I love Woot! and enjoy the blog. But this is just crass. Egyptians are dying fighting for their human rights. It's not funny.

Ugh this attempt at humor/satire is sad and disrespectful. Are you getting paid for this? This is the best you could come up with? This is about on par with the jokes that come on laffy taffy wrappers. Real people are going through what has become violent revolution and you mock the concept of helping them?

Poor taste woot blog, poor taste....

/unsubscribed from RSS feed

dcobranchi wrote:I love Woot! and enjoy the blog. But this is just crass. Egyptians are dying fighting for their human rights. It's not funny.

Agreed... I read through this list laughing at a couple, but mostly disgusted at how unimportant Woot made the Egyptian crisis out to be. It may be good that the Egpytian's don't have internet access right now to read this inconsiderate post.

One more gargleblaster WOOT IS HILARIOUS EXCEPT WHEN I DISAGREE AND THEN IT IS TEH SUXOR!!!11!1!11!!eleven

No i never really thought it was hilarious. I just subscribed to see what todays items for sale were. meh. now i'll check it when i remember and not be bothered by the rarely entertaining blogcrap.

My advice is stick with what you know and sell a single cheap product of wildly varying degrees of desirability. I get the feeling a few too many people complimented your ability to write witty product descriptions and you now think you're funnier than you really are.

Yeah. Not funny. Maybe at some other time it would be but right now...

You can redeem yourself by dedicating a portion of your profits over the next 40 days to help feed the pro-democracy protesters.

goldenthorn wrote:I know people in Cairo. People in the middle of all that, protesting or just trying to live. Am I going to get all indignant because someone made a funny about the whole situation in abstract? NO. A few exaggerated, clearly absurdist jokes aren't harming my friends/aquaintances (perspective: Mubarak's thugs are), and I think it's quite clear that the woot writers are quite aware of the seriousness of the Egyptians' situation, judging by their backlog of writings.
Frankly, from my experiences in Egypt, most of the people I know/met would be the first to laugh at such incredibly silly jokes (so long as it was clear that the Americans making them weren't stereotypical Americans... which the woot writers most definitely aren't).
I guess I'm capable of separating the reality of what elMasrians are going through and the reality of some woot jokes just being ridiculous comments that aren't at all mean-spirited or political. I'm speshul!

I know people in Cairo as well, and they feel Americans don't understand what's going on there, have never really tried to understand Egyptian politics or culture beyond those silly Mummy movies. This pathetic attempt at humor proves they're right.

ehtaniguchi wrote:I know people in Cairo as well, and they feel Americans don't understand what's going on there, have never really tried to understand Egyptian politics or culture beyond those silly Mummy movies. This pathetic attempt at humor proves they're right.

The same can be said about every country in the world. 99.9% of American's don't care about other countries, and the other .1% only care because they think the can somehow use them to insure they go to heaven.

Risk taught me that Egypt is part of Africa. Thank you Parker Brothers!

Actually, I'm thinking the "we are actually mocking ourselves" theory works only if, in addition to this written piece, the authors were actually doing something in earnest to help these people, which should be made public in an essay like this. Otherwise, it seems that to assume that it is indeed the situation itself being mocked is not far-fetched, as a list like this would belie.

If you were more upfront about your intent, maybe in a header of the article, I would agree with you. But your Procrustean attempt at justification seems way too little, much too late in its presentation. There is no shame in ever responding with "didn't mean to be insensitive, but on second look, perhaps you folks are right..."

People laugh at and lash out at that which makes us nervous, or that which we do not understand. My guess here is you laugh at the Egyptian crisis because you do not understand, and that realization makes you nervous.

'nuff said.

This is not at all funny. It's not even amusing as a clueless post. It's really Jatravartid, in fact. Take it down and stop embarrassing yourselves.

JeffinPutnam wrote:Yeah. Not funny. Maybe at some other time it would be but right now...

You can redeem yourself by dedicating a portion of your profits over the next 40 days to help feed the pro-democracy protesters.

They taught us in school that Egypt is already a democracy.

making jokes about human suffering is generally going to earn you comments about insensitivity and a general lack of awareness. It doesn't help when the jokes aren't particularly funny. While my sense of humor is certainly weird, I typically try to stay away from topics that are more likely to offend than entertain.

For example, some timely, but inappropriate topics for a joke list (very Cracked.com of you by the way, switching to a List joke blog format):

Top 5 of ways we are humoring you about the flooding and devastation in Australia:

1. No one cared about the hurricane, as they were already dead from the flooding.

2. Kangaroos prepared for the hurricane by stocking up on human bodies.

3. There has a been a sudden surge on great deals on properties that need a little "TLC".

4. Australians have cornered the flood preparation market.

5. Authorities in Brisbane have sought the advice of officials from FEMA and New Orleans on how to use these disasters as an opportunity to get rid of poor people.

