One Day After Another
My bullet journal tells a story this week. Of course I can't show you it, because the pages are filled with details about commercial projects that I'm not supposed to share (you know, unlike the photos of bullet journals you see on Instagram and Pinterest, filled with yoga sessions, nail painting, makeup, doing good deeds, and all the rest of the bollocks people invent for contrived pictures to hopefully attract clicks). Let's just say the pages look remarkably full.
While on the subject of social media attention seekers, I have just remembered a YouTube video I saw a few days ago – where a twenty-something hipster in America went through a method in quite some detail about how to gain followers online. I will admit I had my 'lets see what complete and utter rubbish you're going to spout' hat on, and I wasn't disappointed. He essentially spent ten minutes elaborately disguising an advert for a paid mobile app that deliberately lets you like and follow people on the various social networks without tripping the safeguards that detect 'bot-like' behaviour. He then had the cheek to claim that using the app wasn't playing the system. Right.
So following thousands of people, and liking their posts with no intention at all of ever even looking at their profiles or their posts is not playing the system ? Idiots. The internet is slowly filling with idiots.
It doesn't help that I'm fully aware that I'm turning into the complaining old man that I despaired of in my youth – grumbling about behavior, respect, and civic responsibility.
Is there such a thing as civic responsibility on the internet though? We've all encountered keyboard warriors. It seems that when given anonymity and a public platform to espouse their wisdom, far more people than we like to admit become complete and utter assholes. I can't help feeling that anybody claiming knowledge or expertise in 'Search Engine Optimisation' is essentially a snake-oil-salesman.
Anyway. Enough angry ranting. I didn't mean to go off on one. I meant to complain about my week being so busy that I haven't found anything interesting to tell stories about – and ended up venting all sorts of fury for a few minutes about the first petty thing that fell from my head.
I'll do better tomorrow. Maybe. Stop laughing.