Social media: nothing has changed. But we must.

Posted: December 19, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Matters that Matter | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

About a year ago (when would have been a good time to share publish this blog) – there was a great deal made of ‘X’ (then, and forever really, ‘Twitter’) becoming a platform permitting right-wing content, bullying and dangerous topics.

I myself didn’t notice any difference, the only real impact being that WordPress would no-longer be so easily shareable to the X site.

Perhaps, it depends on where on the X site you’re looking. I wasn’t really looking at right-wing, bullying or dangerous things, so that might be why. I just desperately scrawling through it to see who was sharing blogs about what they had for breakfast.

But there was no change I could tell.

I did notice, however, that there was something still a major factor of social media. As I spent hours scrolling and scrolling through the content on X, Instagram, and Facebook, it eventually dawned on me that social media is a profound waste of time.

And I’ve only got so much time, and I need it to write about my breakfast (today, toast. Tomorrow, the world!).

Hasn’t it always been a waste of time? Perhaps a cool waste of time? Especially X?

In my life, Facebook was the original place to waste time: posting pointless updates featuring the latest and most hip abbreviations, sharing photos of people literally just sitting around with a variety of hand gestures, and ‘liking’ pages ranging from an esoteric movie (Ergo: “Hey, I’m esoteric, like this movie.“) to (and I don’t know what to call this): a page titled “Hey it’s snowing! Brilliant!“.

Photos continued to be shared on Facebook through my 20s, and now I can’t delete the damn thing because it is the sole location of my kid’s baby photos. Mine too, probably.

Twitter was meant to be the means by which my extraordinary blog would be shared with soon-to-be adoring fans, as well as a foundation for further research into the absurdly interesting concepts that I could soon write about.

But then, I was ‘followed’ by a local carpet shop in my home town and I realised its proclivity for wasted time was confirmed. They still follow-me, and they too don’t seem any more right-wing than usual (likely due to going out-of-business several years ago).

Instagram is brilliant, the best way to share images and video. A great place for a blog, surely.

Otherwise, every other social media seems to be the same.

TikTok only seems to differ from Instagram as it is a means of People’s Republic of China’s subversion of Western stability, whilst Instagram is less-so. Instagram is best at short videos, YouTube long ones, TikTok pro-sedition ones.

Rest assured, what we had for breakfast can be duly shared on each of these.

My point is that the whilst there’s focus of each social media, the fact is they’re all broadly a waste of time.

Yes, I’m sure you too have heard of people who met their one-true love on Facebook, or are making money from Instagram, or even using the platform to share truly inspiring content. But you’re not, you didn’t and you likely won’t.

You did, however, waste your time. And not in the right way.

Remember that time on Facebook when there was a specific scenario benefiting you with brilliant life-experience a great tale to tell? No, of course not. Exactly the same as when you were on Twitter and nothing proceeded to happen there either.

It’s better to have a bad day in bad weather than to waste time on social media.

That way, you can either make good use of time or waste it too, but it’ll be real-life. Which is useful either way. More social media – less you.

Social media is not an experience.

We’re programmed to find ways to use and waste time as humans. Look at me writing this blog – a far more productive way to waste time.

Ultimately, social media hasn’t changed. It didn’t need to. Neither did we, but we do now.

Waste time in real life, not online.

Sam

‘Face’- reasons and their consequences.

Posted: December 28, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

There is, I believe, a distinct over-use of the term (not the word) ‘face’. Perhaps most notably we have the insult that a friend is likely to give: “So’s your face!”.

Forgive me for mentioning it.

“In the face”, “directly in my face” and…”face” are all similar examples of the over-use I am referring to.

But why is this? I have an idea, and this is, I suppose, a view on current society and for that I am surely some sort of pretentious prat that deserves to have his blog ignored but for the sake of my self-esteem I am going to have to face….damn. Well, I guess that at least means I’m a part of the society I’m talking about. How pleasant.

Again. Why is this? The dawn of the company named ‘Facebook’ was massive as it began, but the prominence it has now gained is beyond the term of ‘household name’ as it has passed into the population’s mind to the degree that the lexicon is altered. The ubiquitous state of Facebook has earned it a place deep within our latter generation, though without permission, so that ‘face’ has therefore trounced other words in the race from the mind, to the tongue, and so out into our world for us all to hear- regrettably.

How else? I will also suggest that the means that Facebook reached us- the internet- has dragged us dancing into a world in which all the information we need is ready and waiting for its it’s pining-for by us. The information is both great and terrible at once, and it can have a habit of hitting you full-frontal and without mercy. In other words, you receive a face-full of this information  and the directness and impact of it, encompassing everything you need to know at that precise moment is therefore able to be described by a term from which we previously drew all the information we could: the face.

Now for slapstick. I wouldn’t say that slapstick is improving by any means- as only the appreciation for the humour can be said to have changed.

“Directly in her face”. Here comes the unfortunate use of the term, the use that comes with the assumption of originality and hilarity. The physical side of this slapstick is actually miniscule, though reasonably funny owing to it being slapstick and therefore we are human. But the alternative side, the telling of the tale afterwards- with some friends and some beers, is the worst this situation has to offer. This side demonstrates to us that presence of originality, courage, intellect and pity can all be removed from the comedy of the moment and be replaced by the simply insertion of the particular terms. Should one go about a story based around the play of “Insert ‘face’ here”, then their success is assured, and the battle is lost.

There is also a change in the meaning of the term ‘face’, and this is to mean ‘utterly me’. If something happened to/in/at your face, then it was complete and total. Your face is your identity, you are your face, therefore if something happens to your face, it completely happens to you.

And finally, the act of the ‘cum-shot’ onto the face. Why the face? It is complete, final and personal. Your face is you and ‘you’ are covered in cum, and that is all.

I think that fairly well sums up what is going on.