Rat & Goat, Ink!

shanemorris:

There’s a big difference between being famous, and “internet famous”, kids. If you’re actually famous, you have to deal with TMZ, and people knowing who you are. If you’re “internet famous”, you probably call yourself that. Most people aren’t going to care if you have 20,000 followers on Twitter, and you have a prestigious blog.

Basically, being internet famous means you’re not famous, and you probably just spend too much time at home.

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shanemorris:

(Photo credit: rags-to-rorschachs.tumblr.com)

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for having fun yesterday with the #RyanRossCatHat tag. Yesterday at about five in the afternoon, Ryan sent me a text and it read: “you are out of your mind. and thank you for the postcard.” (The second part is unrelated to y’all. I just send my friends postcards from Nashville to be an ironic dick.)

So, what’s the point? That’s what everyone wants to know. Why do it?

Because it’s fun. That’s a good enough reason, right? The way I see it, too many bands just use Twitter and Tumblr to SELL stuff. To me, that’s just forced and sort of demeaning to the fans. You all are worth so much more than just selling stuff to. I like having fun and laughing, and I want you all to be part of the fun.

Now #RyanRossCatHat belongs to all of you. It’s one more thing YOUR fandom has that other fandoms don’t have. It’s like a cool friendship, with inside jokes that no one else gets. When we show up to events and concerts, I fully expect to see people in the audience with #ryanrosscathat scrawled in a marker on a t-shirt.

I won’t be filling up your dashboard with Ryan and cats today - I’ll be back to business as usual.

Do I wish we would have trended? Of course. But my Twitter data says over 290,000 people Tweeted #RyanRossCatHat yesterday. For me, that’s well worth the laugh, and Ryan appreciated it. Within our own circle of friends, Ryan has been barraged with cat jokes on Facebook. Seeing that make me laugh milk out of my nose this morning. No joke.

Hope you all have a lovely Wednesday.

*cries because this is too beautiful*

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frerard:

casually shows off wedding ring cause hes not gay at all nope

Oh shut up Gerard, because RyanRossCatHat

You, sir, are old news.

(Source: ohimtherebabe, via jennigoeswild)

shanemorris:

Okay everyone in the fandom, YOU have a new mission. This one is going to be super fun, Ryan is going to love it, and it’s going to get a cat a home.

The back story goes like this: Ryan has this neighborhood stray cat he feeds. We call it Musclebones. It’s a mostly friendly cat, but it seems to like Ryan more than anyone else. Usually it just wanders in the dog door from Ryan’s kitchen. (I guess the former owner of Ryan’s house had a dog?) It just sits there, watches him play music, and hangs out. I’m trying to get Ryan to officially adopt Musclebones, get the cat some shots, fixed, etc. Musclebones needs a good home, and Musclebones LOVES Ryan. (Probably as much as you do.)

When I was talking to Ryan the other day, I tried to convince him to officially adopt Musclebones, and he was like, “I dunno man. I don’t think Musclebones likes me that much. I don’t think cats like me.”

WRONG Mr. Ryan. Cats love you. When Ryan wakes up in the morning, I want him to know how much cats love him. Why? Because if there are two things the internet loves, it’s Ryan Ross, and cute kitties. That’s why we need to put cats on Ryan’s head.

#RyanRossCatHat - That’s the new Twitter/Tumblr tag. I need ALL of you to get on Twitter and make that trend WORLDWIDE. 

If you’re good at editing photos, take this opportunity to put a cat on Ryan’s head and put it on Tumblr and Twitter. When Ryan wakes up, he’s going to see #RyanRossCatHat trending, and he’ll know that cats love him. Then, I’ll call him up and say, “Alright Ryan, now you HAVE to adopt Musclebones.” And he won’t be able to say cats don’t like him, because cats will be all over his head.

Repeat after me: #RyanRossCatHat

Trend it worldwide kids. I know you can do it. Musclebones needs a good home. Show Ryan how much cats love him!

DO IT

(via shanemorris-deactivated20130106)

shanemorris:

Right now, I’m awake and I shouldn’t be. You probably figured as much. It’s 4AM where I am. I’m not drunk. I haven’t been partying. I didn’t take any Adderall. I don’t have insomnia. I’m a really weird person, with a slightly crippling problem.

The only reason I’m mentioning this, is because I want other people to know what I deal with. Since so many of you look up to me, I thought it would be a good idea to share my problems with you - so you know you’re not alone in some of life’s struggles.

My problem: I have absolutely crippling social anxiety.

