I’d say it’s what separates us, not from the beasts, but the bestial. Creating the future, renewing a learned past - these are reasons to strive. Writing for and with love, taking and framing an image, stretching new melodic skins onto old skeletons of song… it’s how we manage to fly. It’s how we stay you and me, not us and them.
Unlike Osk, who seemed to establish his own tactical task force wherever we lived, scooping up neighbourhood feline troublemakers as sidekicks (including the memorable ginger behemoth Watson, with whom he used to scope the street from the safety of the shed roof), Jelly has the intelligence gathering skills of a sponge cake.
Anyway, somewhere in between my 'and then you should've done this' and 'why didn't you say x and y, rather than z', and 'for the love of monkeys and the general public's eyesight, you didn't honestly wear that heinous shirt did you', something he was saying about the dating extravaganza we were picking to pieces finally penetrated my cloud of self-congratulatory cumulo-waffle.
"Most people don't talk about how dates are progressing as a tender process, do they?" he asked.
"What?"
"She said I was 'part way through the tender process' and that she was judging me on my submission. I'd like to think there was irony involved, and I think at the time I may have given an admittedly weak "haha, yesssss, quite". Looking back, I'd have to conclude, computer says no on the presence of Fabulon or other aids to achieving crisply pressed linen."
Perhaps you, my dear readers, simply by my saying the words 'marketing guru', are wiser than I, and would have known to run for the hills, screaming. Yes. Well. I didn't, and I suffered the consequences. Venetia suffered also, listening to the hideousness of my hysterical laughter, interspersed with "oh dear GOD" and brief spurts of dry retching.
In what can be viewed as both a positive and a negative of the Age of White Noise, social media has given us the opportunity to invent new selves - sometimes, it seems, a hundred of them, to be used for different people, situations, even moods. It has given us the chance to smile when we are crying on the inside, if we aren't feeling very brave, or if we feel like we need to put on one of those hundred different selves. It has allowed us to share our despair, our wonderful happiness, our big thinking, and our dreams.
But what it has also done is laid us bare to criticism and a lack of care, both in our own actions and those of others. We cannot hide from hurtful situations. We cannot hide from what we say and do, and sometimes - achingly, angrily, and agonisingly - we cannot hide from what others say and do to and about us.
John Lennon was a wise man by the time he died, and he knew what was what when he said the words 'instant karma's gonna get you'. The Buddha had his own time of mortification - imagine what it would have been like if it had been fed back to him on Instagram, and Facebook, and Twitter?
““Can we go back to using Facebook for what it was originally for - looking up exes to see how fat they got?” ”
I have been reminded on a couple of occasions this week about what it means to live life virtually. And for someone who works within the realm of social media and the interwebs, I freely admit to being an online junkie. By the same token, I would much rather spend face to face time with those I love rather than just FaceTime - but if it is a choice between not having contact, or being able to yarp to those I care about as much as I like, whether they be across the country or across the world - as I have said before, then take me to your iLeader.
But.
Sometimes the phantom menace that is the wonderful world of the web does show its not so pretty side. I am not so naive as to think this shouldn't apply to me; Facebook isn't nicknamed Facestalk for nothing. And if I don't want to invite commentary on my comments, on whatever form of social media I use, then realistically I shouldn't be on there in the first place. I also accept the whole 'oh I can't believe you went to that place on that date without me' aspect of people knowing exactly where you are at any given moment in time, because hey, that's what you sign up for.
It ain't a private world, people.
But there is a limit.
Isn't there?
Gossip has existed since the first caveman walked blinking out of his furs and saw his neighbour furtively carrying his third neighbour's woman off by her hair. It's the way we are. We thrive on it. Social media - hell, any kind of media - wouldn't exist without gossip. It could be said that gossip makes the world go round. Certainly common sense doesn't, otherwise we would all be living in peace and harmony and people like Kim Jong Nutbags would go up in a big puff of smoke.
People love gossip. Scandal. It's ace. Dissing what people are wearing/doing/seeing. There's nothing better for the self-esteem than seeing someone make a poor fashion choice and feeling superior about it. But once the scandal simply becomes mud-slinging for the sake of it - well, then it becomes a whole different story.
I am as guilty as the next person (unless the next person happens to work for TMZ) of enjoying looking at bad outfits and thinking about how much better I look in clothes. But do I like tearing people apart when they are in a state of distress? No. Similarly I don't see what pleasure someone can get in attacking someone's opinion in a way that is not about the opinion, but about the person.
I have to admit that what I am seeing at the moment on various channels is scaring the hell out of me. The amount of vitriol out there, and a simple lack of respect for other people's opinions is overwhelming. Everyone has a right to express themselves; but just because you don't agree with someone else, does that give you the right to stomp all over what they are saying in a way that is truly unkind, rather than informed debate?
I go back to my comment about perhaps being naive. If I want to get mad, I don't tend to do it publicly. I try very hard to keep grudges (except against certain sporting figures who just keep walking into it) private and personal. If I make a comment on social media, I think about what I am saying. I am by no means perfect at this, but I try to consider what I say in terms of how it will affect those who read it.
Maybe that's all it comes down to; a bit of a pause between brain and keyboard. Because you can delete at will, but the words once written never really go away.
That's the trouble with webs and nets. - they are, after all, designed to trap things. And personally, I don't like the idea of being a virtual bug. One ends up being eaten.
Sometimes alive.
Dear Facebook
As a faceless entity who already has the power to influence the liking and disliking of almost any product, photo and person on the planet, I think you need to take a long, hard look at yourself.
Because I am about to press 'dislike' on you.
I realise the relative paradox of posting the link to this blog on you, considering the vitriol I intend to spew forth in your general direction, however, needs must where the devil drives, and so on and so forth. Use your enemy.
I was a latecomer to the Book of the Face. Hard as it is to believe, given my chosen career path, my natural love of the printed word and Luddite-ish tendencies kept me away from anything that involved the words 'social' and 'media' together for a very long time. But of course, like any addictive substance, you lured me in with your promises of witty exchanges between old friends (true) and the ability to stalk complete strangers because my friends think they're hot (also true - scary but true).
But now, my dear FB, you have taken the partnership and stamped on it. Disrespect has no place in my one on one relationships, and you have shown me no love of late. Timeline... having to re-set all of my security settings ad infinitum... we could have worked it out, Booky Wooky. But no. You had to add insult to injury, and start the monstrous perversion that is, one might say, the straw that broke the social media llama's back.
"What's on your mind?"
"What's happening in your day?"
You really don't want an answer to these queries, FB. Because the answer will be both full of naughty words and ripe with criticism of your empty questions. However, since you asked:
STOP ASKING ME STUPID ARSE STUFF. NOW. OR ELSE. I CAN UPDATE MY STATUS WITHOUT YOUR HELP. MY IQ IS MORE THAN 33, AND I STILL HAVE AN INTACT FRONTAL LOBE. SO SOD OFF, YOU BEHEMOTH OF BUSHWAH, AND LEAVE ME ALONE.
I can live without you Facebook. I actually can. People may scoff at this, but it's true. I did it before - and I can definitely do it again. So you want to know what's on my mind... see the above. The reason I use Facebook is because I am interacting with people, not a program.
Don't pretend you care facebook.com - just sit back and be the Great and Powerful Oz.
I like my friends asking me stupid arse stuff (no offence friends).
Not a machine.
