In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that the photo is of a dog pooping. It’s quite blatant. The posture of a dog when it’s doing such things is unmistakable. Regardless, this discrepancy has not kept people from posting messages on the animal’s Facebook wall that say, “Nice kitty!” and “Aww, I love cats!”
I have furthered the scientific value of this social experiment by sending my friends private messages from the “Paul Ryan’s cat” account. The messages merely say, “meow”. That’s it. If they don’t respond, each day I send them a new meow message. I continue this until they either respond to the fictional cat or message my regular Facebook account and say, “Goddamn it, Paul, what is this shit? Stop sending me bullshit cat messages.”
The point of this social experiment is to see how long my friends will continue being friends with me if they know I’m an obnoxious idiot. Some might argue that they’re already aware of this fact from years of reading this column, or from having lived with me in college, or from hanging out with me on my birthday a few years back when I drunkenly donned a glittery top hat, ran full speed at a parked car, and purposely rammed my head directly into it.
The hat was ruined, by the way. Thanks for asking.
Those who think I’m an obnoxious idiot are wrong. I’m not actually an idiot. I’m a dick. That’s what this social experiment is really all about. It’s me purposely being a dick. Why? No reason. When you’re in your 30s, unemployed, and don’t care for daytime television, being a dick to others is really the only entertainment you have left. That’s why I plan to continue this experiment for at least four months, or until one of my friends gets me a job somewhere where I don’t have to clean toilets.
Today’s column is step two of the social experiment. Once my friends read this column and realize they’re part of an experiment, they’ll likely exhibit different tactics. Some will block messages from “Paul Ryan’s cat”, in which case I will create new accounts titled, “Paul Ryan’s second cat”, “Paul Ryan’s third cat”, “Return of Paul Ryan’s cat,” and “Come on, you know I’m just going to create more cat accounts.”
If my friends take the alternate approach of engaging my fake cat in a real conversation, which I take great joy in forcing them to do, I will respond to each and every one of their messages, but only using the word “meow.” If they write a response that requires a short answer, it will be one or two meows. If they write something that requires more detail, they will perhaps get eight or nine meows, separated into different paragraphs to create the illusion of depth and complexity.
Thus begins step three of the social experiment. I will set up more fake accounts, one for a rabbit, one for a moose, and one for a duck. As you might expect, these will be titled, “Paul Ryan’s rabbit,” “Paul Ryan’s moose,” and “Paul Ryan’s duck.” My pretend cat will then suggest that my friend add the rabbit, moose, and duck as friends. If they do, the experiment will end and they’ll be left wondering what the hell these damn rabbit, moose and ducks were for. If my friends refuse to add my pretend rabbit, moose, and duck, they will receive multiple private messages every hour from each animal until they go insane or quit Facebook completely.
If I don’t at least find some temping work this week, I may also take the time to create an account titled, “Paul Ryan’s cat’s wife”, and use it to send messages to all my female friends accusing them of being homewreckers who flirted with my fictional cat and ruined their cat marriage. Which is ridiculous, because the state of California doesn’t even recognize cat marriages.
The fourth and final step of the social experiment will begin six months from now. My friends who begrudgingly added my fake cat, rabbit, moose, and duck as friends will have forgotten all about it, but will wake up one morning to find their Facebook news feed filled with 70 or 80 different links to cat, rabbit, moose, and duck-related photos and videos. I will include zany heart-shaped photos, YouTube videos of the animals playing pianos, and various “I can haz cheezburgerz?” internet memes.
One might ask, “Hey Paul, if you put this much work into finding a job, wouldn’t you be employed already?” The answer is yes. Yes, I would be. But this is much more fun.
One of my favorite parts of writing this column – and pretty much the only reason I still do – is that I sometimes receive letters from angry people who want to fight me. I get the same sort of joy from reading these letters that Arthur Miller must have had when Marilyn Monroe went on a bender and married him.