Do you know that feeling you get when you pass someone strange in a hallway? You don’t know whether to make eye contact, or say hello. Sometimes you sort of want to wave, and sometimes you just want to look at the ground. Well, my whole life is sort of like that around people. The exceptions are people who I consider to be really close friends.

The whole process of me becoming quite odd around people has been slow. I first started noticing a change in my overall demeanor around people about two years ago. I started wearing face paint in public, because I didn’t understand people anymore. In fact, most of my social anxiety comes from feeling completely misunderstood by the world. When you feel like you can’t level with anyone, a natural compensation is to give the world something it cannot understand.

Sometimes, I would wake up in the morning to brush my teeth, and stare in the mirror for a moment. Every time I looked, I felt like I was staring into a portrait - like I was a picture of myself, but not actually myself. Eventually, my moving portrait took up a permanent residence in my mind.

My social anxiety is slightly exacerbated by my acting abilities. I have the ability to pretend I’m the center of every party. Most people who meet me have no idea how fake I have to be in order to simply maintain a solid state of mind in public places. While I’m around people, I think about everything - like some state of amphetamine induced hyper-awareness. I count odd things in order to have something to bury my focus in. For instance, when I’m looking into your eyes, I have to maintain a count of how many times you blink. It’s not an obsessive compulsive tendency, and it doesn’t make me think something bad will happen if I don’t.

My hyper-awareness just means I have to do things “normal” people don’t do. I suppose it’s getting worse too. For a while, I broke some of my weird habits. I used to carry around my own silverware with me everywhere, because I don’t like eating with unfamiliar silverware. I don’t like new clothes, new shoes, or new things I don’t ask for. I don’t receive gifts well. My bubble is the only place I understand, and it makes me feel like people don’t understand me when I step outside of it. When my friends invite me out, I say I have other plans. I usually don’t have other plans - I just don’t want to be around people. This causes stress even in my close friendships, because I am never around. It’s hard to be a friend who doesn’t exist.

My anxiety with the world in general means I stay home by myself a lot. I go to the grocery store at 6AM so I don’t see people. I use the self-checkout. I smile at everyone, because I think it will make their day better - and then I think about their life too much. I wonder if the lady at the grocery store is happy with her life. If her shoes look worn out, or if she appears to be limping, I wonder if there’s more I can do to help people.

It’s the people in need that make me feel like the world is a terrible place, and I want no part in it. People being horrible to each other drives me to think about my own place, and then why I feel like I don’t fit. My mother says I’m one of those people who is smart enough to see the inequality in humanity, and the life experience to know one person cannot change humanity alone. So often, I escape my own helpless feelings about the world by shutting the world away and pretending I live removed from everything.

The happiest moments of my life have been alone. Hitch-hiking across the United States, I spent hours alone on the side of the road, watching faces. The same went for my 1,200 mile bike ride. I was all alone, but I would see the faces of people in their cars. Everyone looked sad, like their soul was slowly being removed in favor of an endless conveyor belt process. Wake up. Coffee. Drive. Work. Drive. Gym. Dinner. Repeat five times. Spend two doing something mundane and fleeting.

Then, every thought in my brain builds until nothing makes sense. It’s like this low, beautiful noise, building into a cacophony of static and yelling. I can’t process all the thoughts, and I have to go hide until the noise in my head becomes something I can understand again.

Reading all this makes me feel crazy, but I know I’m not crazy. No one is crazy. “Crazy” is just a word people use to define others they’re too lazy to understand.

Maybe some of you out there feel like me, and you’ll read this and know, “Hey, Shane Morris goes through what I go through, and he’s like the most famous, popular person I know.” But I’m not famous. And I don’t understand why I’m popular. I feel weird every day. Being associated with my famous friends is the hardest part of my entire existence, because it means my bubble gets holes in it.

Dude, how-

But-

I don’t understand! How can someone as amazing and popular and bubbly an BEAUTIFULLY MAJESTIC  as Shane Morris have Social Anxiety?

I mean-

But I didn’t see it! And- No, you know what? I don’t care what he does anymore. It takes some huge guts to go out there and say, “Hey, I may be this really popular dude, but I have this serious problem.”

I now feel like this huge jackass (not saying that I’m not a jackass. I am. I’m just feeling it now. It burns) for even hating him, even once, ever.

Man, I don’t think I’d ever be able to say something like that. I would just want people to go on thinking I’m this perfect person. I have too much Pride to admit one of my downfalls.

So.

Applause to you, Mr. Shane Morris. You deserved it.

*applause begins*

*also Goat hugs you*

*Batman wants to be best friends with you*

*Rat legitimately smiles*

*also people want you on their talk show*

*applause ends*

*a burst of confetti*

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