How Henry Discovered That Audio Messages Are A Satanic Conspiracy
Tighten your chastity belt and smother your children. A nefarious occult group has summoned Satan to help them reanimate the answering machine.
Why? Because they’re demon spawn.
Today’s topic is audio messages and how they will single handedly destroy society.
You know, those cute snippets of audio you record on Whatsapp and iMessage and send to your vapid friends. Obligingly holding your phone horizontally to your mouth while pretending that you only drink bubble tea ironically.
While audio messages have featured on Whatsapp & iMessage since 2013 & 2014, they only started infiltrating my personal sphere recently. And I’m incensed. Why bring back the answering machine (because, yes, audio messages are virtual answering machines without the etiquette)?
There’s loads of obsolete stuff that would be less torturous. How about the brazen bull or pear of anguish?
Sure, they’re an important assistive technology. But none of my friends are partially sighted, thumbless and or have forgotten how to write.
So here’s why my response to the next person who sends me an audio message is going to be a sympathetic, “Who performed your orbital lobotomy? Do they offer referral commissions?” Because if I don’t, who will?
Audio Messages Are Unjustified Voicemails
When did you last check your voicemail? It was 2013, wasn’t it? Why? Because the only people who leave voicemails are HMRC scammers claiming you’ve got a £50,000 underpayment, and time bending insurance companies with offers to transport you into last week’s most brutal car crash.
Still, they only leave a voicemail if you don’t pick up. And that’s the difference between audio messages and voicemails. The audio message is the voicemail without the justification.
Try calling someone and they don’t pick up – leave them a voicemail as punishment. That’s fair. It’s justified.
Don’t try to call someone, but send an audio message instead? Well, what are you punishing them for? Why should they listen to someone who hasn’t made the effort?
With this in mind, it’s obvious that people who leave audio messages are worse than HMRC scammers and rogue no claims agents.
Unstructured Thoughts & The Vice of Sloth
Sloths are evil. Does any other animal spend all of its time hanging upside down, with big, nasty claws? They’re also very lazy and live unstructured lives; key characteristics of being evil.
Audio messages are the same. They’re unstructured and quicker to send than emails, text messages and telegrams. Why? Because you don’t need to spend three seconds constructing an intro, summarising your issue and articulating a concise request.
My biggest gripe with them is when they’re used for communicating work assignments. Ten minutes of crap that I’m forced to listen to twice. Just to figure out what someone wants ME to do. Shouldn’t that emphasis be on them?!
Audio messages shift responsibility for structuring sent messages onto the receiver. How rich is that? You’re already asking someone to engage with your message. Surely there’s an unwritten social contract that effective communication is the responsibility of the person communicating?
What gives audio message senders the right to shift the blame for their blathering?
Continue using audio messages and you’re accepting stealing food from another’s mouth. Plundering their intellectual reserves. Audio messages are robbery.
Audio Messages Are Opaque
Want to know the gist of a message before you deign to read it? No chance with an audio message. There’s no way to determine what’s contained until you listen to it.
Modern communication carries the clear expectation to come with a summary, or at least the ability to read the first line of a message before deciding whether you’re going to read the whole thing.
With audio messages, you can’t blank people.
Also, have you thought about the nefarious things people could do with this opacity? Someone could send you passages from the Necronomicon, forcing you to unwittingly summon the Kandarian Demon into your front room with a tap of the play button.
Audio messages are a platform of the occult.
Broadcasting Sexual Exploits Over Bluetooth
Scene:
You’re listening to Joan Jett’s version of Season of the Witch on your little Bluetooth speaker because you don’t like Donovan. The room is filled with friends. Tipsy, you check your Whatsapp messages and press play on an audio message from Bernard, your bit on the side. Holding the phone to your ear, you hope he’s recorded something dirty. Maybe a bathroom escapade. Suddenly, your face drops. The music’s stopped and you can hear Bernard’s nasal voice, explaining that while he’s had fun sharing you with your boyfriend, he’s met someone else and they’re getting serious. Previously unaware, your boyfriend picks up a fork, pushes it into a plug socket and fries himself. Thus commences the Season of the Bitch.
Pop quiz, who was the worst person in that scenario?
You?
No. It was Bernard for sending that damned audio message.
Audio messages ruin relationships, kill spouses and completely invade your privacy.
It’s A Non-Interactive Phone Call
What’s my favourite thing about pizza? Watching someone eating it? Of course not. I like touching all the slices and playing with the melted cheese.
How about phone calls? I like making animal sounds in response to legitimate questions.
“When are you going to have that report finished?”
“Neymoo.” (It’s the sound of a deer – a mix between a horse and a cow)
As non-interactive phone calls, audio messages remove my right to respond with these, important, constructive points at the perfect opportunity. They disempower me from my god given right to shut down conversations.
Clearly, audio messages are disenfranchising recipients of the right to respond. By extension, they’re a form of censorship.
Why Audio Messages Must Die
Do you want to live in a world of surprise demonic summonings? Boyfriends, girlfriends, mothers, daughters, fathers and sons forced to kill themselves? Do you support mass censorship? Forced engagement? All while sloths amble about junctions, blocking traffic and economic progress?
No?
Well there’s only one solution. Stop sending me audio messages.
Henry Says 