So there's 3 things in life that really frustrate me. It's more that when I recognise the upcoming points, I just think to myself why?
1. Instaselfies
Firstly, Instagram, in my eyes, is somewhere where the budding artists of the world take to share their photographic passions. Or, for the rest of us mere photographically-challenged mortals, somewhere we can share filtered pictures of our spontaneous nights out, or 'totes unique' dinners. Because everyone's suppers are worth sharing. Alas, it appears a certain group of face-loving people take to share photo after photo after photo after photo (you get my drift) of them posing.
I guess the worst part is, unless you're documenting yourself over the space of a year to make a viral youtube vid (which I hope would be cut down to max. 2 mins) of how your year has gone, your face, nor you, hasn't really changed that much in the past two days... promise.
2. COUPLE SELFIES
An extension of the above, yet this can appear on any social networking site, on any phone background... anywhere. It deserves a capitalisation, honest. Not one to ramble, I feel this issue can be addressed via 4 distinct questions:
How did you come to the agreement to take such a highly posed photograph
(usually in a mirror)?
Was the broaching of the suggested activity awkward at any stages?
What did you feel you gained from the aforementioned activity?
Did you honestly expect anyone else to comment on the photo, aside
from your 'I love you baby xxxxx' point?
These are serious questions, and answers are most definitely welcome.
3. Txt slng
Oh jeez. This one gets me. So I text a parcel lady the other day politely asking if she could pick up my parcel. All in polished grammatical form, naturally.
To which she replied:
'Yes tht wil b fine tku' - 6 words, 17 letters.
Now, had she of written it correctly, it would have looked something like this:
'Yes, that will be fine. Thank you.' - 6 words, 25 letters.
So all in all she omitted a meagre 8 letters from the text. Don't get me wrong, I'm not old school, I'm all for cutting down lengthy words into smaller acronyms such as Tuberculosis to TB. It's just I don't really see what time it saved omitting the 'a' from 'that', or the 'l' from 'will'. It's just laziness. I don't want my future children growing up speaking the phonetics of ghastly grammar. No one pronounces, nor should they pronounce, 'thank you' as 'took u'. It's just wrong!
Friday 10 May 2013
Tuesday 5 March 2013
The exception or rule: what are you?
It struck me this afternoon how torn we are in life by ever conflicting advice.
The two most conflicting? For me, by far, it's the decision of whether to be the exception, or the rule.
Let's start as we mean to go on, with an honest, and perhaps blunt, reality: everyone strives for the exception.
Who wants to be normal, to have found a normal route into their career, to have just met their partner through no bout of fate nor bearing a love story so sweet it'd melt the coldest man's heart? No one. Sure, getting by or falling in to place is fine, in fact it's the reality for most, but then there's this distant hope, a glistening dream of how your life could be, if only you could reach it...
And this of course is fed to us through every aspect of our lives. The Olympic hero you look up to so greatly who overcame a diagnosis that he'd never walk again, and yet won gold the next year. The child who was told she'd never make it as an actress picking up her Oscar. The childhood sweethearts who drifted but met again at a train station and fell back in love. Our lives are saturated with seemingly unachievable aspirations that, miraculously become achievable. It's what keeps our spirits alive, it's what pushes us to become the best.
I guess what strikes me so much is why life has to be universal and why that naturally entails our being the rule. We spend our whole lives measuring ourselves against others, seeing how others live and then comparing ourselves against an invisible ratio. It's invisible because there really is no way of comparing one story to the next; we are all born into different histories, economics, and social backgrounds. Undeniably we all partake in the same activity, of being together on this earth, but we, ourselves, are unique.
This isn't about crushing someone's dreams, and I apologise profusely if that's what I have done; it's about being a realist. Maybe if we all became somewhat more realistic in our life expectations, we'd appreciate the promotion we got that little bit more, or celebrate that first we worked so hard to achieve in an essay. The time you realise your life is unique to you, will be the time you realise you're the exception to everybody else.
The two most conflicting? For me, by far, it's the decision of whether to be the exception, or the rule.
Let's start as we mean to go on, with an honest, and perhaps blunt, reality: everyone strives for the exception.
Who wants to be normal, to have found a normal route into their career, to have just met their partner through no bout of fate nor bearing a love story so sweet it'd melt the coldest man's heart? No one. Sure, getting by or falling in to place is fine, in fact it's the reality for most, but then there's this distant hope, a glistening dream of how your life could be, if only you could reach it...
