Posted on

Anything But Selfies

I hate social media, and the reason I hate it, is because hating things on social media seems to be the best thing about it. It’s a confusing paradox. Last night someone pissed me off cause they hated something I also hate. I hated them, because they hated the thing I hate, in a snarky and off-putting manner that wasn’t in keeping with the more dignified, and quirky way in which I hate things. At least I thought so. I hope me saying that doesn’t make you hate me.

Probably the thing that I hate the most about the internet is the “selfie”. Not anyone specific’s selfie, just the concept. When I went to Japan way back in 2001 I took a few “selfies”, because I travelled there alone and needed proof I had been. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and I felt like a bit of a loser for having no friends who could take these pictures for me. A man alone taking pictures of himself, was viewed with the same suspicion as a trenchcoat owner in a play park. That was how it should be. Why was he alone? Was he a murderer? A lunatic? A Backstreet Boys fan? Turns out he was likely none of those things, just a normal, narcissistic arsehole like the rest of us. The only thing that prevented us from taking nothing but selfies back then was apparently the stigma, and once that evaporated so did our dignity. Now every second Instagram account is just pictures of the owner’s face blocking the view.

We should have seen it coming. It’s not like we haven’t always been narcissistic. Ever since the days of nobility spending hundreds of peasant’s worth of salary on oil paintings, we have wanted nothing as much as to look at our own faces. Coke had its first sales increase in more than a decade when it introduced the idea of adding names to their cans and bottles. We as a species are so self-involved, so desperate to be recognised as special, we will actually spend extra money just so we can drink from a can that says we have a common enough name to make printing it economically viable. It’s our biggest, most easily exploitable failing. We are idiots, little more than apes. Want proof? What was the first thing a monkey with a camera ever took a photo of? Itself.

I am more than willing to bet that if that ape had access to a computer it would also be posting that it has an IQ of 172 according to the test it just took on Facebook. Taking an IQ test on Facebook should automatically qualify you to fail it. “Only the smartest will be able to spot the…” If that sentence doesn’t end with the words, “data mining capabilities of this test”, then once again, finding the solution means you don’t qualify for the descriptor.

Facebook’s entire business model is based around selling our predictability. They are only able to promise that an advertiser will get x number of likes per x amount of cash they spend, because they know exactly what we will click on and when. That’s how mundane, and predictable we each are. If you see something on the internet that claims you are special it’s probably just selling your data to sex-traffickers or worse, McDonalds, cause you aren’t. You, like me, are a number.

We aren’t special so we need to stop acting like we’re among the most intelligent and handsome, just cause an app told us we are smart, or that we look a lot like the celeb Selena Gomez. No matter how many filters you use you don’t look like Selena Gomez – you look like the selfie monkey. So stop photographing your face, and turn the camera outward. At least then you’ll likely get a better view, and I will have one fewer thing to hate.

Posted on

How To Judge A Parent

There is a new saying, that one should never judge another parent. The idea is that anyone with a small child, no matter how attentive, is likely to experience melt downs and moments of almost monumental shame for no reason while raising their young one. I say this is bullshit. Judge away. If my child is lying on the floor of a store thrashing his legs and arms, you would be only be right to judge me. If I don’t hear hear you whisper about what a bad parent I am, then at the very least I know you and I have nothing in common, cause that’s what I would be doing.

Probably the worst side-effect of being a parent is that one is forced into contact with other people’s children. My toddler and I like to go down to the park – he to run and climb, and me to be told to run and climb by him, like I am on boot camp and the drill sergeant calls me “daddy”.  Having a job done in odd hours, I often get to take him on week days when the park is silent, but when it isn’t I find we are often confronted with the worst specimens of childlike humanity. And on those days judgement comes in handy.

The other day a boy, who I was assured was five, but who looked as if his beard was coming through,  backed my son into a corner on a jungle gym to tell him a story. The tale went as follows, “And then the people died, and do you know what happened next?” he said. My kid, being 20 months old, polite, and having never heard a story of this kind before dutifully answered, “no” thereby encouraging young Shakespeare to continue.

“Blood came pouring out of their heads and they turned into bats, and do you know what happened next?” he asked, the gripping cliffhanger dangling in the air.

“No,” my son said again, not yet having learnt from his previous error. “They were made into stone, before exploding, and guts went everywhere. Do you know what happened next?” the elocutionist enquired, while I stood starring at him like shit smeared on a new rug.

At this stage the child’s mother must have finally noticed what was going on as she bustled over and told her young thought-leader that he probably shouldn’t be terrifying the baby. He drooled on his chin, screamed something nonsensical and dived head first down the slide. My son turned to me, shrugged and demanded I run to the swings.

I judged that mother that day. Her inattentiveness lead to a really awkward situation. What was I supposed to do? Remind her son he was speaking to a baby? Shout at him? Wade in and toe punt the hobbit over a swing set? Socially we are not allowed to do those things anymore, and so I judge. Giving some sense of shame to the parent is our last defence in the face of a badly behaved child, and if this bothers you, if you are worried that one day it could be you on the end of my glowering silence remember, “you will never experience a public tantrum if you just keep them locked in a cupboard at home.”