It’s only nine in the evening but somehow it feels much later. Partly it’s the hour change I’m sure, but mostly it’s the fact that I’ve done very little today. A soupçon of admin. A spot of wandering around. A long queue. Posted a letter. An email or two. Some coffee…
Monday is always the official actor’s weekend – with the advantage that the post office is open – queue or no queue.
Frankly most of my focus today has been on Lou, who got bashed around by the dentist at lunchtime. She was in there so long I ended up waiting just outside the dentist for a bit too long considering it’s finally getting colder. I walked around the outside of a church a couple of times, surprised by the fact it seemed so firmly closed. Then I just stood on the pavement and ordered a few books online, and rang some friends.
Up in Glasgow meanwhile lots of people are trying to find ways to help stop us making the atmosphere of our planet hostile to us. If I’d been able to get into the church I might have sent some positive energy their way. Let’s see what comes. It’s these possible huge scale operational changes that will make a difference. Sure we can all be asked to only boil as much water as we need. We can get the vegan option or not have that hot bath. But if anything is going to seriously improve it’ll be on an industrial level – not just putting the price of consumer gas up. And petrol?! Watch those fuckers not drop it even though they’ve got the supply chain fixed.
All my social media channels have devolved to the point that I’m getting fed up of logging on at all. It’s mostly because very little is familiar right now. The platforms all seem to be serving up fundamentalism to try to get hits. Your mate who says you shouldn’t recycle because a climate activist went on an airplane. That guy who says that some vegans wear leather shoes so let’s all bite the heads off chickens. Someone who finds a Caduceus and doesn’t get the evolution of symbols so concludes that doctors are Satanists. I’m sure my friends aren’t all frothing at the mouth, but it feels like they are. The algorithm. “Promoting engagement”. I might get them because I sometimes draft a long considered reply in the comments and then delete it knowing from bitter past experience that there’s no arguing with stupid. But the platform still knows I wrote the draft.
The advertising model has taken all the joy from these social platforms. They were fun when they were for users instead of for profit. But that was just the phase when they suckered us in. I suspect that Zuckerberg announcing his saccharine and terrifying “meta” thing is going to be a step that historians mark on the crumbling and eventual total decline of our interest in and our newly formed addiction to this “social media” thing. I hope so. If that’s the future of it, it has to die. It has had its time. We’ve seen it get totally coreupted. Now it’s just a mess of hate and sales. Let it go.
It rose. Zuck with his slapped cheeks sits on his pile of money now still perhaps thinking he has started something wonderful because it made HIM LOOK AT HIM HIM WE HAVE MADE HIM MEGA RICH. We will all start suddenly clearing our heads, seeing this for what it is, and wandering down to the beach leaving our phone at home, wondering what all the fuss was about. I almost used the phrase “wake up” but there’s another phrase that has changed its meaning in the information wars. What does it even mean anymore? “Woke”.
The beach isn’t particularly appealing right now despite my sudden anti social meedja stance. I’m in bed writing this digital blog thing into my phone. Earlier today I was browsing Amazon. I’ve been on Facebook and Twitter in the last hour. I’m just so so bored of them. But … I’m still servicing the addiction. “The first step: we admitted we were powerless.” The drugs don’t work anymore. Good to spot it. It’ll take more than individuals noticing quite how manipulative social platforms are for there to be a shift away from this form of interaction, particularly in the hangover of the pandemic panic phase. But we aren’t as dumb as Zucchini seems to think we are. I hope. When it’s not quite so cold we can go to the beach. In great numbers. And throw litter everywhere like a bunch of bastards.
I’ll feel better tomorrow.
AlBarclay 