The Russian Cult of Gadget Hackwrench

It took me a while to find a bullshit community worthy of posting, but I finally found one.There is a cult in Russia who worships Gadget Hackwrench, a mouse character featured in Disney's "Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers" cartoon series, as a goddess. Members of this cult pray to posters of her, gather for discussions of how wonderful she is, write songs about her, and spread around stickers of her wherever they go.

Now it goes without saying that this is complete and utter nonsense, but many people actually idolize and worship this cartoon mouse as some kind of idol or goddess. Here are some quotes from several followers of this strange cult: : “She is the divine being, the most untouched and perfect sibling of the great God on Earth”. “Why I love her? It’s a stupid question, how could I not love the Goddess?”. “She is strict, cute, optimistic and her level of technical knowledge is unachievable for a mortal being.” One 'believer' had particularly strong feeling for both Gadget and the cult itself, saying “I’m Russian and my English isn’t very well… I’ve found one pic with Gadget in web a couple of days ago, on a popular entertainment site, with a little article of who she is and her story. From that moment i just fell in love with her. Gadget crashed me into pieces. Her beauty, intelligence, kindness, mixed with fix-it-girl image is so tempting. She’s perfect. In our dirty world She’s the only angel. I downloaded lots of her pictures within some days and keep looking and looking on her, just can’t take my eyes off. I absolutely understand the men who started the cult, because Gadget gives all us the hope that there’s the endless beauty in our world. The ideal girl. Which we’ll never meet in reality. I love you, Gadget.”

Interesting stuff. As you can iagine, there are many people who attack the group in disbelief, calling their practuces stupid or labelling the cults' members as posers. I noticed there is little the cult members and supporters can say back to these attacks on their religion, but one member sums it up nicely in a response to a hateful comment:  "Don’t criticize what you don’t understand. Her touch, albeit mental, is transformational."

So there you have it, a religion based entirely off the image of a Disney character, and a vague one at that.I guess this just goes to show that anything is possible, especially when it comes to cults and religion.

BS in MS? Oh yes!

In my many years of schooling, I have encountered much bullshit both in and outside of the classroom. One particular instance that can be found in any elementary, middle, and high school, was the whole idea of "labeling" and cliques. The idea of being judged by your peers without any say and placed into a certain group based on their impressions of you is a little ridiculous . My particular experience with this happened in middle school, when I was one of the unfortunate people to fall into the "dork" category, which in my school meant being a total outcast. Although I still had friends, those who I had become friends with back in elementary school, no one new would talk to me, ask me to sit with them at lunch or be study partners with, or, god forbid, ask me out on a date. It was true that I read more than the average person, I had braces, and was generally a shy and reserved person, but I didn't think I deserved that harsh a treatment.

One day I was in Language Arts class, and I was sitting behind one of the girls I knew to be one of the chief “labelers”. I plucked up the courage to talk to her, casual chit chat at first, and then decided to ask her why I deserved the label I had received. I asked her what the "qualifications" of being a dork were, and when she told me her general definition, I was shocked. None of the people, which included several of my friends, who were labeled as dorks came close to matching her description! Had anyone bothered to actually get to know us rather than judging us based on first impressions, we probably could have moved up a few notches in the food chain, but there we were, stuck at the bottom. I called her out on this, saying that I hardly fit the description she had just given me, but she just shrugged and turned back around, completely ignoring me once again. My attempt at refuting her assertion that I was a dork was unsuccessful, but simply knowing that I didn’t really fit the description helped me survive those 3 miserable middle school years. And I was pleased to find out that in my high school, labels didn’t really matter, and you could pretty much sit with or talk to anyone without being judged (to your face at least). To this day I am glad I stood up for myself and didn’t just accept my BS label for what it was.

Baby Said What?!

While I was on my computer, browsing the internet for a homework assignment, I came across an advertisement that struck me as complete BS. It was an advertisement for Huggies 'Little Movers Diapers', and it read: "Little Movers diapers are shaped for active play and babies love it!"
Ok, how would the baby communicate to it's mother or whomever that it prefers shaped diapers to regular old square ones? In all my baby encounters I've never seen a baby express it's discomfort in any old generic brand diaper, much less it's desire for a more form-fitting diaper. I'm pretty sure babies don't care what kind of diaper they're in, as long as they have somewhere to do their business and they get changed. Sure parents are going to care if the diapers leak all over the place, but even the store-brand generic diapers can have some leak protection. And if the store-brand diapers are cheaper, guess which product parents are most likely going to buy? (In case you were wondering, I did check out the prices, and while generic Walgreens diapers are $9.99 for a 36 pack, with a "buy one, get one 50%" deal, Huggies are selling 31 of their 'Little Movers' for $11.99. Guess who wins!)
It's not just the ad; the entire website for this product is a huge bull session! It is set up like a CNN-type website (cleverly named BNN, or Baby News Network), with 'breaking news' about the product, as well as a few other interesting features, like baby blogs! Not only do babies tell their parents and the company that their shaped diapers are better, they also have blogswhere they post entries about how much they love them. Apparently 'Little Movers' diapers give babies the manual dexterity to post blogs! I'll admit that the whole thing is a cute advertising idea, but is all that bull really necessary to promote such a mundane product?