Thursday saw the first installment of Stereotypical: The Attention Seekers Of Social Media, which took a look at the annoying shitheads that clog up our online social spaces like pubes in a drain plug. There’s just so many tits online, and not just on porn sites, that we decided to follow up Thursday’s piece with another critical look at the cretins of Facebook and Twitter. So welcome to the money spinning but, probably ultimately disappointing and overly complex, sequel to The Attention Seekers Of Social Media….
It used to be in the days before Facebook if someone was fit and active you could tell just by looking at them – they’d look healthy and toned. Or you could know they were fit by talking to them and having to listen to them explain to your drunken self about the match/swim/fight/training that they had the following morning. At no point in those exchanges did those people attempt to make you feel poorly because of your pudgy lack of fitness. Naturally you felt bad yourself because you’re vaguely aware that you’re an unfit mess but if anyone has a right to make you feel bad, it’s you. Not some hyped up fitness freak. But with the advent of Facebook you can no longer coast through life blissfully unaware of your own unhealthiness. Now it’s staring at your from your computer screen on Facebook every day as the army of fitness fanatics bombard your newsfeed with posts about “hitting the gym”, or “preparing a paleo lunch”, or having “calorie burning homosexual anal sex.” Well, maybe not the last one. Look we get that you’re fit and healthy, that’s fine, but let me finish my cigarette in peace without feeling bad. The Facebook fitness fanatics are multi-handedly ruining smoking cigarettes, drinking whiskey and taking drugs for people. Now, with the constant health reminders, I have to worry about what these substances are doing to my ‘body’ and ‘dying young’ and all that other shit. Thanks Facebook, thanks a bunch. For helping me address very real health issues. You’re a legend.
Next in the, deserved, firing line are text speakers or txt speekrs in their dialect. What is with this? Seriously, cop the fuck on and write like a person. You’re not a teenager, you don’t need to abbreviate every word so that you can fit your essay into the text, it’s grand, it’s free to type full sentences. It’s gotten to the stage though where it isn’t about efficiency anymore but about spelling words out phonetically. If a word is difficult to pronounce and long by all means spell phonetically so you can see how to pronounce it but there’s absolutely no need to spell ‘says’ phonetically. It’s a simple everyday, short word. Saying ‘sez’ only drops one letter off, it’s pointless. I h8 peeple who txt speek…
The final stereotype in the cross-hairs today are those people who take to Facebook after a break up and air their skidmark covered laundry in public. You’re sure to come across posts like “So over him/her” or “So glad that cruel person is out of my life” on their page accompanied by links to Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. Their profile pic will have been a cutesy couples pic of them and their ex which has been quickly changed to a picture of the person surrounded by a gang of mates laughing, as if to, not so subtly, suggest that they’re happier now! It’s all a massive transparent facade that just smacks of desperation – the more you say ‘I Will Survive’ – the less likely we are to believe you….
