Twittering on Facebook
Social networking, isn’t that just grunting ‘alrig?’ to one of your neighbours as you pass them on the street?
Apparently not. The internet has revolutionised the way in which we communicate (some features, such as ‘Chatroulette’ more than others). A decade or so ago for example, if you wanted to bore somebody into displaying narcoleptic-like symptoms with your holiday photographs you had to paste them into an album or, holy God and fuck preserve us, pitch up at their front door with a screen, a slide projector, two carousels of 35mm slides and a pointer. While if you wanted to share your random innermost thoughts with everyone, immediately, you dressed in a filthy raincoat, shit your pants, and shouted them to strangers on the street.
Happier, simpler, times.
Now, through the magic of the world wide whatever (which, don’t get me wrong, has given us much, like being able to book flights on-line and seeing Porn Of Many Lands) we can subtly bully people without ever having to leave our fetid pits.
This is because, thanks to Facebook changing their privacy settings faster than their users can click ‘don’t accept’, users can ‘let’ everyone see their photographs, including the many, many holiday photographs of the view from their hotel balcony of cats and construction sites, while twitter means that we can now share our bigoted views of, for instance, BBC coverage of a national event, or somebody featuring in a documentary about disabilities (‘She may have type 2 diabetes but she could still wash her hair’) and so on, immediately.
In an age when you bored your neighbours with your photographs, slipping in a nudie pic of your wife or cock shot every twenty snaps or so to see if they were paying attention and were possibly swingers too, you at least had to make an effort for your audience, practicing your patter such as the drunken argument that you and the missus had about whether or not she had enjoyed that dance with the waiter a little too much.
Twitter seems free of quality control. Reading tweets is like being cursed with telepathy and seeing into the mind of the nation. Randomly browsing, what seems to be ‘trending’, that is, being mentioned the most by the sort of fucking people who tweet, are the following subjects:
1. Biscuits (well, actually, I’m with them there, biscuits are not only important but make up around 30% of my waking thoughts, 70% of my subconscious ones).
2. Outrage about removing Blue Peter from BBC1. Again, have to agree with this. I know that since the digital switchover there is no reason not to relocate BP to CBBC, but by the same token there’s no reason not to relocate the Royal Family to fucking Salford, except that IT WOULD BE WRONG!
3. A celebrity. Unless any celebrity has been caught fucking a jar of marmite that they have warmed specially for the occasion, then anything they are doing is not worthy of comment. Commenting on new albums, hairstyles and celebrity relationships is what God invented forums and teenagers hanging around bus stops for.
4. What that bitch Alison said to Jason about me, yea? An odd one this but it appears a disagreement about romantic intentions in a comprehensive school in Rotherham is drawing worldwide comment.
5. Eastfuckingenders. I’d rather discuss Alison and Jason’s problems.
6. The Olympics. Trying to ignore it is like waking up on Alderan, seeing the Death Star in the sky and pulling the curtains in the hope it will go away.
7. Shredded Wheat. People love Shredded Wheat, or shredded wheat. I am as yet unable to determine if this is a reference to breakfast cereal or a depraved sexual practice. Likewise…
8. Kicking the back doors in. Thought this was a misquoted reference from ‘The Italian Job’. It’s not. Don’t Google this.
9. Trevor Eve.
10. Facebook privacy changes warnings.
While Twitter has been credited with helping organise democratic uprisings (‘Tanks on lawn. LOL’) it also appears to be the main communication method of despots (‘Just sweated through Levinson evidence session. :-0’). Not so much how users use the tool, but how the tools use it.
Apparently not. The internet has revolutionised the way in which we communicate (some features, such as ‘Chatroulette’ more than others). A decade or so ago for example, if you wanted to bore somebody into displaying narcoleptic-like symptoms with your holiday photographs you had to paste them into an album or, holy God and fuck preserve us, pitch up at their front door with a screen, a slide projector, two carousels of 35mm slides and a pointer. While if you wanted to share your random innermost thoughts with everyone, immediately, you dressed in a filthy raincoat, shit your pants, and shouted them to strangers on the street.
Happier, simpler, times.
Now, through the magic of the world wide whatever (which, don’t get me wrong, has given us much, like being able to book flights on-line and seeing Porn Of Many Lands) we can subtly bully people without ever having to leave our fetid pits.
This is because, thanks to Facebook changing their privacy settings faster than their users can click ‘don’t accept’, users can ‘let’ everyone see their photographs, including the many, many holiday photographs of the view from their hotel balcony of cats and construction sites, while twitter means that we can now share our bigoted views of, for instance, BBC coverage of a national event, or somebody featuring in a documentary about disabilities (‘She may have type 2 diabetes but she could still wash her hair’) and so on, immediately.
In an age when you bored your neighbours with your photographs, slipping in a nudie pic of your wife or cock shot every twenty snaps or so to see if they were paying attention and were possibly swingers too, you at least had to make an effort for your audience, practicing your patter such as the drunken argument that you and the missus had about whether or not she had enjoyed that dance with the waiter a little too much.
Twitter seems free of quality control. Reading tweets is like being cursed with telepathy and seeing into the mind of the nation. Randomly browsing, what seems to be ‘trending’, that is, being mentioned the most by the sort of fucking people who tweet, are the following subjects:
1. Biscuits (well, actually, I’m with them there, biscuits are not only important but make up around 30% of my waking thoughts, 70% of my subconscious ones).
2. Outrage about removing Blue Peter from BBC1. Again, have to agree with this. I know that since the digital switchover there is no reason not to relocate BP to CBBC, but by the same token there’s no reason not to relocate the Royal Family to fucking Salford, except that IT WOULD BE WRONG!
3. A celebrity. Unless any celebrity has been caught fucking a jar of marmite that they have warmed specially for the occasion, then anything they are doing is not worthy of comment. Commenting on new albums, hairstyles and celebrity relationships is what God invented forums and teenagers hanging around bus stops for.
4. What that bitch Alison said to Jason about me, yea? An odd one this but it appears a disagreement about romantic intentions in a comprehensive school in Rotherham is drawing worldwide comment.
5. Eastfuckingenders. I’d rather discuss Alison and Jason’s problems.
6. The Olympics. Trying to ignore it is like waking up on Alderan, seeing the Death Star in the sky and pulling the curtains in the hope it will go away.
7. Shredded Wheat. People love Shredded Wheat, or shredded wheat. I am as yet unable to determine if this is a reference to breakfast cereal or a depraved sexual practice. Likewise…
8. Kicking the back doors in. Thought this was a misquoted reference from ‘The Italian Job’. It’s not. Don’t Google this.
9. Trevor Eve.
10. Facebook privacy changes warnings.
While Twitter has been credited with helping organise democratic uprisings (‘Tanks on lawn. LOL’) it also appears to be the main communication method of despots (‘Just sweated through Levinson evidence session. :-0’). Not so much how users use the tool, but how the tools use it.
Labels: Facebook, Media, Social networking sites, Twitter
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