Jonathan Ong's Blog

I’ve gotten ridiculously bored with social networking as most of my friends refuse to self edit their own content and rarely post anything interesting. Instead, I’ve made it fun by trolling Facebook. Try to make the most ridiculous comments on everyone’s posts, links, pictures, anything. It might explain why the number of friends fluctuate quite a bit.

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. – Wikipedia

1. Ask obvious questions:
2. Answer rhetorical questions:
3. Take figurative language seriously:
4. Grammar Nazi:
5. Make an all-out awesome comment:
6. Ask the obvious question of, “are they hot?”:
7. Pick a victim and like everything on their page. Unfortunately this girl disabled my ability to comment or post on her wall:
8. Pick a victim and consistently insinuate sexual relations with her:
9. Reiterate the last statement except replacing the noun with the word “you” or “you’re”:

The purpose of my creeping was not to actually get girls, but to have fun. It’s fun to joke around and mess with people. It’s fun to feign affection for others when most of the time you lack any thereof. It’s fun to see a odd smile on a girl’s face, though I know my limits and try not to actually piss everyone on. This is until everything backfires.

But it’s like how the saying goes: it’s only fun until someone gets hurt. It’s fine to joke around, but if you joke around too much, you’ll be stuck in the apathetic mentality and don’t realize the issues that arise. You’ll be branded a person who is never serious and will then never be taken seriously. Apparently when I was actually trying to be a creeper, I also developed a poker face. I would try to tell people truths, but they weren’t sure if I was joking or not. Sometimes when I’m telling a joke, they’ll take it seriously because they don’t know that I’m still in my joking mode.

Then there’s a law of probability. If you apply for 1000 jobs, there’s a good chance you’ll get at least one offer. Similarly, if you hit on 1000 girls, there’s a good chance you’ll get one, regardless of how awesome of a person you are. This in itself is not a problem, but combined with a poker face, this could be a grave problem. The girl that likes you might just because she thought you were serious when you weren’t, and the girl that you actually like might not think about you that way because she thought you were joking when you weren’t.

And so I decided to change my ways: I only creep on girls who I know will deny me because that way no one will get hurt and girls who I may be interested in because then there’s no risk. And now I have to work on how to convey the messages I wish to send with minimal transmission loss, a grave problem for me since my messages are best understood through keyboards. I still will write articles on how to be a creeper if people are interested. Let me know if you are.

Here are short thoughts written on my iPhone starting when I got off the train in Aberdeen, Maryland.

The weather is just disgusting. It’s usually 90 degrees in the day, 75 degrees at night, and it’s almost always 100% humid. I’ll be sweating, but I wouldn’t dry.

There are basically no Asians. I’m pretty sure if Asians wanted to live in a hot and humid place, they’d live in Taiwan or something.

I suddenly see an increase in obesity rates. Marylanders are just fatter… Probably because the weather isn’t enjoyable and there’s seriously nothing to do around here.

I haven’t seen so much green in my life since I went to Germany and Austria.

AT&T reception sucks. Everyone here has Verizon or Sprint. I’m the only person I’ve seen with an iPhone.

There are so many bugs! Flies kept landing in me. I actually saw grasshoppers since there’s actually grass here. At nights I actually hear 100 types if insects making noises. There were dead ants on my bicycle seat after I left it out in the rain. Spiderwebs are everywhere, one grew on my friends trunk in a single day. The best of all, there was a toad chilling outside the wall on the balcony.

I thought there was a 24 Hour Fitness everywhere! Well that’s a shame… At least I knew that LA Fitness wouldn’t be here.

I was so bored waiting for the Amtrak, I decided to buy a pack of cigarettes. A pack of Parliament Lights cost $9, but they also don’t have matches and won’t sell you a lighter, and people around here don’t smoke so I can’t ask someone for a light. Biggest waste of $9 ever.

I feel as though I stepped back 30 years in fashion years. Everyone seems to shop at Costco or something.

There are only local banks, I’ve had $800 in my wallet for the past week since I couldn’t find a Bank of America or Chase close by.

Guys love to cuss and drink beer. It might just be a military thing, but the people I work with are civilian researchers. It’s probably because there’s seriously nothing else to do out here… Hence fat people.

The people I’ve seen don’t really care for music. I never hear music blasting or someone singing or anything. They’d rather talk about something. But the music I do hear I love since there’s no black music here, just good old rock.

Everyone’s freaking married! Except the guy I’m living with, but he has a girlfriend who lives far, and this postdoctoral I met, but he’s on the heavy side. It seems like the thing to do here…

Unlike California, there are so many sports teams here that aren’t too far away and are rivals. Thus, people rare really into sports, but I think it’s just cause the weather doesn’t allow anyone to play sports themselves.

