Social media is a terrible scourge upon this planet. That must be true – Wetherspoons says so. Putting aside theories of them trying wipe any potential evidence that might implicate them in a future case of mishandling of personal data, there’s some validity in the concerns they express.
It’s common nowadays for well-meaning celebrities to get trolled, foreign nationals to get bullied and MPs to get threatened with death. When you give every idiot a personal squawk-box from which to project his or her oh-so valued opinion into the swirling noise of everyone else’s oh-so valued opinions, everyone believes they suddenly have the most important voice in the world, what they fail to realise is that everyone else is ignoring them because they’re too focused on thinking the same thing about themselves. Basically, social media has turned everyone into a megalomaniacal twat.
Okay, it’s not necessarily the platform’s fault. When you think about it, it’s actually a remarkable feat considering that thirty, twenty, even ten years ago we didn’t have this kind of technology to instantly communicate with one another across the globe. It’s just that when technology and human nature mix, various aspects of the inner psyche become amplified, causing people’s natural responses to include misunderstanding and, ultimately, misusing it.
These sentences have been very long so far, so let’s try and illustrate this with an admittedly bizarre analogy for example. Let’s take another of mankind’s most progressive inventions – say, the humble microwave oven. While most people will inevitably use it for its intended purpose (to heat the water particles in foodstuffs to partially cook or at least reheat something so it’s safe for human consumption), sooner or later you’ll find the occasional shit-for-brains trying to dry their wet laundry in one; that is, if they’re not already trying to cement their own head inside it for giggles, obvs.
To try and get away from all the negativity of the great unwashed, I’m trying to utilise social media for positive reasons; the sharing of joy, laughter and enthusiasm, mostly. Sometimes I’ve done it with a pre-planned joke or observation on a non-essential piece of entertainment trivia. Sometimes I’ve done it completely accidentally. Last weekend, I did something totally accidentally.
In a fleeting moment of boredom and general apathy – much more than one should have of a Friday afternoon – I spontaneously hoped for a bit of friendly social interaction in the real world, and sent a proposition for a local meet-up into the ether. Thinking very little of it (everyone’s too busy focusing on what they themselves have to say, remember), I was surprised at the immediate response of a friend. Hooray, a drink with a friend. We haven’t done that for a while, it’ll be fun.
Somewhere from out of the swirling void came another voice. A new person. Suddenly I was scared. The power of positive social media had brought someone I’ve never met into the equation. What’s more, they want beer. This can only be a good thing. Way better than someone wanting to bludgeon me to death and wear my skin as a cloak or something, like we thought every Internet stranger was like back in 2002 when we first really used it.
Anyway, what I’d hoped to be a short evening of chit-chat and catching up turned into six hours and unknown drinks in the company of other people my mutual friend and I hadn’t met before. By the end of those six hours, it suddenly felt as though we’d known each other for six years. Maybe it was the fast pace of the conversation allowing us to cram several years’ worth of chit-chat into such a short time. Whatever it was, it was like social media can truly be a force for good if you use it in the right way.
Moral of the story: don’t belittle or threaten random people you don’t know, because then you probably won’t get to bond with them over a drink sometime.
You’re gonna have to read this in the style of proper Bri’ish accented talk-singing that’s on display in this song, at least cos that’s how I’m writing it, as I say it in my head. There’s a lot of fuzzy electronics in this, although they’re nothing compared to my favourite bit – the playing of milk bottles in an echo chamber.
When things get experimental like this, it often sounds a bit like several ideas have just been thrown together in the hope that they work well. Here’s the thing, for the most part, they do. Sure it’s a bit hit and miss in places, but hey, who am I (someone who’s fallen into the trap of living life on the straight and narrow) to complain about something created by two teenagers who’ve actually used their intuition to come up with it?
Let’s Eat Grandma – Hot Pink
Jamie Walsh 
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