What I Dimly Understand About Social Media

You know how it is.  One night you go to bed next to your Commodore 64 which is cheerfully running Windows 79AD, and when you wake up there are suddenly four billion different social networks that everybody seems to be talking to each other on.  Plus, have you seen the way that the kids are dressing these days?

Perhaps it's my advancing years (6 days left for birthday gift shopping, btw) but I can't be the only one who's having an increasingly difficult time keeping track of all of the different networks, apps and media sites that have cropped up, each one dedicated to increasing our contact with each other by ensuring that none of us actually sees another living human being ever again.

And so, because I give and I give, I'm diving into the murky world of social media so that you don't have to do the research yourself.

You're welcome.

So, unusually for this column, we're going to follow a bit of a structure today. I'll name the Social Media in question, explain what I think it is, then go away and look it up and report back my results. 

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.

Let's start with the obvious one -

FACEBOOK

My Initial Thoughts-

Clearly I am aware of Facebook, as that's the most likely way that you've encountered and are reading this column.  Facebook is a website (and mobile app) that acts as a vehicle for people to promote their creative projects, advertise that they are playing Candy Crush, and repost political articles deliberately intended to piss off any Facebook friends they might have who have different political leanings

"Boy, that article link on Facebook totally changed my opinion on that touchy political subject"
                                                                       -No one, Ever.

After Research-

Yep, it's still there.  Although I had forgotten 'Thinly veiled cries for help' and 'Insipid inspirational quotes demanding that you 'share' them.'

MYSPACE

My Initial Thoughts-

Now, I'm not actually 100% sure that Myspace even still exists.  If it does I once heard it most accurately described as 'The Internet's abandoned amusement park' which pretty much sums it up.  The Betamax to Facebook's VHS (or HDDVD to their Blu-ray if you prefer), it's sad remains serve as a reminder to all of us of the importance of product placement.

After Research -

Wow.  That is a LOT of ads. 

It appears that the good people at MySpace have given up on the 'interacting' part of the game and have instead embraced treating everyone and everything as needing to be put in one big catalog.  This means that they will undoubtedly fall asleep under a Victorian house and cause all sorts of trouble later for Sophie Aldred. (That one was for Travis.  You're welcome.)

INSTAGRAM

My Initial Thoughts -

I'm told that this App is exclusively for posting pictures of Cats and Food.  Like Texting and Facebook got drunk and had a child who really, REALLY cared about selfies.

After Research -

Well, according to their web page - 'Instagram is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends and family.'  In reality this appears to mean that you sign up for an account (Like Facebook) and immediately begin photographing everything you eat.  There were also some pictures of kids, but I have not yet encountered any cats.  This may - admittedly - be due to my relatively small sample set

SNAPCHAT

My Initial Thoughts -

Apparently it's entirely for taking pictures of your own genitalia and sending them to other Snapchat users in the hopes that they don't know how to take a screenshot and therefore won't be able to save the picture and ruin your Senate career.

After Research -

The Snapchat official line is - 'Enjoy fast and fun mobile conversation! Snap a photo or a video, add a caption, and send it to a friend. They'll view it, laugh, and then the Snap disappears'.  

So yes, it's all about penis photos.  Also there appears to be some sort of video conferencing feature which I assume is also used for similar shenanigans and not, as their PR material would claim, to announce that someone has just bought a puppy.


Tune in Monday for part II where we tackle the likes of Reddit, Tumblr, Fouresquare and more

Share If...

Gentle reader, there's no nice way to put this...

Facebook has of late gotten way too pushy.

You can hardly manage to log on these days without having to wade through a tirade of posts that are being reposted by otherwise sensible people  simply because the post in question instructed them clearly that they were required to do so.  They serve no purpose other than to replicate themselves ad infinitum until it's impossible to see your clever friend's hysterical blog posting which is in no way oppressive and did you know that by clicking on the ads you can totally help to financially support them?

Where was I...

Right..   Commands to share statuses.  Here are some of the prime offenders-

SHARE IS YOU LOVE YOUR FATHER

Um...  wouldn't it be more task oriented to just tell him?

SHARE IF YOU HAVE A SISTER YOU LOVE WITH ALL YOUR HEART!

Does she not have a phone?

SHARE IF YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER/SON WHO YOU LOVE MORE THAN ANYTHING THE THE WHOLE WORLD!

They're in the back seat of the car right now, even as you're reposting that on Facebook while driving in rush hour traffic.   You might as well turn around and tell them to their face, and you should follow it up with '...and I'm so sorry...'

