A Plague On Both Your Houses

 

 Recently, I was reminded of why I dislike social media so much, and why I have no desire to be on it (with the exception of this site and my website). Part of it's to do with my mental health - I find it hard to be on sites like Facebook or Twitter because of the signal to noise which I frequently find overwhelming- but it's not just that. It's also that I'm very conscious that if you're not paying for something, you're the product. And as the Netflix film, The Social Dilemma, pointed out, we're constantly manipulated into viewing material, our attention spans hijacked for the sake of money. Youtube is reaching the point where I consider it to be unusable, and am wondering about going back to just buying music as a way to escape. In addition, it increasingly feels as if the Internet only exists for business, for shopping, and for others to make money, and I'm increasingly disenchanted with it. I suppose its a bit strange to post that on the Internet, but never mind. 

The other thing is that I find all social media sites and fora to be depressing, because they're all very, very, like school playgrounds, and to be extremely cliquey. I have no interest in being part of a clique, like Sherlock Holmes, I'd reject membership of a club that would have me, and I find it wearisome to watch two groups who I largely despise - the "woke" and their opponents sear their sanctimonious ideals across virtual space, fighting battles that increasingly feel as if they just don't matter in the long run. Unless someone from either side is going to put their damn money where their flapping gums are, and get into office, why should anyone care what they say? Given that all we ever do online is scream at each, troupe of monkey style, what's the point of any "debate" (in reality just morons talking past each other). If you actually give a shit about the things you claim to, then I suggest you get up off your arses, get into the real world and do something - and I don't mean marching and protesting (those are about as effective as pissing on a forest fire). No, I mean digging down into issues, working at ground roots, and looking out beyond the pretty pictures we're given so that both sides can see how much we are all fucking this world and the poorer people in it up. Don't come crying to me about Black Lives Mattering until you've actually started to look at how much shit Britain and the USA dump in Africa, or can come up with a fucking reason why its okay for kids in Congo to dig out minerals so you can have a cheap phone. Come to that, don't whine about anything until you can justify why you shouldn't have to deal with your own recycling, and why its okay for your stinking country to fuck up the planet, Developed World. 

Of course, you also don't get to whinge about immigration, when your country is the fucking reason why people are trying to move because your consumption of say, Avocados, has fucked up the country they're from. Or created a war they're trying to flee. Or any number of other things - honestly the people you're so damn scared of are just other humans, and while you might be a bastard, they probably aren't. 

Frankly, I deplore both sides, and think both are ridiculous. Both are smug, unappealing, and incredibly fucking privileged, as far as I'm concerned. If the biggest thing you have to worry about is fucking statues, you might want to have a word with yourselves (oh, and I think we should pull them all down, and plant some nice trees instead). 

It's very easy to get outraged if you don't have to give anything up, or if you can point over at another group of people and say how terrible they are. But you have to consider your own villainy, for want of a better word. You have to think about what you're doing to make this planet worse (because  you probably are - we all probably are).

Look, I get that nobody gives a damn what I say, but if your main way of debating and changing the world is to shout at other people on the fucking Internet, you might want to have a fucking word with yourself. If you're going to boil entire continents down to a single thing, then you can do one as well. Shockingly, they have different cultures in them - perhaps you should learn that instead of patting yourselves on the back. (Oh and if you're American, then perhaps you should acknowledge that a lot of the rest of the world isn't as fucked up as your nation and that you need to change more than some other countries). 

Until you've grown, then frankly, a plague on you and both your houses!