Insane in the meme-Slane
I
often wonder how different my formative years would have been if
social media were around at the time. And then I thank my lucky stars
that there was nothing more than the occasional camera and hearsay to
document my activities. If Facebook had existed while I was a teen my
page would have been full of incriminating evidence. Pictures of my
gurning, bug-eyed face, videos of me dancing to cheesy French house
music, rambling, indecipherable status updates penned in the dead of
the night (wait, I already do that) and ill-advised declarations of
lust for womenfolk I barely know – and that's just the good stuff.
Among
all that relatively harmless activity there'd surely be something
that made me cringe, something that reminded me of a moment I'd
rather forget. I'd try to delete it lest my mother feast her eyes
upon it, but it'd be too late, she'd never look at me in the same
light again. Luckily, mercifully, I'd just about given up my
hedonistic activities before Facebook came around. Oh how I laughed
at the pictures of my young friends lying in a pool of their own
vomit, all the while knowing that it could have been me up there on
the tinternet for all to see. Being young and stupid is tough, but
having your every mistake highlighted and analysed on a public forum
makes it substantially tougher.
And
nowhere are you more likely to be young and stupid than at a live
music event. Shorn of responsibility and free from the restraints of
your local town or village you can go wild, in your own misguided
little mind you imagine yourself frolicking through the fields like
it's the Summer of Love and you're just another wildchild about to
come of age. The reality is far harsher; you get blind drunk on
unfamiliar spirits and the rest of the day is a blur of twisted
limbs, thumping sounds and corrupted souls. By the time it's over you
wander through the exit and somehow manage to find the transport
which will escort you home to Mammy and Daddy where you belong.
You
wake up the next day and wonder what the fuck went on. But unlike in
my day where all I had to worry about was a few texts ridiculing me
for my antics there's a judge, jury and executioner waiting for you
online. The girl captured on camera at Slane acted foolishly but she
didn't do anything that the generations before didn't do. I could
recount tales that would make a pornstar blush but that's all they
are, tales. Once you put someone at the mercy of the Internet the
gloves are well and truly off, and whomever thought if funny to post
those pictures on Twitter and Facebook can congratulate themselves,
because they have ruined this girl's life forever.
If
she'd done that in my day her only worry would be facing the patrons
of the bus on the way home. She'd be derided as a slapper and word
would get around town, she'd walk with her head down for a few months
and struggle to shake off that tag. But eventually she'd meet a nice
fella, settle down and look back on her youthful endeavours with
nothing more than a tinge of regret. Compare that to this girl. Her
parents, her entire family, everyone she knows and beyond, they've
all seen what she's done and in graphic detail too. How is that fair?
Young girls get pissed and get off with boys, sometimes more than
one, it's what they do, until they get a bit of sense and cop
themselves on.
I'm
not sure how the girl in question can ever come back from this. She's
already been named and shamed and worst of all the posting of said
pictures has been held up as a sign of all that is wrong with social
media. So now the debate has extended beyond her actions and the
fecklessness of those who brought them to the masses, we are now
discussing the impact of those images and what it says about social
media in general. Sadly she has now gone down in internet infamy,
likely to be remembered alongside Joseph Kony, Rebecca Black and the
girl caught flashing her tits on webcam by her dad. Saddest of all
though is that for months she and her friends probably talked
excitedly about the forthcoming gig, she went to bed the night before
giddy and excited about the day ahead, and she woke up that morning
with a spring in her step. Little did she know that by the day's end
her life would be in ruins, in tatters, and why? Because she made a
mistake, just like every teenager in history has done thousands and
thousands of times.
Only
in Ireland
Oh the embarrassment of it all,
'twas on Sky Sports News and everything. The Brits were laughing
their holes off at the thick ole Irish again. Hawk-eye has been used
to great effect in tennis and cricket but wouldn't you just know that
as soon as we get our hands on it we fuck it up. I say we, but who I
really mean are the GAA. The technology has had teething problems in
other sports nut nothing on the level as seen in Croke Park last
Sunday. Okay so the GAA can't be directly blamed for their piece of
kit malfunctioning as it did, but the decision to slavishly follow
it's commendation despite everyone in the stadium, and at home seeing
it was wrong, is just so typical of the organisation. “Ooer the
machine said it was wide so it must be wide,” “But it went over I
can see it with me own two eyes,” “No, no, the machine is never
wrong, if it says wide then wide it is.”
Instead of using common sense and
discretion the man in the box chose to side with the robots and in
the process deny Limerick's minors the chance of All-Ireland glory.
Indeed the only saving grace is that this happened in a minor match
and not the seniors, can you imagine the outcry if it had been in the
following game? As it was the appeals from the losing county fell on
deaf ears, gway outta it lads oul' Hawk-eye was just having an off
day. But this wasn't any ordinary protest, it's not like they were
complaining about a poor refereeing decision which came down to human
error. Their case centred on a seemingly infallible contraption
proving anything but. There was no precedence and you can't help but
wonder if the error had occurred in a senior game, and it had been
one of the more prominent counties, would the outcome have been
different.
As it is the short-sighted birdie
has been put out to pasture. You had your chance and you fucked it
up, 'tis back to the boys in the white coats for us. I'm sure
Hawk-eye return at some stage, but for the time being it'll have to
make do with deciding the outcome of other sports, in other
countries.
Misprint
The latest newspaper circulation
figures do not make good reading; readership is decreasing across the
board and it seems only a matter of time before print media dies out
altogether. I don't buy a newspaper anymore, and really I should. As
someone with a vested interest in the industry it's my duty to
support it any way I can. But still I don't. I, like everyone else,
simply gather as much information as I can from other outlets,
television, radio, oh and of course, the internet. I know that if I
want to read good quality journalism then the best place to go is the
national broadsheet, but who has time to sit and read for a newspaper
nowadays? That's not how things work any longer.
We just want byte-sized nuggets of
info, enough to give us a general idea of what's going on. Once we've
acquired that piece of data we look for another, flitting from one
story to the next without ever really getting the full picture. Even
this blog, I've entitled it “a round-up of the week's news stories
as seen through the eyes of an inattentive, misinformed moron.”There's obviously some slight self-deprecation there but as a description it's not far wide of the mark (the moron bit aside) and the same can be said for much of society in the digital age. Occasionally a story will take hold and we'll endeavour
to learn more about it through well-regarded, reliable sources. But
for the most part we just haven't got time. We're too busy watching
three-minute long Youtube videos, tweeting 140 character messages and
sharing apparently funny stories that we've only half read. Take the
Internet away and suddenly the newspaper becomes King once more, but
this world isn't big enough for the both of them and sooner or later
one has to go. I know who my money's on.
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