<RANDOM BULLSHIT TEABAGGER CLAIM> - 86% OF PEOPLE WHO AGREE WILL REPOST THIS! 

I'd like to see your data sample on this one.  Although, to be fair, the 86% claim is usually no less accurate than anything else the Tea Party posts.

REPOST IF YOU STAND WITH <INSERT MORON PSEUDO-CELEBRITY WHO HAS RECENTLY MADE SOME SORT OF PUBLIC BIGOTED STATEMENT.  LET'S SAY 'PHIL'>.

The main point of reposting this one is the verify that you don't actually understand what the 1st amendment says.

SHARE IF YOU'RE AGAINST THE ATROCITIES IN DARFUR!

I can guarantee that there is not a guy over there monitoring what's trending on Facebook and saying 'OK, we can just get in one more female circumcision before they hit 4 Million 'likes'.  Then we're totally done.'  If you're actually concerned about any of the many, many horrifying things that are currently being done somewhere on the planet then there are several things that you can do to actually help address the problem.  Clicking 'share' is not on that list.

Remember - If you don't 'share' this it means you hate dogs, babies, and Jesus.

I don't need your weird mixed signals, Facebook. I have Faith for that.

So today a friend of mine posted on Facebook about witnessing a car accident where the person who caused it sped away without stopping.  And as I was about to click 'Like' I stopped to wonder - could that be somehow construed that I 'Like' the fact that this woman was forced into a car accident?  Am I supporting the hit and runner?

And this is yet another problem with Facebook.  If someone posts 'My relative died', 'I have Cancer of the Puppy', 'Today the repressed memories of my abuse at the hands of the St. Pail Diocese resurfaced', the only click response offered is 'like'.  And I don't particularly want to 'Like' any of those things.

Maybe we should just give up and revert to actual human interactions.

I'm just kidding.  That's crazy talk.

If this gets 10,000 likes I'll totally repress those memories again.

The more embarrassing Faces of Death...

I know we don't like to think about it, but it remains an undeniable fact that we are all, at some point, going to die.

Except of course for Neil Diamond, who will like forever both through his music and through a skillful blend of cybernetic enhancements.

Regardless, what concerns me most about the whole issue is not the thought of dying itself, but rather a more general concern that the death itself not be something ridiculous.  The last thing you want is folk tittering at your funeral.

Yes, I just said tittering.

Here are just a few examples of the many, many embarrassing way that I'd like to not meet my final end...

MAULED BY A GIANT OTTER

Not everyone can pull off Adorable and Badass at the same time

Yes.  There is such a thing as a Giant Otter- I discovered this while perusing Otter-related websites in preparation for a previous column.  Now, I admit to having mixed feelings on this one, because I'm pretty sure that the death itself would be absolutely adorable.  That said, I'd just as soon not have everyone's first reaction to my death be 'Awwwww.... look at his cute little blood-soaked hands!  They're so human!'

SMACKED DOWN BY SOMEONE ELSE'S MID-FLIGHT POO

In the world of air travel, there is a thing called 'Blue Ice'.  This is - to not put too delicate an edge on it - a frozen mixture of disinfectant and other people's dookie.

Now, the airline industry is quick to point out that they are actually forbidden from dumping this in mid-flight, and indeed there is no mechanism to do so.  HOWEVER... they also acknowledge that there have been at least 27 documented incidents in the last few decades of Blue Ice striking the Earth from accidental dislodge - Which sounds an awful lot like a euphemism for the very process that created the need to have blue ice in the first place.

So, yes.  Your chances of dying from being hit by the stuff is roughly the same as winning the lottery.  But all things being equal, I'd rather win the lottery.  If there are three words that I would like to not appear in my Eulogy, 'Other People's Stool' would be them.

THAT THING THAT HAPPENED TO DAVID CARRADINE

As a gesture of respect for the man, I'll leave you to Google that one on your own if you really want to know.

DURING COSPLAY

This.   Guy.   Rules.

Cosplay - for those who are too cool to be familiar with it - is basically a term that was entirely coined in order for adults to justify feeling ok about their desire to play let's pretend in neat costumes.

When we were kids of course we just went ahead and did it without worrying about what the people who saw your Facebook photos might think.  As we get older, apparently it needs a niche brand in order for us to feel OK about doing it.

Now, I want to make perfectly clear - I am all for Cosplay, whatever you want to call it.  As more than a few pictures from Doctor Who conventions of the past will attest (and I made a ROCKIN' Sabalom Glitz, for the record)

I'd just like to avoid the words 'Found Dead in Batman Costume' to be part of my obituary.  It opens up too many questions.