Everyone thinks everyone’s an asshole, but I personally don’t think so. This comes from someone who loves New York City and doesn’t think they’re assholes. Do you know who I think are assholes? Cantonese people. They are the definition of asshole. Maybe Californians are made of assholes too, or maybe I’m one too. I do know my bitch radar is off… I don’t find bitchy girls annoying.

Collapse all comments / just show parents:

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Upvote everything on the page (don’t use too often as you can be branded a bot):

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Downvote everything on the page (don’t use too often as you can be branded a bot):

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Show all directly linked pictures:

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Hide or show comments up to a certain depth level:

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Fix the Reddit search feature by using Google:

javascript:void(document.forms['search'].action=’http://www.google.com/search‘); void(document.forms['search'].onsubmit=function() { document.forms['search'].q.value=’site:www.reddit.com ‘ + document.forms['search'].q.value; });

A new and improved Javascript bookmarklet to view all images in a thread. You can also read the comments in the link to Reddit.

Many of my friends or acquaintances ask me, “Jon Ong, why are you such a creeper?” In short, the answer to this question is: I’m a little socially retarded, probably due to the awkwardness of my parents, specifically my dad. He is blunt and has no manners, which, for the most part, rubbed off on me in lieu of my mom’s futile attempt to counteract. I try to compensate, but for the most part don’t care.

I wouldn’t say I’m totally socially retarded since I still have friends who are fun and aren’t addicted to drugs, games, or some other useless “hobbies” and have some sort of career path. By socially retarded I mean I lack the ability to discern specific emotions and reactions. This is a by product of my emphasis on efficiency and honesty over other people’s and my own feelings and emotions. I honestly don’t understand many emotions such as regret, jealousy, and anger. Thus, I avoid giving people emotion advice and support since to me the solution to almost any dramatic situation is simple, though when I do, people always wish they listened instead of acted on their retarded emotions.

I’m never sure if and when people are annoyed or mad at me, but I also don’t really care. My high school teachers viewed my personality as arrogant, but I’ve also never looked up “arrogant” in the dictionary. I use my creepiness to test my friends boundaries, but so far I haven’t reached it. Everyday I wonder if it’s because I’m still an amateur creep or if they are actually my friends. I also wish I knew if girls were interested or not because I usually figure it out way too late.

A very recent example of my creepiness and social retardedness is when I stepped on a toe nail and spent 20 minutes at the hospital soaking my foot in a bucket of solution. Here’s what I tweeted and wrote on my Facebook status afterwards since you don’t get reception in hospitals unless you have Verizon (slightly edited for grammar and specificity):

My dad’s nurse said, “Let me show you my daughter. We decided to hook you two up when she gets older, but you have to wait because she’s only 14.” At first I was like, “Uhhh…” But then she showed me her daughter’s picture on her Blackberry and then I was like, “Okay, maybe.”

During this occurrence, my only thoughts were along the lines of:

Did a mother seriously just try to pimp out her 14 year old daughter to someone 7-8 years older than her?

A nurse WOULD try to pimp her daughter to her doctor’s son.

Why is my dad talking to other people about my non-existent love-life?

Why would a white girl date a bald Asian guy? Gold digger.

However, it didn’t register as creepy until I received the following Twitter reply:

TWeienC @jongleberry I know you pride yourself on your creepiness, so I’m reluctant to compliment you on it, but that was a Top 10 Creepy. Congrats.

I suppose that this is creepy, but neither I nor the nurse thought it was creepy at the time. All she did was smile since she took it as a compliment. Obviously she was seeking a compliment since she wanted to show me her daughter’s picture in the first place. I don’t think I’m going to show a picture of my daughter to any male… haven’t decided on lesbians yet. All I saw was a skinny white girl in a purple dress smiling, so, hey, she might have potential!

We all know you secretly daydreamed about Emma Watson before she turned 18, the only difference being I never thought about taking off that purple dress. I don’t even know how her legs compare to Emma Watson’s (I admit, I probably DID look like a creepy looking for a picture of Emma Watson at It’s a Grind). But holy crap Emma Watson is hot! I wish I went to Brown…

And by now you’re probably thinking, “Wow Jon Ong, you’re starting to write a little bit creepy!” But that’s because I actually am. You see, what I have is a social strategy: my weakness is that I am slightly socially retarded and slightly creepy, so I over-exaggerate my creepiness to turn it into a strength. Instead of being a creepy loner, I’ve grown relationships with girls who let me bite their shoulders and lick their faces and guys who actually read this crap. I’ve turned my awkwardness into ice-breakers and victim-more humor. If I didn’t over-exaggerate my creepiness, I’d have a lot less friends, though sometimes I do wish I was a creepy loner who stayed at home all day and played with Legos.

TL;DR – We all have weaknesses, but most people haven’t figured out how to use their weaknesses to their advantage.