Tuesday, July 5, 2011

I'm Back, baby!


I remember when I was a kid not really having access to a whole lot of information. We had encyclopedias, so I knew what the population of India was in 1985 and what a drawing of a lynx looks like. I know I sound lame and old, but anything and everything is accessible now. The other day I was lying on the couch watching one of those Saturday Night Live: Best of the 90’s things (or maybe the 00’s). There was a skit about Ted Kaczynski, and me being the curious person I am, read all about his background and his crimes. This isn’t a big deal, but it is typical of my actions and what got me thinking. If I get the slightest inkling to look something up, I do without thinking about what I’m really looking up. Once I heard that there were crime scene photos (or coronary photos, depending on how one looks at it) of Chris Farley when he died. I have absolutely compelled to search for them. I’m not interested in the macabre or turning into a goth kid, but I think that specific example is just morbid curiosity. I looked for Kurt Cobain’s crime photos right after so maybe not.

 Like, if I just typed in “blown up arm,” I bet I could get 1000 pictures of people with blown up arms. I could have also been searching for a photo of an arm that is blown up (as in a closer view). Maybe I’m a kid doing an anatomy project or something. I’m probably looking for mangled arms though.

I read the AV Club pretty avidly (it’s a division of The Onion). It focuses on all aspects of pop culture and makes slightly witty observations about whatever the story happens to be about – it’s not like The Onion in the sense that it is real life information. There was an article about the house where The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was filmed. This got me thinking, I heard that it’s sort of based on a real story. I looked up “Leatherface real person” and got a Wikipedia page about Ed Gein. Apparently, several serial killer movie characters are based on this guy (think Leatherface, Buffalo Bill, and Norman Bates). I then proceeded to read all about the things that he did. I read about his childhood to his death. It was totally disturbing stuff and now I can’t un-know it. One of the words that came up throughout the piece was the word vulva. I am going to admit my ignorance right now: I didn’t know what that word means. There is an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry can’t remember the name of the lady he’s dating, but he does know that she got made fun of because it sounds like a lady’s body part. He thought her name was Mulva. That is the only time I remember hearing that word; though, I did probably hear it in science class during sex ed. week, but I was assuredly too busy drawing pictures of dragons fighting tanks. Who needs to know what a vulva is any way?

This brings me to my point. I’m going full circle here. I Wikipedia-ed vulva and guess what I got? A big freakin’ vulva staring me in the face like the Sarlacc for Return of the Jedi! I think it had tentacles, too. 



I didn’t want to see a picture! I just wanted to read about it.

I’ve learned my lesson. Stop looking things up.

Back to ignorance being bliss.

6 comments:

  1. Wikipedia is full of Images You Don't Want To See. We should all be thankful that the same is not true for Urban Dictionary.

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  2. Haha, best Seinfeld episode. Welcome back, now stay ignorant and you get to keep your lunch down :)

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  3. All those things you said you looked up sounds like it's leaving quite an interesting track record of search records... muwhahaha. What if big brother is watching?!?!

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  4. Despite the scar on your retina that you can't unsee, it's pretty cool what you can find these days when you want to know something.

    And despite the bad rap that Wikipedia gets among the scholarly, it's a pretty good place to start if all you want is some basic info. Like lists or almost anything, and pictures of female anatomy, apparently.

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  5. I also miss the good ol days when there was less information at everyone's disposal. That reminds me, I still have two of your funk and wagnall encyclopedias that I borrowed back in 1997.

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  6. Ooo I did a report on Ed Gein in high school- it was for a forensics class. We all got to pick a serial killer. I remember looking him up in the computer lab and clicking on a website where I was shocked to see an image of a woman's torso hanging from a meat hook. That was the first horrifying internet pic I've seen. There has been many more since.

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