Cellphones are Destroying People

WareNewYorkerLook at that cover.  Look at exactly what’s going on there.  Makes you almost cry, doesn’t it?  It better.  Because if it doesn’t, then baby you’ve got it coming.  Chris Ware, one of our finest cartoonists did this cover for the New Yorker and made a comic strip for the issue.

I see people crossing streets while typing on their ‘devices.’  I see them driving and sitting in fine restaurants with their dates and they’re answering email and texting.  Makes you want to walk over and plant a big kiss on some guy’s date right in front of him while he texts his mother.  Would serve him right.  People are not even remotely aware of other people anymore.  They drive right through stop signs while texting or chatting on a cell phone.  They wipe out entire families on freeways because they were trying to type, ‘OMG Heeee’s sooooo hot!!!!’

These people are simple dark abominations.  They are fools who understand only how to be dead, dried husks that resemble human beings.  They think they are part of the information overload and that they are multitasking through life.  They’re just obliterating themselves.

Let me put it this way: if somebody sees you using your device, you’re not using it properly.

Sometimes I see a woman in the grocery store answer her cell phone and say something like, ‘Yes, honey,  I’m in the grocery store.  I’m looking for those little pepper things now.’

Do you know why the guy calls her there?  I do.  It’s because he thinks she’s cheating on him because he knows she wants to because he’s a total flaccid drip.  That is why 99.9% of all cell phone calls on the planet are placed.  That is why the cell phone economy works.  It’s nervous people checking up on their significant others to make sure they’re still around.

You know I’m right.  You’ve done it too.  Haven’t you?

But look at this cover illustration and think about trying not to do such an awful thing to your kid this Halloween.  Try hard, because that kid will never forget that little screen in your face.

Animation: Chris Ware’s Quimby the Mouse

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

Here’s a brilliant animation designed by comic artist Chris Ware. The music is by Andrew Bird and the animation is by John Kuramoto. The little tale of a terribly abusive relationship between a mouse and a head is disturbingly hilarious. I love the way everything moves with such clean precision to the the music. Truly creepy and charming at the same time. How’d they do that?