And this of course is fed to us through every aspect of our lives. The Olympic hero you look up to so greatly who overcame a diagnosis that he'd never walk again, and yet won gold the next year. The child who was told she'd never make it as an actress picking up her Oscar. The childhood sweethearts who drifted but met again at a train station and fell back in love. Our lives are saturated with seemingly unachievable aspirations that, miraculously become achievable. It's what keeps our spirits alive, it's what pushes us to become the best.
I guess what strikes me so much is why life has to be universal and why that naturally entails our being the rule. We spend our whole lives measuring ourselves against others, seeing how others live and then comparing ourselves against an invisible ratio. It's invisible because there really is no way of comparing one story to the next; we are all born into different histories, economics, and social backgrounds. Undeniably we all partake in the same activity, of being together on this earth, but we, ourselves, are unique.
This isn't about crushing someone's dreams, and I apologise profusely if that's what I have done; it's about being a realist. Maybe if we all became somewhat more realistic in our life expectations, we'd appreciate the promotion we got that little bit more, or celebrate that first we worked so hard to achieve in an essay. The time you realise your life is unique to you, will be the time you realise you're the exception to everybody else.
Monday 11 February 2013
The (sad) pursuit of e-popularity
Oh, social media, you never fail to surprise me.
In my e-lifetime to date I've experienced numerous annoying viral social media born campaigns.
Share this status if you want to get rid of AIDS!
Like this photo of my ticket and I'll give you £1,000,000 if I win the lottery!
Urban legends which urge you to re-post this status in the next 4 minutes, or else 28 kittens will get hit by a truck. (The emotive ones always work a treat.)
Just when we thought we'd seen it all... Welcome the 'If I get 1 million likes' phenomenon.
It's like anything, at first it's quite comical - some shy boy who eats his feelings (and everything else) wants to sleep with the hottie, and she only agreed to it because she never in a million years assumed it'd go viral, and so we click that electronically generated blue thumbs up. Like. We laugh. We laugh at how hysterically excited he will be when he shows her the "evidence". We laugh at the thought of her face when she realises she's sold herself online, both visually and physically. We perhaps share said photo.
And then what? Unless they actually somehow manage to inform us fellow million likees that they have actually achieved their goal, what do we gain from this situation? Absolutely bugger all. Did he get to travel to England from Japan to buy fish and chips? Did she sleep with him? Did she actually run around the city naked? No idea. And, to be honest, after you've supported them in their quests, do you even remember liking it? Again, probably not.
So what is the deal with this unending desire to be approved of by strangers online? People will do anything online for their taste of fifteen minutes. The wilder, the better. Whether it's seeking re-tweets, likes, LOLs or shares, the world has become obsessed with strangers making their decisions for them.
And this makes me sad. It's such thoughtless validation, and at some point it's going to end in tears. I can't help but feel that it leaves you with an unsettling thought of a new digital era in which nothing can define us more in life than our extravagant pursuit for internet fame.
In my e-lifetime to date I've experienced numerous annoying viral social media born campaigns.
Share this status if you want to get rid of AIDS!
Like this photo of my ticket and I'll give you £1,000,000 if I win the lottery!
Urban legends which urge you to re-post this status in the next 4 minutes, or else 28 kittens will get hit by a truck. (The emotive ones always work a treat.)
Just when we thought we'd seen it all... Welcome the 'If I get 1 million likes' phenomenon.
It's like anything, at first it's quite comical - some shy boy who eats his feelings (and everything else) wants to sleep with the hottie, and she only agreed to it because she never in a million years assumed it'd go viral, and so we click that electronically generated blue thumbs up. Like. We laugh. We laugh at how hysterically excited he will be when he shows her the "evidence". We laugh at the thought of her face when she realises she's sold herself online, both visually and physically. We perhaps share said photo.
And then what? Unless they actually somehow manage to inform us fellow million likees that they have actually achieved their goal, what do we gain from this situation? Absolutely bugger all. Did he get to travel to England from Japan to buy fish and chips? Did she sleep with him? Did she actually run around the city naked? No idea. And, to be honest, after you've supported them in their quests, do you even remember liking it? Again, probably not.
So what is the deal with this unending desire to be approved of by strangers online? People will do anything online for their taste of fifteen minutes. The wilder, the better. Whether it's seeking re-tweets, likes, LOLs or shares, the world has become obsessed with strangers making their decisions for them.
And this makes me sad. It's such thoughtless validation, and at some point it's going to end in tears. I can't help but feel that it leaves you with an unsettling thought of a new digital era in which nothing can define us more in life than our extravagant pursuit for internet fame.
Monday 4 February 2013
I know everything about you (from Facebook)
Facebook has the power to destroy a relationship. Fact. Well, a potential one anyway.