See, somewhat humorous, but totally inappropriate and insensitive to the Human Suffering CURRENTLY GOING ON AS I TYPE.

Other topics you could "spoof" that might garner negative responses:

The earthquake and/or cholera outbreak in Haiti.

The mass shooting in Arizona.

Anyone who's currently dying and/or recently deceased.

---

On the other hand, there are plenty of timely topics you could choose from that may have some elements of human suffering (just to keep it edgy enough for you) but don't rely exclusively on people dying, being injured, humiliated and just general suffering.

for example:

Your choice of "Snowmageddon" events that've happened in the U.S. so far this year.

Charlie Manson getting caught with a cell-phone.

Anyone who's old, but not ACTIVELY dying. i.e. Larry King.

You could even go for something rather mundane, while subtlety pointing at social commentary, for example in the news today: %85 of U.S. Population growth is in minorities & 15 states look to adopt Arizona-style immigration laws. --- An edgy topic that lends itself to jokes, could offend but enough wiggle-room to work with.

---


So I guess my point is, and others who've complained, that w00t.com is generally heralded as a "family site". The writer's pick of topics to satirize and spoof have more frequently been questionable in taste and appropriateness.

It is my opinion that you should leave topics that are likely to offend people to sites who specialize in things like that, such as Tosh.0 and Cracked.com.

Also, I don't think w00ters look to the writers at w00t to inform us of worldly events. That's why we watch the Daily Show.

My advice, try less to be "edgy" and "topical" and concentrate on what made w00t famous: fun, quirky comedy.

EDIT: OBTW, you generally are not doing yourselves any favors by openly ridiculing anyone who's offended or who negatively comments on your blog posts. I mean you are free to post whatever you want, but so are we. If you guys are posting questionable content, you shouldn't be surprised when people don't like it. Lashing out at us for that is just going to make people stop reading your stuff. And perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought the idea of having a paid writing staff was to encourage people to visit the site, not drive them away with offensive comedy and derogatory replies.

Obviously there are people who like that style of humor, but I don't think w00t.com is generally thought of as a site who caters to that particular genre of comedy.

SBCJester21 wrote:making jokes about human suffering is generally going to earn you comments about insensitivity and a general lack of awareness. It doesn't help when the jokes aren't particularly funny. While my sense of humor is certainly weird, I typically try to stay away from topics that are more likely to offend than entertain.


So I guess my point is, and others who've complained, that w00t.com is generally heralded as a "family site". The writer's pick of topics to satirize and spoof have more frequently been questionable in taste and appropriateness.

It is my opinion that you should leave topics that are likely to offend people to sites who specialize in things like that, such as Tosh.0 and Cracked.com.

Also, I don't think w00ters look to the writers at w00t to inform us of worldly events. That's why we watch the Daily Show.

My advice, try less to be "edgy" and "topical" and concentrate on what made w00t famous: fun, quirky comedy.

What he said.

SBCJester21 wrote:making jokes about human suffering is generally going to earn you comments about insensitivity and a general lack of awareness.

Except that none of it was mocking human suffering. It was mocking the typically lazy "slacktivist" response Americans have toward everything that happens overseas.

llandar wrote:Except that none of it was mocking human suffering. It was mocking the typically lazy "slacktivist" response Americans have toward everything that happens overseas.

I don't question your intent, but the reality is that perception is everything. I should also state that I wasn't offended by the piece either. However, as soon as I read the first line of the premise, I knew it was 1. inappropriate, 2. probably tasteless, and most importantly: 3. lots of people would be offended by it.

I'm merely recommending that w00t writers might want to think about the "too soon" effect of writing satirically about tragic current events.

I plan on helping by wearing this shirt:

RWoodward wrote:They taught us in school that Egypt is already a democracy.

A corrupted democracy with 30 years of stuffed ballot boxes, press censorship, and the imprisonment of Mubarak's political opponents and critics. This is not covert information: it's all available in the Wikipedia article on Mubarak and Egypt: Modern History.

ehtaniguchi wrote:A corrupted democracy with 30 years of stuffed ballot boxes, press censorship, and the imprisonment of Mubarak's political opponents and critics. This is not covert information: it's all available in the Wikipedia article on Mubarak and Egypt: Modern History.

I think you may have a nuance problem--the dude was being incredibly sarcastic.

goldenthorn wrote:
... Frankly, from my experiences in Egypt, most of the people I know/met would be the first to laugh at such incredibly silly jokes (so long as it was clear that the Americans making them weren't stereotypical Americans... which the woot writers most definitely aren't). ...

