The Facebook Dislike Button

It has been recently announced that Facebook is working on a ‘Dislike’ button – which has sparked celebration from those people who dislike things, but are too lazy to type out an explanation as to why this is so…

One enthusiastic and passive-aggressive man was quoted as saying: “this is indeed a historic day for the internet, I really can’t wait till they introduce it – I hate my neighbour’s child and can’t wait to thumbs down every single photo they post of his annoying little face”.

Smash Computer GIF

However some have criticised the move and believe that the meager range of options in both ‘Like’ and ‘Dislike’ are heavily limited, and don’t allow for a true expression of the human experience. The founding member of UCLA (Union of Communicating Lasting Apathy), David Bottoms, has spoken out in opposition of the decision, believing it to be a backward step:

“Facebook has really underestimated what its market truly needs – what about those of us who simply don’t give a shit about photographs of food, or pictures of dogs with santa hats on? Why are we being so heavily discriminated against? Where is our ‘I don’t give a fucking shit’ button?” 

Annoyed Computer GIF

It is quite simply anyone’s guess how this whole situation will go…will the general public choose to restrict their thumbs down practices to natural disasters, and pictures of failed cooking attempts? Or will they stray into more risky waters and ‘dislike’ their best friend’s wedding photographs as they are jealous and worry they may end up dying alone with cats (who no one has liked through Facebook). 

Well, no one can be sure…so we best just stay tuned I guess…I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough…

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The Facebook You

Thanks to the dear old internet we all know and love, we live a rather strange and abstract state of being. A one filled with more tricks than the mightiest of magicians. And just like the illusionist we are constantly revealing only select parts of ourselves, but refusing to show the whole thing to anyone…for fear we are unveiled as a fraud. Someone who won’t be accepted. Someone who won’t be loved…

Crying Alone GIF

But despite this people are often told “just be yourself!” – which is all well and good…but what if we suck? What if we truly act in ways that are in line with our true nature…and people reject us for it? What then? Just keep going on that path of loneliness till we die?

That’s our internal voice speaking…and in the age of the internet it is louder than ever, and moreover is listened to a lot more too. So to combat this we crop, cut, and reorder our life…selecting only the best parts of our existence to share with the rest of the world – and stifling the rest. Praying it’ll never be made public! I mean the shame of it all if someone found out something awful…

…like not giving two shits about fucking cute kitten videos.

Kittens GIF

People should just be honest – if you hate the sound of  babies laughing, and enjoy chewing on your hair…just state it! No one will think you are weird, I promise!

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Please buy my collection of stories! Get it in paperback here – or on Kindle here! ALL proceeds go towards Macmillan Cancer Support!

My Facebook Space.

We used to be satisfied with our own personal space, that was enough for us – we would just bask in the warmth of our life, and our memories…our hopes, our dreams. MySpace, was a comfortable place…a musical land, with you, and your closest companions…your, top friends…I suppose you could call them. 

But with time we began to desire more – we wanted to see what life was like outside of this space…I admit MySpace became something of a bore…so without much warning, we escaped. Not literally of course. (We remained within the Internet compound.)

But instead we ran to elaborate works of literature…volumes with more than Myspace…suddenly I was flicking through the pages of Facebook. Never before had I seen so many faces! They made Myspace look bland in comparison! Reams, and reams of…well, faces! Of all cultures, colours, and creeds!

Reading GIF

So for now I am content, Myspace has became another chapter of the Facebook anthology. I feel part of a community, and I like it. 

But I open another window anyway – even though they say curiosity killed the cat…I want to hear this morning’s birds Twitter, and tweet. What’s the problem with that?

A Hollow Halloween

Well guys I was waiting till the shame subsided…but it doesn’t look like it will any time soon…so I am going to go ahead and tell you what happened to me during Halloween of this year!

