Elvis.
And speaking of Elvis, if you're ever in Portland, Oregon, do check out the 24 Hour Church of Elvis. I've been there, and it's truly an amazing place. John Strong gives an account of his visit; hopefully by now the Church has settled into its new location. They were still in chaos in July, and I don't think all of it was intentional.
mathew
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Last updated: Wednesday, 30-Nov-2005 17:06:10 CST
