Here’s my tribute to those adorable, impish critters, without whom the Digital Age would seem oh-so-mundane, the cyber pixies! Just as their woodland cousins delight in visiting mischief upon humans who happen upon their forest dwellings, these little rascals are responsible for all the foibles, mishaps and just plain goofiness that occurs as we traipse through cyberspace.

Cyber pixies are the ones who induce amnesia in you just as you are about to attach a file to your outgoing email. They place all those double “and”s and “for”s into your text, after you have thoroughly proofread it! They lure important emails from prospective employers into your junk file, cause reply emails to go out from you with no message attached, and send you the exact same email three or four times. Why do they do these things? Why, because it’s fun, of course!

But where they really work their malicious magic is on the blogosphere. They perform a kind of hypnosis on online readers so they always take messages in ways they weren’t intended. They cause you to feel humiliated, angry, jealous, all those nasty human emotions you supposedly moved into online relationships to get away from! So far, the only defensive weapon humans have come up with to defeat their hypnotism is emoticons, but it’s the cyber pixies who generally get the last lol.

So the next time you have to apologize for yet again forgetting to attach a file to your email, rewrite a paragraph that suddenly and inexplicably disappeared into the ether, or spend an afternoon in a funk because of something someone wrote on a blog that you know was directed at you, blame the cyber pixies. Every computer ever created is infested with them, so you might as well just learn to live with ’em. They’re here!

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kesmarn
Admin

WTS, I especially enjoyed the pixie who made off with the “g” from Goo_le. I have one like that. My personal one has tinkered (or tinker belled) with the “d” on my keyboard, which tends to turn it into a “keyboar_”

🙁

jkkFL
Guest

OH! I have an ‘N’ pixie, and a capslock pixie; everytime I type an ‘A’, the capslock engages..
Is this a PPOV anomaly????

KillgoreTrout
Member

wts, I love the article, and especially your wonderful graphics. You have a gift, my friend.

Kalima
Admin

😆 wts, taking into account my own recent “faux pas” email to you, I can’t stop laughing, although I believe at the time of sending, those pixies were in my head and eyes. Thanks for being such a good sport about that. 😳

About those extra “ands” I find them all the time, and, and, and I’m sure that I don’t stutter.

Ok Keio, here I come.

Earthquake!

Why is my font leaning to the right, and the illustration is delightful. “Hi Rosie”!

Khirad
Member

A-ha.

[imgcomment image[/img]

jkkFL
Guest

I had those same Pixies last week! No matter what media I uploaded, those darn Nopix pixies flooded my netbook with ‘no way will those pixels appear in your post!’ Thanks to the Good Samaritan who ran them off for me!
Then I had a run in with PoutyPixies- the ones who cause you to allow another to twang your last damn nerve! Those darn pests are a PIA!
I know there are may more- Cher outlined the major species- I am afflicted with the surly sub-species!!
Might I add, that our dear Rosie seems quite well acquainted with these troublemakers- perhaps she could be sent on a mission to rid cyberspace of these annoying pests!!
Love ya little Rosie- what a darling sketch of you! xo! 🙂

Chernynkaya
Member

Whts– now I understand! You are so right–it must be them, it is so obvious I don’t know how I missed it.

I wonder if there are different tribes of these imps–the ones who engage in the devilish mischief you mentioned, and other groups who have other jobs. As you mentioned, the blogosphere seems to bring out a different sort of fairy–I’ll call them The Snow Queen Tribe, maybe? They were described by Hans Christian Anderson in the tale of the same name. They implant a teeny speck of mirror in our eyes causing us to view everything as an insult. They delight in confusing us, using our own vulnerabilities against us, while erasing all common sense–what hilarity ensues for them then! They have an unlimited supply of snark dust that they sprinkle on our screens, bewitching us into seeing snark where none exists.

(And at this moment, I am contending with the Keyboard Tribe of pixies. They delight in moving the keyboard keys around as I type to make me look illiterate. The are closely related to the Wordescapesme Tribe.)

And finally, there is the very specialized WordPress Tribe of fairies for whom a special ring in Hell is reserved. Man, are they some tough customers!

EDIT: ALARM! ALARM! The fairies just got angry and turned all the fonts at the Planet to italics!!