Don't Be Passive Aggressive About Your Wireless Internet Service

As might be expected from a medium which anyone can access to upload or download copious amounts of information at any time, one of the Internet's real strengths is the chronicling of the minutiae of daily life. In the even that our civilization is destroyed, space archaeologists from other galaxies will simply be able to unearth an old wireless Internet server to learn volumes about our civilization. In this vein, one of the most prominent websites covering the daily petty injustices people visit on each other is Passive Aggressive Notes.

The Passive Aggressive Notes website was founded in 2007 and has been successful enough to have landed the site's webmaster and editor an international book deal. The concept of passive-aggressiveness is perhaps a uniquely American one, as exemplified by the fact that international versions of the website's book do not contain the word passive-aggressive However, this concept is generally understood to refer to a form of indirect confrontation. Instead of directly discussing a problem with someone, for many people it is easier just to leave a snide, anonymous note. While some people believe that this actually furthers the goals of a polite, civil society more than a direct, potentially heated confrontation, many people consider passive aggressive notes a form of cowardice deserving of mockery. Hence this popular website, which you can visit with mobile broadband service or any Internet browser.

Some of the best passive aggressive notes express disdain at not having received a thank-you note. While it is debatable whether thank-you notes are really required anymore in our society when a quick e-mail will suffice, people who write passive aggressive notes fall fairly clearly on one side of this issue. One hilarious note in particular, written to a six-year-old, reads, Do they teach thank you notes in school? Another recent one, written by a grandmother who did not receive her thank-you note for a gift according to what she believed to be the proper schedule, consisted of a postcard addressed to the gift recipient containing the text of a proposed thank-you note.

A common source of fodder for the Passive Aggressive Notes website is office life, specifically shared office bathrooms and kitchens. One exhibit on the website is focused exclusively on the phenomenon of nibblers, people who steal only parts of a particular food item from their officemate. One note addressed at a nibbler who ate about half of a slice of pizza reads, Just take the whole slice next time, OK? Thanks. (The sarcastic Thanks or Thanks! is a common feature of many of the notes highlighted on this website.) Another note addressed at these passive-aggressive thieves, stuck into a half-eaten muffin, simply reads Please do NOT nibble on muffins. No Thanks! was deemed necessary, apparently. It would behoove you not to pay too much attention to your wireless Internet browser the next time you are heating something up in the office kitchen, lest you fall victim to a nibbler.