chemistry, psa, annoyance
This is today's friendly reminder to the entire world that IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT GOOGLE RESULTS TELL YOU, "DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE" IS NOT VALID NOMENCLATURE FOR WATER/H₂O, FOR THE SAME GODDAMN REASON WE DON'T CALL SULFURIC ACID "DIHYDROGEN MONOSULFUROUS TETROXIDE" OR SOME SHIT.
GOOGLE IS NOT AN ENCYCLOPEDIA, IT IS A STRAW POLL OF UNEDUCATED PEOPLE. If half the fucking population of Earth is convinced water is "dihydrogen monoxide" because of a piece of satire, it will tell you "water is called dihydrogen monoxide" and it will do it with a confident friendly smile.
chemistry, psa, annoyance
@zebratron2084 That is the thing most bothering me about that satire. (Well, that and people who keep on using it even though once you've read the satire article once or twice the joke is exhausted. But nerd culture has never accepted the concept of 'the joke wears out'. And, yeah, everybody hears it for the first time *sometime*.)
re: chemistry, psa, annoyance
@Austin_Dern What really burns me is the process we're talking about here:
1) Person makes a joke.
2) Entire Internet swarms on it as an excuse to be smug, because they can use it to prove other people wrong.
3) Entire Internet takes a factoid from the joke, gets it wrong, and repeats it all over-- with EQUAL smugness.
It's that ironic tension between mocking other people's ignorance and nestling in harder with one's own. I HATE it. I suspect I've done it too, and that makes me hate it even more. >_<
It's like, "You JUST got done making fun of someone else for uncritically believing something they saw on the Internet. D'ya think MAYBE you can polish up your own process a little next?"
re: chemistry, psa, annoyance
@Austin_Dern Yeah. 'Cause I had an ACTUAL SERIOUS FACTUAL QUESTION and their goddamn meme trod all over all hopes of answering it correctly, because Being Cute On The Internet is more important than knowing about the universe.
And it feels like such a metaphor for EVERYTHING that is fucked up with us right now, because the cute memes ALWAYS win over the dull facts and I am almost literally sick to death over it, certainly sick to the point of daily existential dread and I am not exaggerating. 😱
re: chemistry, psa, annoyance
@Austin_Dern This "Galaxy Brain" garbage, too. How many 4channers are now running around confidenty parroting these as "official" names for water?!?
It's obviously just someone fucking around with nomenclature rules for fun, but THERE'S NOTHING TO TELL YOU THAT IN THE MEME.
I curse the uploader with one million lost exam points.
re: chemistry, psa, annoyance
@zebratron2084 Yeah, that's a good articulation of what gives this a different annoyance-valence than, like, people who *still* want the cake to be a lie.