Maybe I’m just an ageing fogey…

Posted by TomHB

…but somehow, Dave’s last post has struck a chord with me.

MySpace is a disgrace. To make matters worse, all of the 13 year olds have begun the emo-diaspora and are making their way over to Facebook which was once the exclusive play-pen of the Undergraduate classes of society. Bringing with them, not just teen angst and, like, shit grammar. Like. But (see, I started the sentence improperly. Like, totally ROFL-copter) also the same flashy, gaudy on-screen shit that MySpace became so notorious for. It’s almost like all of the programmers and developers eking out a living in Estonia or some other newly established country in Eastern Europe have realised there is an as-yet undervalued market for all things flashy and gaudy amongst users of Facebook and have focussed their attention on giving everyone virtual kittens and virtual emoticons. Indeed! Virtual emoticons… apparently because they aren’t used in real-time, they’re not real, and thus, are virtual.

Now, I do use Facebook. First of all, for poker. I’m bloody crap at it, but I can’t just can’t stop. Plus, seeing as it’s betting the online equivalent of matchsticks, there’s no harm in it. Secondly, I use Facebook as a diary and let people dictate to me when and where I should turn up with a bottle of grog and say “Happy birthday!” or “I’m sorry for your loss!”. It is also amusing to see just how small a social circle we, the bourgeoisie, move around in. For example, Courtney Tight, a friend of mine from Uni, went to a 21st birthday party at the weekend which was also attended by Rowan ~~Spitt~~ Witt, a boy I went to school with. That interested me for all of 8 seconds, however, it was a welcome distraction from my overdue essay and the tepid Butter Chicken I had bought for lunch.

While, following enough peer pressure, I will succumb to the latest juvenile fancy (at the moment, Facebook), I like to maintain an air of dignified, out-of-touch superiority over the plebs. It’s kind of like how Bentleys don’t have Satellite Navigation yet. If your chauffeur doesn’t know where he is going then you need a new chauffeur. To this end, I refuse to use emoticons, I haven’t exchanged money for a video game since Doom 2 came out, I long for the simplicity of Windows 98 and I couldn’t be bothered to work out the difference between Windows Vista Ultimate and the other version… is it Penultimate?

That’s not to say I don’t understand it all. Back in the days of yore (as in, before your time sonny) I sent an sms to myself just to see what happened. It was 1997 and nobody knew what it was, or why you’d use it. “Sounds alot like a pager to me” or “25c? Just to say hello?” were common reactions. Now, everyone’s on the bandwagon. They’re even having sex on it. Back in my day, sex was something you coerced from someone with statements such as “I love you” or questions like “Will you marry me?”. At worst you negotiated a cash price with her boyfriend on a corner in Kings Cross. Now you just text ’slunt’ to 19 55 11 for a bevy of beautiful babes on your mobile now! ‘Now’ is invariably 2:30am and the ‘beautiful babes’ seem to look a lot like that guy from Big Brother. Or is it just because in the drunken haze you mistook ‘Up Late with HotDogs’ for ‘Girls Gone Wild’ ?

Anyway, I’m going to go and put a blanket in the dryer for 20 minutes so I’ve got something to warm myself with when I sit down to watch Lateline on the ABC.

You Know it Makes Sense.

I’m TomHB.

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