HANDCUFFED TO SOMETHING

Unless it's a nuclear bomb and I'm saving the planet of course.

Here's the back story to this one.  The other morning on Marketplace they had a brief discussion of how the UK was sending out an appeal for people to be a bit more careful and commonsense with handcuffs.

Apparently since the onset of that 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon their Emergency services have seen a jump in calls to free someone inadvertently handcuffed to something inconvenient has risen by some insanely ridiculous percentage*

*No, I don't really understand why they were talking about it on Marketplace either.

Being British, the PSA is mostly along the lines of 'For the love of God, check if you have the keys handy first, there's a good chap'

What this makes me think however is that it's just a matter of time until somebody let's somebody else shackle em up for a nice night of whatever-you're-into-I'm-not-judging-you, only to have the non-shackled party suddenly have a massive aneurysm and die, leaving the shackled party to slowly die of dehydration and embarrassment.

That's gonna be some fun small talk at the wake, now isn't it.
 

That Social Network

A reprint from the 1st attempt at Vizsla blogging - Pardon the dated references

Let me start by just giving a quick shout out to Jesse Eisenberg - Loved Zombieland.  Sorry about Cursed.

OK, that out of the way, let me get on to the topic of the day-

Now as many of you know, I'm the smallest of four dogs at home, so I know a little bit about social networking.  For example, it is apparently wrong to pee on the Border Collie's head.  I know.  We were all surprised.  Being the warmhearted and generous sports breed that I am, I'd like to pass on some of my wisdom to the good folks at Facebook.

THINGS A VIZSLA WOULD LIKE TO CHANGE ABOUT FACEBOOK:

1:  Specificity-

I'm talking about the whole 'friending' process here.  (and when did that become a legitimate verb, by the way?  The same with 'like'  when did 'like' become a verb?  except of course for always, since it actually IS a verb, but you know what I mean, right?)  Anyhow, my point actually is that not all friends are created equal.  My feelings vary quite a bit between, say, Daddy (who brings me food, and plays pull the rope (though not as often as I might like)) and - to take a random example - Catherine Deneuve (who has to date never played pull the rope with me, but WAS in The Hunger, which has to be worth something.)

So, should both Daddy and Catherine Deneuve send me Friend Requests on the same day, how am I to indicate the relative depth of feeling in my acceptance of said friend requests?  (note to self... check on Catherine Deneuve's Facebook status...)

So what I'm thinking is that upon receipt of a Friend Request, it should be possible to assign a level of friendship to that person, commiserate to the level of ones feelings.

Now I know that the good people at Facebook are far too busy rolling naked in piles of money and eating pudding to put such a scale together, and so I've done the work for them.  Feel free to send snausages in thanks.

THE VIZSLA FACEBOOK FRIEND SCALE:

Friend Level 10-  You are like unto a god to me.  I love you more than beef flavored Carvers.

FL9 - You are awesome.  You may totally have a Kidney.

FL8 - When I see you, I get so excited I do circles.  And sometimes pee a little.

FL7 - I will help you move, as long as it is within a 50 mile radius of your current dwelling place

FL6 - You're pretty cool.  I will certainly go with you to the barn dance.

FL5 - I like you, but I don't care about your farmville status.

FL4 - We should totally hang out more.  Totally.  Why don't we hang out more.  I am totally going to call you after...oooo, look!  Shiny!

FL3 - If I encounter you in a social situation I will almost certainly return your guardedly friendly greeting and then stand near you in silence.

FL2 - I'm really just curious to look at your photos to see if you have gotten fat/bald since high school

FL1 - If I say yes to this will you stop calling me?

And on the flip side (not currently an option, but SO should be)  Why is it that discreetly ignoring a request is currently the only way available to let that special someone know that you hate them?  Allow me to present - The ANTI-FRIEND levels-

FL -1 I probably wouldn't cross the road to avoid you, but I WOULD hide behind a newspaper.

FL -2 I definitely would cross the road to avoid you

FL -3 I would not cross the road to pee on you if you were on fire

FL -4 I am waiting for YOU to cross the road so I can run you down with my car

FL -5 thinnnnnnnerrrrrr........

And the nuclear option -  The Facebook Nemesis button.  Must be agreed by mutual consent between parties.  Only one Nemesis allowed at a time.


I'll have to continue this one, as it is now time for me to chase a bunny.  Until then, keep scratching those bellies.