Woot writers aren't stereotypical Americans? monotypical?

ragetears wrote:I think you may have a nuance problem--the dude was being incredibly sarcastic.

Given the context of this post, who could tell?

really woot?
if you were mocking our inability to do anything, it just sort of misses the mark. i mean, egyptians REALLY didn't think they could do anything under their oppressive government, and hey, they managed to
1) come out in the millions,
2) bridge differences in class, religion, and gender,
3) demand an end to tyranny
4) fight of brutal attacks
5) keep it clean while they were doing so
6) including sorting recycling!
7) show us that Anderson Cooper can survive being punched. TWICE!
and
8) email messages asking for us to spread the word that Mubarak's thugs were violently attacking a peaceful and united demand for democracy, in spite of the fact that the internet was shut down.

This last one I know because we received a msg from my cousin's nephew (her hubby is egyptian).

So, yeah, maybe you think you can't do anything, but they least you could do is give mad freaking props that the people of Egypt have managed to do so much given they have so little freedom afforded to them by law. But me, I think that's a pretty whiney cop out. AT THE VERY LEAST YOU COULD HAVE MADE THE POST WITTY (or funny). Which it wasn't.

This made me pretty bummed. I rely on you guys for intelligent humor, which is probably my bad. The buddha did say that expectation leads to sorrow.

I am surprised Woot!...you didn't link to Steven Martin's King Tut :[

I am disappoint

ehtaniguchi wrote:A corrupted democracy with 30 years of stuffed ballot boxes, press censorship, and the imprisonment of Mubarak's political opponents and critics. This is not covert information: it's all available in the Wikipedia article on Mubarak and Egypt: Modern History.

Thirty some years ago, people were saying pretty much the same things about the Shah of Iran, and encouraging the democracy-minded student protesters to continue their push for regime change. Check Wikipedia to see how that turned out.

Xexus wrote:Risk taught me that Egypt is part of Africa. Thank you Parker Brothers!

And that you could never hold on to Austro-Asia, even with 7extra men at the beginning of every go.

Relax everyone. They don't have internet.

RWoodward wrote:Thirty some years ago, people were saying pretty much the same things about the Shah of Iran, and encouraging the democracy-minded student protesters to continue their push for regime change. Check Wikipedia to see how that turned out.

Egypt is a far more secular nation than Iran, and the Millennials who are protesting in Cairo have more in common with the anti-government Greens in present-day Tehran than with the pro-Khomeini protesters of the 70s. It seems however that whenever an ethnic Arab nation tries to overthrow a hegemonic government, the U.S. thinks the protesters are all anti-Western terrorists, or incapable of making their own decisions about what form of government they want. But it's interesting that no one in the U.S. paid much attention to Egypt until the protests. It was just that country where King Tut and The Mummy were from, right?

dcobranchi wrote:I love Woot! and enjoy the blog. But this is just crass. Egyptians are dying fighting for their human rights. It's not funny.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die, any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
- George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)

Or, stated differently:

Nothing's more laughable than some whiner who thinks that humor about a given topic is somehow a bad thing.

Jason Toon wrote:I thought we were mocking our own inability to do anything much to actually help. And mocking the fact that until now, all most of us knew about Egypt, we learned from King Tut/mummy kitsch.

But if your reaction makes you feel like a better person, you're welcome to it.

And that's precisely what it is...some self-important gits don't grasp that humor is always a comfort, and need not be automatically a sign of disrespect.

SBCJester21 wrote:I don't question your intent, but the reality is that perception is everything.

Satirists aren't responsible for the incompetence of some members of the audience. If a listener doesn't "get" the humor, that's his own blanking problem.

Ironically, it's hard to say you've really succeeded until you have a few nattering nabobs of negativism objecting to how "offensive" your parody is.

RWoodward wrote:Thirty some years ago, people were saying pretty much the same things about the Shah of Iran, and encouraging the democracy-minded student protesters to continue their push for regime change. Check Wikipedia to see how that turned out.

The US had supported the tyrannical Shah of Iran for years. The only place the people of Iran could turn to overthrow him was the Soviet-backed Islamic Revolution. If the US hadn't been supporting tyranny in the first place, that may not have happened.

In Egypt, the US is widely perceived as being an integral part of how Mubarak retained his dictatorship for the past thirty years. We have sent SIXTY BILLION DOLLARS, and enormous supplies of weaponry that are used against his own people.

Or our government has...unfortunately, we end up being associated with that government of corrupt neocons and other foreign policy thugs.

If the result of the people of Egypt having to fight against the US-sponsored dictatorship is a government that considers the US to be their enemy, it'll be our own damned fault.