The fact that the site actually has a term, 'Facebook stalking', is creepy enough. You're having a chat with someone, you ask what they're up to and you get the response: "Not much really, having a quick Facebook stalk and then I'll get in the bath."
Silence.
AT LEAST subconsciously, you must be questioning when it became socially okay to declare your prying on strangers profiles publicly.
The worst part by far has got to be when you're in a bar, you look around and see Sally who you technically actually don't know, but you know she's got a boyfriend who she's just celebrated her 12 hour relationship with and she loves going to the cinema on Wednesdays and her mum calls her Sweetiepie Sally.
You know too much. And you don't know her. That's bad enough as it is...
...Let's just hope you're not one of those who forgets that Sally doesn't actually don't know you, because she hasn't spent hours stalking your virtual life, and you ask "Hey Sal, how was the cinny on Wed?" -- n.b. at this point, she either walks away - which realistically is probably the most desired situation for you - or she, rather awkwardly, asks how on earth you knew she was at the cinema - and for heaven's sake just make out you were there too! No one publicly confesses to this shit!
It's the same when it comes to boys/potential romantic interests (PRIs) though. Too much trawling, and you think you know them before you actually do. At least give him/her a chance to defend themselves against that hideous photo you found!
I think that right now there's a strong risk of excessive Facebook stalking either:
a) putting off you eventually meeting because there's no desire to 'get to know' them
or
b) putting you off them altogether - oops.
The fun of meeting people is about starting from scratch and building relationships, but Facebook gives you this weird one up from the start, and it can turn out to be one of the best platforms ...or the shockingly worst.
The fact that the site actually has a term, 'Facebook stalking', is creepy enough. You're having a chat with someone, you ask what they're up to and you get the response: "Not much really, having a quick Facebook stalk and then I'll get in the bath."
Silence.
AT LEAST subconsciously, you must be questioning when it became socially okay to declare your prying on strangers profiles publicly.
The worst part by far has got to be when you're in a bar, you look around and see Sally who you technically actually don't know, but you know she's got a boyfriend who she's just celebrated her 12 hour relationship with and she loves going to the cinema on Wednesdays and her mum calls her Sweetiepie Sally.
You know too much. And you don't know her. That's bad enough as it is...
...Let's just hope you're not one of those who forgets that Sally doesn't actually don't know you, because she hasn't spent hours stalking your virtual life, and you ask "Hey Sal, how was the cinny on Wed?" -- n.b. at this point, she either walks away - which realistically is probably the most desired situation for you - or she, rather awkwardly, asks how on earth you knew she was at the cinema - and for heaven's sake just make out you were there too! No one publicly confesses to this shit!
It's the same when it comes to boys/potential romantic interests (PRIs) though. Too much trawling, and you think you know them before you actually do. At least give him/her a chance to defend themselves against that hideous photo you found!
I think that right now there's a strong risk of excessive Facebook stalking either:
a) putting off you eventually meeting because there's no desire to 'get to know' them
or
b) putting you off them altogether - oops.
The fun of meeting people is about starting from scratch and building relationships, but Facebook gives you this weird one up from the start, and it can turn out to be one of the best platforms ...or the shockingly worst.
Sunday 3 February 2013
Boys that bore you.
Valentines Day is coming up. Yay.
Although if I'm being frank, last year I was dreading it - and this was when I was in a relationship - so I'm quite looking forward to a night of, erm, "me time". Don't you just hate people who overuse that word?!
I like to think it's normal that 99% of the time I just love being alone. Not alone in the sense of no friends, family or human interaction ('cos that would be just plain weird), just independent from the confusing relationship game/situation/whatever it is.
And then there's that 1% of the time when you kinda wish you had someone. Note: this is normally on nights when your friends want to do a 'double date' type of scenario. I was having that 1% moment the other day, and it got me thinking.
When I look back to my first 'proper' relationship, I was infatuated by the fact that a boy wanted me so much. Overlooking character traits, personality and so on, under this spell of infatuation I proceeded into a steady relationship (big mistake). Lust is worlds apart from love, however I think it's a case of you need to be in a shit situation to realise what you definitely DON'T want next time.
So now I'm picky, shoot me.
It's like I can meet a nice guy, he's pretty ideal, good looking and so on and then I'm just stuck. Numb. Cold. (Heartless?!) I hope not.
Something in me has definitely changed though.
Before, I'd meet a guy and get all girly and giddy and want to talk to them loads and I'd check my phone and check it again in case they had text me but I hadn't seen it - which e v e r y girl has done at one point, don't even deny it. And then I'd check it again 2 minutes later. And it seems that nowadays, something's changed.