I didn’t go all out – not in the slightest in fact, however last year I did, I picked up a fake muscular chest-piece thingy, and a red martial arts costume…styled my hair in a crazy way, and really put my all into the persona! I was Paul Phoenix from the Tekken series. But no one, not even a singular human, realized this. Instead they thought I was some guy from Dragonball Z, and in the end I just agreed with them – despite having never really watched that cartoon…

Halloween

Here I am, with my deer friend, Ann

(Halloween 2013)

I had a few ideas this year…but before I knew it, the night was upon us! And I had nothing, repeat – NOTHING! So what did I do? Well took to Google of course! He is my companion through all walks of life…guiding me, and filling in my major gaps in knowledge that I possess in just about every subject. So I typed in something like…easy men’s Halloween costumes…I wasn’t impressed, they looked shit for one, but also they took a lot of work – I was looking for something that I could just out together in the house, out of like…foil…and…toilet paper…something that was at hand, and didn’t take effort basically. So I tried…very, very easy men’s Halloween costume…I stared at it, and added…last minute.

The search brought up quite a few positive results. Mainly jokey ones, that played on puns – which is basically saying; “yeah, I made no effort – but that’s what I was going for…so leave me alone…”

Mistake Shit GIF

I had gave some thought to going as Two-Face from Batman…you know, like draw all over one side of my cheek – and perhaps pat flour onto one half of a suit…but then that would surely ruin a suit, right? Nerrrr, pass on that! That’s when an image of Jim Halpert, from The Office popped up on my screen…it was from one of the Halloween episodes, in this one he had written BOOK across his face – so he could say that he had came as Facebook! I thought – YES! That is shit, but funny enough to get me off the hook! I would wear clothes similar to his, so that it worked on two levels…perhaps at the party some people would want to have a conversation about which version we prefer, and blah blah blah…it’s basically a conversation starter! What a great idea! Thanks Jim, you old dog, you!

So I was all dressed up, in a business-ish suit – a la Jim Halpert – and reached for a huge marker pen so I could etch out the giant letters across my face…it suddenly felt like it was a stupid idea, but not like haha stupid – more just plain moronic. I went for it anyway.  The first thick black line looked awful…but I thought it would get better…I carried on until I was staring at myself in the mirror…argh…KOOB…huh? So FaceKOOB?! I’d went, and done it the wrong way around…so had to scrub, and scrub, and scrub my sensitive skin until the PERMANENT (oops!) marker decided to come off…

It really, really hurt…it took a lot of convincing, and left me with red-raw cheeks…

Crying Space Man GIF

Perhaps I could turn this around in my favor? Perhaps I could go as…errr…like Pikachu, or Santa Claus…or somebody else that has red cheeks…hmm…

I decided I needed to commit – don’t get excited, I mean commit to the characternot…you know. Although to be honest rolling up in this state would be definite social suicide. Whatever, Who cares? I drew BOOK onto my burning face, and then bounced out of the door before I changed my mind.

At the bus stop I wondered why I had drawn all over my face, when I could have easily just brought the pen with me, and did it all last second. I could have just been a guy in a suit, just trying to go a place – no questions asked…but instead I was the weirdo attracting stares from the entire population of the town.I looked back at them, and nodded…tried an awkward smile, but their faces curled, and contorted as they tried to make sense of what was going on.  I lasted about fifteen minutes, which took a lot – but finally broke…I turned away, walked into a dark corner…and began licking my hand, and scrubbing relentlessly at my cheeks…then checking the reflection of my phone…then more saliva…more scrubbing…phone…then saliva…scrub…phone…saliva…cuffs of my jacket…phone

I seriously hate scrubbing, I don’t think I’ll ever scrub a day in my life again.

Scrub GIF

Unsurprisingly the stares still continued. I got on the bus, and made use of the window’s reflection to perfect my makeover back to my…err, natural look. I didn’t really care much that my cheeks looked like rashers of bacon, after all at social functions I always go red anyway…it’s just so embarrassing meeting people, and telling them about how saliva has been a key part of your night so far. Well, maybe I should just no say anything about that – but you know…I WILL. 

I took a deep breath, and walked through the door.

Fortunately my old friend Tequila was there too…so the night turned out better than expected…I just let people come up to me, and guess what I was – whatever they said was correct. Best thing was most thought I had made a real effort…I suppose in a manner of speaking I had been through a lot of trouble!

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