We should FINALLY recognize that violating other countries, in ways we'd find intolerable if someone did it to us, is evil, and stop.

Then we'll stop suffering the blowback.

ehtaniguchi wrote:Egypt is a far more secular nation than Iran, and the Millennials who are protesting in Cairo have more in common with the anti-government Greens in present-day Tehran than with the pro-Khomeini protesters of the 70s. It seems however that whenever an ethnic Arab nation tries to overthrow a hegemonic government, the U.S. thinks the protesters are all anti-Western terrorists, or incapable of making their own decisions about what form of government they want. But it's interesting that no one in the U.S. paid much attention to Egypt until the protests. It was just that country where King Tut and The Mummy were from, right?

To so broadly generalize that "no one in the U.S. paid much attention to Egypt until the protests" mirrors the very attitude that you think to criticize and weakens your position of authority in knowledge.
If you wish to criticize specific institutions or groups within the U.S., it would be wiser to be specific rather than claim that the whole U.S. views the world through the same lens. The U.S. is not a monolith of opinion and action. (Edit: the poster above me being an immediate example of this, in an excellent manner.)
If you wish to educate those who you think are ignorant, by all means provide links and information.
But to counter what you assume is ignorant stereotyping with unqualified, generalized stereotyping of your own does not advance the conversation.

ragetears wrote:To so broadly generalize that "no one in the U.S. paid much attention to Egypt until the protests" mirrors the very attitude that you think to criticize and weakens your position of authority in knowledge.
If you wish to criticize specific institutions or groups within the U.S., it would be wiser to be specific rather than claim that the whole U.S. views the world through the same lens. The U.S. is not a monolith of opinion and action. (Edit: the poster above me being an immediate example of this, in an excellent manner.)
If you wish to educate those who you think are ignorant, by all means provide links and information.
But to counter what you assume is ignorant stereotyping with unqualified, generalized stereotyping of your own does not advance the conversation.

When I said "no one" I meant U.S. media outlets---television, newspapers, and mainstream internet sources like Yahoo, Slate and CNN.com.---and the branches and various institutions of the U.S. government. The only story about Egypt that garnered headlines in US newspapers and online/TV news shows prior to the protests was the bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, and nearly all of the commentators and analysis focused on sectarian violence in the country. If one wanted to read about the economy or political news in Egypt, s/he had to go to news outlets outside of the United States, such as the BBC or Al Jazeera (which curiously can't be seen in its English version in the States). You could read The Economist, a British publication, or maybe rummage through the website Foreign Policy, Slate's international news site, but if you search that site for stories on Egypt prior to the protests you'll find again the story about the Coptic church and religious unrest. If you follow up on that story however, many Muslims rallied to support Coptic Christians to show extremists that they didn't speak for the majority of Egyptians.

My point however was directed at the Woot blog post. It was in poor taste, reflecting a general stereotype of Egypt held too often by American popular media. If Woot really wanted to help "the Egyptian people," it should consider making a donation to Egyptian pro-democracy groups, which were hit by funding cuts by the Obama administration last spring.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2010/04/18/us_aid_cuts_hit_egypts_democracy_groups/?page=1

If you really just sat there and read this post until you got offended, and then just had to put Woot!'s writers in their place because they offended you, then you are nothing but a sniveling baby. Really. If you don't think something is funny, fine, move along. If you don't get the joke, fine, move along. But to post huge complaints on how wrong and evil Woot! is, and why you are right, is about making it all about you. So you can sit around, and pat yourself on the back because you sure told that Woot! what they can say and cant. It's not about you. Don't like it? Move on. Stop being babies.

Jason Toon wrote:I thought we were mocking our own inability to do anything much to actually help. And mocking the fact that until now, all most of us knew about Egypt, we learned from King Tut/mummy kitsch.

But if your reaction makes you feel like a better person, you're welcome to it.

And of course the staff is going to say it's not a big deal, and that we are self righteous for thinking this blog is distasteful.

Can't even admit that it when you do something distasteful. Whatever helps you sleep at night, you're welcome to it.

RocketboyX wrote:If you really just sat there and read this post until you got offended, and then just had to put Woot!'s writers in their place because they offended you, then you are nothing but a sniveling baby. Really. If you don't think something is funny, fine, move along. If you don't get the joke, fine, move along. But to post huge complaints on how wrong and evil Woot! is, and why you are right, is about making it all about you. So you can sit around, and pat yourself on the back because you sure told that Woot! what they can say and cant. It's not about you. Don't like it? Move on. Stop being babies.

Yeah, because telling a company we don't like something so that they can improve is a horrible idea. Yup.