Fear and Loathing on Facebook

Here are some of the things I've learned whilst on Facebook. PLEASE NOTE that these are other peoples' opinions and not my own. Also, these opinions were not just directed at me but mostly at friends of mine too, which makes me worry about the people they choose to call "friends".

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1 – The person who accused you of being “OTT” because you said something like “I hate Twilight.” Is the same person who writes a five paragraph diatribe about how they will kill any one who says that they hate football/X Factor/ballroom dancing.

2 – If you delete someone from your friends list because they are going through an emotional bad patch, your other friends will think you are cool. However, if you are going through an emotional bad patch, instead of friends rallying they will think of you as depressing, a freak and will delete you from their friends list.

3 – Some people think they are heroic crusaders by telling you how they’d hit you if they heard you telling sick jokes. These crusaders are the very same people who, if confronted with a perpetrator of a serious crime (the subject of your afore-mentioned joke), would go pale in fear and become silent, with all bravery and need to hit out disappearing.

4 – Entrapment by adding work colleagues onto your friends list just so you can use what they post as a means of getting them fired is perfectly acceptable, regardless that in a few countries this practice is classed as cyber-stalking [citation needed] and that the person you helped get fired may live in the same town as you.

5 – Someone who has sex with several different people in one day is considered cool by their peers. However, if you tell them sincerely that they're pretty/handsome, they and their peers are well within their rights to tell everyone that you are “rapey”. Remember that promiscuity is good, being complimentary is bad.

6 – A man who goes to the pub all day every day and screws almost every woman in town is thought of as cool and popular. A man who works hard, spends his money on rent, prefers to socialise at weekends and just wants to meet Miss Right is thought of as a dick, a weirdo and an idiot.

7 – When a friend is dealing with a bereavement and makes a post about it, the more horrific and callous the comment are made, the more highly thought of the troll is.

8 – Contrary-wise, the more someone who constantly posts about their many illnesses and how they are going to get some gang or other to beat someone up for them keeps posting, the cooler that person is. Yet someone who is normally happy and well makes a rare post about being ill or depressed MUST be told that they are “attention seeking” and that “Everyone is fed up of hearing it”

9 – People who steal stuff (such as jewellery and romantic keepsakes) from your person and your home are amazing and popular, People who treat you and your home with respect are freaks.

10 – Ignore as many of the truly nice friends you have. Never wish them a Happy Birthday. Never wish them well when they get engaged/move home/get a new job/etc. Never respond when they leave you a comment or message asking how you are. Keep out of touch with them. The only time you should acknowledge them is if they post something you don’t agree with (“Reality TV sucks”, “iPhones are rubbish”, "Wood flooring is better than carpet” for example), then you get in touch with them for the first time in years by commenting, telling them you disagree and therefore they are shit.

11 – if a friend has been upset and makes a rash and heated post (“I’ve been dumped! All men are bastards!” and “I thought fans of Band X were cool, but two of them who I thought were mates called me a nonce! Fucking Band X fans!” as examples) do NOT comment with “Damn. They must’ve really upset you. Hope you’re okay.” Only concentrate on how their outburst has upset you and add to their misery. “How dare you! I like Band X! For insulting a band that is far more important to me than someone I know personally, you’re no longer my friend!” Remember that a band/book/film/etc is obviously going to be of more help in your hour of need than a real live friend.

12 – Whenever someone posts a weblink/meme/comment about yet another injustice done by the government or injustice toward certain groups such as animals (Everyone worries about tigers becoming extinct but no one worries about poor little hedgehogs getting run over) or music (people say heavy metal is shit for having lyrics like "But one fear I kept to myself/How I prayed that you loved no one else..." but RnB be is genius for having lyrics like "You a stupid/ you a, you a stupid ho!") etc., always make sure you show support to the government scumbag, NOT your friend. “ATOS forcing a woman with no arms to go for a examination in case her arms have grown back? I’d love to know where you get your facts from! I think ATOS are awesome!” ALWAYS use the line "I'd love to know where you get your facts from!" as making your friends feel like you're always against them is amazing.

13 – Leave nasty snide comments on EVERY post you read, even if the post is just your friends’ way of venting spleen. Always go by the rule of “If the dickhead didn’t want me to mock their granddad’s funeral and tell him to stop whinging about wanting a new job, he ought to bottle it up instead of being allowed to vent!” Contrary-wise, after all the grief you’ve caused, the moment gives you a dose of your own medicine, get all your cronies to rally to your cause because you can dish it out but can’t take it.

