Step(ford)

Back in what blokes of a certain age are pleased to call 'the day' (an epoch defined by football supporter scarfs being made of natural fibres) ordinary people sought their affirmation from workmates, friends or acquaintances.  The famous, of course, got their affirmation from their fans in terms of record sales, ticket sales or, if you were not famous but toiled at the typewriter-face, book sales.  The obscure sought their affirmation in poetry prizes.  But for the 'ordinary' man, it was enough to be esteemed in the club house, the pub or your bell-ringing chapter.

The proliferation of media brought the democratisation of celebrity.  In particular, the digital revolution made it easier, quicker and cheaper to publish magazines, and so the rise of the lads mag allowed soap starlets to appear as almost unrecognisably glamorous versions of themselves (that is, on a beach nearly naked, as opposed to behind a TV soap set bar scowling), while reality shows turned 'normal' people into celebrities.

Society adapted by introducing new classes of celebrities, C, D, DD, E and so on.

As soon as Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, the race was on to totally democratise if not celebrity, then at least the ability to publish your image.  Blogs were alredy a thing of course, but now thanks to the iPhone enabled rise of platforms like Faceache, Instatwat and Twutter, you too could publish a picture of you in your pants on a beach, instead of your normal pose of scowling at the regulars behind a bar.

Most importantly, the world could swipe right to show their approval.  Instant affirmation.

(There is also the down-side of putting your pants above the parapet; negative reaction.  'No publicity is bad publicity' has morphed, in the information age, into 'Haters gotta hate' and then 'Haters back off' as a coping strategy for those who are offended that anyone might leave a negative comment about the photograph of them on a beach in their pants, particularly a comment that includes the term 'beached').

So the digitally connected and needy (in a Ven diagram, these circles would probably overlap more than is actually healthy) have a way of affirming not just their beach-pant selfie, but their food choices, their fashion choices and their hateful views.

(Also, see the rather excellent episode of 'Black Mirror' (the 'Twilight Zone' for the digital age) where your social status, as determined by the 'likes' you get in your interactions with others in everyday life, determines your place in society.  Your quality of life determined by having to be pleasant to others?  If that's not a dystopia for misanthropes, what is?).

Essentially, digital approval has allowed people to outsource their affirmation.  What used to be a role performed locally in the club house, pub or bedroom has moved offshore.

So far, so familiar.

Those of us who have, arguably, grown up reading science fiction and fantasy (a very easy bunch of people to spot, they are all bitter as Hell at the success and popularity of 'Game of Thrones', as in their youth an affection for, and ability to talk fluently about, fantasy was a more reliable way to ensure a lasting state of chastity than entering a secure religious community) have long been aware that a Robot Uprising is not only highly likely but, having tried to buy crisps from a self service check out, has already bloody started.  The real threat from robots is taking our jobs, something car-assembly line workers found out about twenty years ago and supermarket check out staff are finding out now.  If Ned Ludd were alive today, he'd buy a (hand-made) cricket bat and be off to Waitrose to show his disapproval with one over the pavilion style whacks to the crisp-denying bastard machines that have replaced the humans there.

The Fitbit has replaced the offshore affirmation industry, it has automated affirmation.  Sometime in the afternoon or evening, a slight buzzing on your wrist announces that you have walked 10,000 steps.

This is, apparently, cause for celebration, at least that is what your watch is telling you.  That's right, your watch is telling you that you can feel smug and happy about this achievement.

How does it feel to have your mood dictated by a watch?  Let's just hope that the next upgrade doesn't include a malice option whereby any failure to reach the magic 10,000 steps results in a chide.  Or worse.  These watches link to your smartphone, conveniently buzzing when you get a text message, usually a second or two after your 'phone bleeps, bongs or buzzes depending on your preference.  What's to stop the watch wresting (or even wristing) control of your 'phone and texting your friends and family informing them that you only trudged half of your allotted long march of the day, possibly beginning the text 'Not judging but...'.

The only time any machine should be able to make you feel happy is when you unbox it on Christmas morning.

A change of scene - escaping into a good book

A good book can often be a means to escape, as anyone who has read 'The Shawshank Redemption' knows. A compelling thriller that drives you on to turn the pages in a hurry to get from chase to court room to electric chair to the page where the publisher explains that the author died leaving the book unfinished to anger management classes is a classic route, and a good book an be an immersive experience, causing the real world to drop away around you. This is quite understandable if the real world is, say, public transport, or prison, less so if that world is a beach or hotel pool. Presumably one can enjoy Harry Potter at any time, while sunburn and snacks served to you on a lounger are not part of everyday life for most folk.

The power of the written word can be demonstrated in two ways, the first is that one occasionally sees otherwise normal looking people walking along reading a book. Actually preferring to find out what happens to their favourite character next than look where they are going. The second is the reaction that coming across somebody with the same last name as you in a book elicits. Mostly, the reaction is to hope that the character does not, at any time in the next three hundred odd pages, commit an act of gross indecency with a goat. And while we're at it, is it just me, or is the 'gross' tacked on to any accusation of indecency with a goat wholly unnecessary?

Readers escape into other various other worlds. They can be dark and gritty reflections of the real world, with familiar landmarks seen through a glass darkly; Rebus's Edinburgh for instance, rather less mime and rather more murder than usual. Or they can be like our own but twisted, like Neil Geiman's London. Or they can be magically distorted, like Hogwarts.

The mother load of escapist fiction is science fiction and fantasy, especially where a group of writers create and populate a shared universe or where one writer creates a saga so vast that one feels that the time spent reading it roughly equates to the time they actually spend living in the real world in any one week. Certainly, by the time I finished 'Game of Thrones' I was surprised that I didn't have chain mail ring marks puckering my arse where I'd been sitting on my armour.

Just as fanciful as science fiction is romantic fiction, with the odds of some rich good looking guy falling for the quirky fat girl about the same as somebody developing instantaneous interstellar travel in their shed, although this seems to be the plot of quite a number of novels in each genre respectively (fat girl finding love = romantic fiction, space ship in shed = science fiction, for the avoidance of doubt. Geeky guy finding love with quirky girl = plot of the sitcom 'Big bang theory'). Guys read books about space ships in sheds because they would like to live in a world where they could look out of the shed window and see the rings of Saturn rather than a compost heap, presumably women read romantic fiction because they would like to live in a world where lots of dairy in the diet and romantic perfection are not mutually exclusive.