Gifs Are Bad, Mmkay?

Look, so a lot of my friends don't like the debates. This completely shocked me because I love them. And not only do I love them, but I love all the hoopla that comes along with them. I love the random shouting of stupid things on the internet. I mean, otherwise would I even have a Facebook account?

The truth is, the people complaining about my superb FB statuses, with such gems as "Oh, a whole MILLION people, Ryan? That's your small businesses?"

And: "SIX WHOLE studies?"

(I am a firm believer in scare caps on Facebook, as much as I pretend to be above them, here. Helps people see better, amirite?)

Anyway, the people complaining about these epic and important updates are right in many ways.

1) They don't change anyone's mind (I'm lucky here, in that I don't want to change people's minds.)

2) They start arguments. (This one took me aback because debates are fun and games to me. Not so for some other people, it turns out.)

3) They lead the way to the gif wars. (Which I personally enjoy, but which can be dangerous and detrimental to your own side, if you were the type to try to change minds.)

Gifs often mix their messages, getting humor from applying statements about one certain topic to another certain topic in a way that doesn't make sense. So no one gets any real explanation out of them.

Gifs say things that the candidate never actually said. But sometimes he did actually say it. But you don't know unless you were there. So you can never take a gif seriously.

Gifs take sweeping stereotypes and apply them to one person or a small group of people. But on both sides. So, gifs fight against you.

Gifs are tricky little things. These images aren't even gifs, you'll be horrified to know. They're pngs. Who's the fool now?

If gifs are too involved, they could lose their main audience.

Gifs simplify issues to the extreme to make the gulf between parties seem too wide to cross. Ever.

Okay, but this one is pretty damn funny, isn't it? I can't rank on gifs when I'm laughing out loud.

Nope, this one, too. I find that funny. See, gifs show you the harsh reality of who you really are. I'm someone who finds mansplaining ryan hilarious. The downside is that gifs show everyone else on your feed who you really are, too. What happened to not talking about politics and religion at the dinner table? FB is the new dinner table, and you're always at a party (a bland party full of stupidity, but still...I mean, redundant, right?) with 450 of your closest friends. So beware of gifs.

Basically, gifs water down important issues and they don't make you look as clever as you think they might. They make you look like a Facebook sheep.

And they make both sides look silly. Not the subjects they're poking fun of, but the people posting the pictures.

Of course, I'm still going to do it...

so you might as well hide me during the next debate. Remember to unblock me when they're over, though, okay? I'm mostly intelligent...sometimes.

(All of these images taken from Mansplaining Ryan over on Tumblr. Thanks!)