Social Media And The Internet

The age of digitisation is upon us and it's everywhere we look. The internet has it's good points, bad points and very bad points. Good for finding out pointless trivia, bad for being a conversation killer. Such as, did you know that Bob Holness, host of TV quiz show Blockbusters, was the first ever James Bond on South African radio in 1956? But did you also know that Sir Bob of Holness also played the saxophone solo on Baker street by Gerry Rafferty? No? Well that's because he didn't. It was Raphael Ravenscroft. There you go, conversation killer. I hate Google gonads. They are very boring people with absolutely no imagination. I wonder how often the look up 'why have i got no friends left'. I use word hippo a lot when i'm writing mainly because i've run out of amusing noun synonyms. I looked up a British favourite 'dickhead' and the word 'langer' came up. It amused me for 5 minutes but then i discovered a myriad of other words which i have now stored in my 'names to call Audi drivers' part of my brain. Words such as clod, chode, nyaff, shitfucker and asshat. You, dear reader, are welcome.
I'm not knocking the internet because i use it a lot, especially when doing research. The internet is great for a lot of stuff like doing my kids homework. We shop on-line, play games, slag off celebrities, watch videos, do our banking and wanking and a million other things but the most common thing we do on-line is use social media.
The most used social media platform is Facebook with around 2.8 billion users. 2.2 billion people use at least one of the Facebook off shoots every day. I only know this because i looked it up using my preferred search engine-Dogpile. I ain't no google gonad! This does, however, beg the question...what the fuck were we doing before the internet? The mind boggles...think i'll look it up.
Social media can be amazing for connecting people to long lost friends or family but more and more we see keyboard warriors who have nothing better to do than cyber bully other people they often don't know. Asshats, the lot of them! I can't abide bullying in any form but at least have the decency to flush my head down the loo or take my dinner money or give me dirty looks. Don't sit at home with your screen  of choice typing bile and hate slowly eating away at someone's self esteem reducing them to sleepless nights and self loathing because you don't have the actual balls to step outside of your safety bubble and enter the real world. Chances are if you did you would probably have an asthma attack while eating a gluten/dairy/sugar free rice cake because you chose the wrong pleather sandal...that's if the sunlight doesn't kill you first. Man the fuck up princesses. Even the term 'keyboard warrior' pisses me off. There is nothing warrior like about these pathetic turd skins.
Other social media platforms like Twitter, Instatwat, Snapwank, TikTok, pinterest, Flickr, WhatsApp, Tumblr, Visco and Youtube are really popular but they are all based on how many 'likes' or 'retweets' or 'shares' the user gets. This particular aspect doesn't matter so much with well rounded adult users but a lot of teens use it like a life manual and put themselves under enormous pressure to get the most hits on their accounts. Teens suffering from anxiety because not enough people 'liked' their photo of their dog taken during 'golden hour'. Golden hour, for the uninitiated, is the time of day when the sun comes up or goes down producing the best natural light to take a photo with optimum clarity. I only know this little gem because i have two selfie obsessed teenage daughters who have trampled me under foot in their rush to get outside during golden hour to take photos. Me? I just look out of a window using my eyes. Proper old skool. Because of this fake popularity contest,amongst mainly teenagers, Instagram have recently changed their policies to restrict or hide the amount of likes a post gets.This hasn't gone down well with folk who rely on the amount of likes they get so they can flog their wares or just get through a day. Do me a favour. The world has gone mad! Some Facebook users add people as 'friends' just so they look good in the popularity stakes. They don't know them but when these people they don't know don't respond to a post they have a meltdown. If i see one more post on Facebook which says something like 'if you don't give me any attention i'm gonna delete you because i'm a needy twat' i'm probably not going to notice anyway. These sheeple should probably delete themselves from the gene pool or try getting a life where they don't have to rely on someone blowing smoke up their arse or clapping their hands shouting 'ooh look...they done a fing' which to be honest chances are they didn't do themselves anyway. These sycophantic, self serving shithouses are making me quite bilious. Now fuck off and get some real mates who love you no matter what. Who'll tell you when your'e being a dick then tell you they love you, who'll laugh in your face if you fall over then help you up, who'll cry with you when your'e hurting, who'll give you their last £ when your'e skint, who'll be there for you at your worst and your best, who'll come round to see you then nap on your sofa after stealing the love of your pets, but most of all the good people who will cross oceans to be with you. We should all be more ocean.
I researched other apps for the purpose of this blog just to see what else was out there and i was surprised to find some really useful ones but unsurprised to find some really weird ones. Useful ones like Cafemom which is for young mothers and expectant mothers which offers great advice unlike the patronising tones of Mumsnet. FourSquare is a great local search app which helps you find the perfect place to eat or shop or pretty much anything based on your location. this one has around 40 million users but i'd never heard of it until now. Cellufun and Discord are apps with over 250 million users for the gamer community. Thedots and DeviantArt are apps for the art community, reverberation is a great app for musicians and professionals to connect within the music industry. Funnyordie is a good app for comedians of any genre or discipline and a lot of celebrities follow this particular platform. A few of the less popular or useful to the masses apps are ravelry which is for knitting nerds, Care2 is for sandal wearers and people who think they can save the world by eating tofu and sucking the milk out of an almond, Classmates is an app for finding old classmates but is most likely used to stalk ex boyfriends or to see how fat that slag, Sue, has got.
Dating sites and apps are as popular now as when they were first launched. Match.com, meetup, badoo, tagged, meetme, muzmatch, elitesingles, e-harmony and plentyoffish are a few of the tamer ones where you might meet someone nice, go for a drink maybe have a bit of a snog. At the other end of the spectrum you have Tinder, blendr and Grindr. Tinder is for straight guys and gals who are basically looking for sex. You swipe like, exchange phone numbers, meet up and get pumped in the back of a vauxhall vivre. Classy. Grindr is for for gay/bi/trans guys and gals who want a quicky. This is my all time favourite app. I mean, where else can you get a mobile alert that lets you know there's someone 3 feet away that wants to suck you off? Bloody brilliant. I am definitely coming back in the next life as a gay man. Blendr, invented by the same guy who gave us Grindr is just a free for all.
The one thing i don't like about some dating apps is the ease of flashing. Gone are the days of some dude with a beard (always a beard...why?) jumping out from behind a hedge with his lad out. Nowadays blokes flash their nobs via a phone with alarming regularity and at the drop of a hat and women flash a boob like they're breast feeding the nation. I call it 'the Rasputin effect'. Nobs and knockers all over the gaff whether you want them or not. Rasputin the infamous sex pest who happened to have a beard.
To conclude, social media and the internet are an almost necessary evil and used at some point in our daily routines even if it's behind the scenes. Use them both wisely. Remember that nothing is ever permanently deleted even when you think it is, don't be cruel, love one and other, take lots of photos, create conversations-don't kill them, make friends, find friends, buy stuff, sell stuff, be kind, learn new words but most of all stop flashing at strangers. What would your Nan think?