I'm not really sure what it is. I think I've just realised that you don't have to settle for second best. I'd honestly rather wait 10 years to find the right type of man, then 10 minutes to find the wrong. This isn't about being vain, or 'up yourself', it's about respecting yourself enough to be with someone who respects you, challenges you intellectually and meets your expectations.
Maybe this is maturity. Maybe this is what I need. Maybe this is girl hell.
I'm not quite sure where this new found picky-ness has come from, but I've a feeling it's here to stay.
Although if I'm being frank, last year I was dreading it - and this was when I was in a relationship - so I'm quite looking forward to a night of, erm, "me time". Don't you just hate people who overuse that word?!
I like to think it's normal that 99% of the time I just love being alone. Not alone in the sense of no friends, family or human interaction ('cos that would be just plain weird), just independent from the confusing relationship game/situation/whatever it is.
And then there's that 1% of the time when you kinda wish you had someone. Note: this is normally on nights when your friends want to do a 'double date' type of scenario. I was having that 1% moment the other day, and it got me thinking.
When I look back to my first 'proper' relationship, I was infatuated by the fact that a boy wanted me so much. Overlooking character traits, personality and so on, under this spell of infatuation I proceeded into a steady relationship (big mistake). Lust is worlds apart from love, however I think it's a case of you need to be in a shit situation to realise what you definitely DON'T want next time.
So now I'm picky, shoot me.
It's like I can meet a nice guy, he's pretty ideal, good looking and so on and then I'm just stuck. Numb. Cold. (Heartless?!) I hope not.
Something in me has definitely changed though.
Before, I'd meet a guy and get all girly and giddy and want to talk to them loads and I'd check my phone and check it again in case they had text me but I hadn't seen it - which e v e r y girl has done at one point, don't even deny it. And then I'd check it again 2 minutes later. And it seems that nowadays, something's changed.
I'm not really sure what it is. I think I've just realised that you don't have to settle for second best. I'd honestly rather wait 10 years to find the right type of man, then 10 minutes to find the wrong. This isn't about being vain, or 'up yourself', it's about respecting yourself enough to be with someone who respects you, challenges you intellectually and meets your expectations.
Maybe this is maturity. Maybe this is what I need. Maybe this is girl hell.
I'm not quite sure where this new found picky-ness has come from, but I've a feeling it's here to stay.
Wednesday 2 January 2013
New year, new start, new me = new $#*!.
I've scratched my head and I just can't figure this one out.
It's the start of a New Year. It's January (thus cold and officially the most depressing month of the year). People are in ever so much debt due to Christmas and probably not-quite-met-expectations New Years Eve celebrations. And some smart arse came up with the idea of making:
I ask one thing of you. Would you consider it apt to ask a baby to make plans for their life at their birth? Why, of course not. Ignoring the logistical factor in that they cannot speak, let alone speak anything of any sense, they are in a fragile and vulnerable state coming to terms with the start of their life. They need a bit of experience and age first. And it's effectively synonymous with NY resolutions. We're at the beginning of a new year, unaware of what is in store for us, and yet so many feel obliged to appeal to common practice.
Every year we create a long list of false promises. And why? Why start off the year on a bed of lies or unachievable aims? This is consumerism at it's best; companies play on your willingness to buy into recreating yourself, and you bet they can sell you just about anything from food to clothes to makeup to holidays. Because your life just wasn't worth living last year.
I'd much rather play with time and create my own periods in which to achieve my aims. And as far as I'm concerned, my New Me Resolutions don't start until the sun's shining bright.
It's the start of a New Year. It's January (thus cold and officially the most depressing month of the year). People are in ever so much debt due to Christmas and probably not-quite-met-expectations New Years Eve celebrations. And some smart arse came up with the idea of making:
"New Years resolutions."
I ask one thing of you. Would you consider it apt to ask a baby to make plans for their life at their birth? Why, of course not. Ignoring the logistical factor in that they cannot speak, let alone speak anything of any sense, they are in a fragile and vulnerable state coming to terms with the start of their life. They need a bit of experience and age first. And it's effectively synonymous with NY resolutions. We're at the beginning of a new year, unaware of what is in store for us, and yet so many feel obliged to appeal to common practice.
Every year we create a long list of false promises. And why? Why start off the year on a bed of lies or unachievable aims? This is consumerism at it's best; companies play on your willingness to buy into recreating yourself, and you bet they can sell you just about anything from food to clothes to makeup to holidays. Because your life just wasn't worth living last year.
I'd much rather play with time and create my own periods in which to achieve my aims. And as far as I'm concerned, my New Me Resolutions don't start until the sun's shining bright.
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