14 – Keep in regular contact with hangers-on, sycophants and those who nurture your inner “Dick head”. Never with the few decent people who genuinely look up to you because they’ve seen the decent and awesome side of you when none of those twats you hang out with were around.

15 – If someone who is cool gives you moral support by leaving one or two words of support on one of your posts, make sure you get your psychologically messed-up cronies to demand “Who the fuck is this nice supportive person?” and “How dare they support you and use your page as a soapbox, the bastard!”, as well as using your own terms like “Ignoring elephants”, “Observing the radishes” and other insane ramblings which make no sense at all. And should your friend dare to apologise for inadvertently upsetting you and your cronies, give a final twist of the knife by telling them their sincere apology has made you “Vexed” or “Irate”.

16 – If a friend works in a specific field (guitar making, mobile phones, car repair, etc.), logic dictates they will know what they are talking about. So when they express an opinion on something they deal with every day, make sure you put them down with opinions founded on what you heard in a pub or on your own fanboy knowledge. For example –

Friend – “Peavey amps/Fiat/iPhones suck, big time!”

You – “The only thing which sucks is you!”

17 – Make sure you forbid people from saying certain words, phrases and comparisons. Always be deadly serious, never do it tongue-in-cheek. Remember that, according to you, the word “Cunt” is the most offensive word ever and likening dodgy world leaders to Hitler belittles the Holocaust, yet trying to control what people say is cool and the word “Frape” doesn’t belittle rape victims because “Frape” is a cool thing to say (see point three – you can say “Frape”, but not tell a rape joke. Rape jokes are not cool, this is only an example).

18 – Contrary to point 17, if you use a certain word, phrase or comparison which has genuinely upset someone and they let you know politely, you can take umbrage at having your freedom of speech screwed with and tell them to “Fuck off and stop being so sensitive!” Remember that hypocrisy rules.

19 – Tobacco and smoking are untouchable and holy. Anyone who speaks out against smoking is evil. Even if you’ve been friends with someone for years and they’ve been nothing but complimentary, once they say something negative about smoking, they have become your nemesis. You must go psycho on them. Remove them from your friends list, stop being their friend and rally your friends to spread rumours about the non-smoking scum. Post memes about how amazing smoking is and to hell with people who may be grieving over the loss of a friend or relative who passed away from a smoking-related illness. Tobacco products have been awesome to you and everyone else who use them. What on Earth has that friend done for you except be a friend to you in good times and bad, the filth?

20 – Made no sense. Deleted.

21 – Contrary to point 20, if you see a comment or picture posted by a hate group aimed at the community you’ve decided needs to be defended by you, shit bricks in fear and say nothing. Dictating what can and cannot be said is only big and brave and tough when aiming your diatribe at friends. When dealing with real-deal bad guys, bury your head in the sand and pretend you never saw it. This has worked for cowards for thousands of years and it can work for you, too.

22 – When a friend tries to raise awareness for a good cause (stop cruelty to animals, stop ATOS ruining lives, save an historic building, etc.) get hostile with them. The bare minimum of hate which you must respond with is “You don’t change anything by posting on Facebook so stop wasting our time.” Only posts about an awful dance routine, reality TV shows or whatever else is currently dreadful and annoying the intelligent people can be considered worthy causes.

23 – At least once a month, make sure you post something about smoking or your narcotic of choice. Like saying “It’s my choice to smoke, so to hell with you!” or a pic/graph showing the benefits of heroin. It doesn’t matter if a friend had a friend or relative succumb to tobacco or drug related illnesses, they are being insensitive bastards about your addiction. Anyone who doesn’t think cancer, heart failure, overdoses, etc are cool, unfriend them immediately.

24 – Vast-sweeping comments/broad generalisations. When the opportunity rises, ALWAYS make sure to throw around terms like “Vast-sweeping comments”, “Broad generalisations” and derivatives thereof, especially if the original comment is similar to examples such as “A FEW Christian fundamentalists…” or “SOME track suit wearers…”, because words like “Few” and “Some” do NOT mean “All”, but you want the world to know how you catastrophically failed in GCSE/O-Level English Lit. So what if your friend said “A couple of…”? You go ahead and translate words like couple, few, handful and some to mean “All”.

25 – If your friends use a social networking site to be social with you, whether it’s inviting you to join an online game, right up to inviting you to a party even a wedding, you must respond with eighty different levels of anger and hate. Do these imbeciles think you’re on a social network site to be social? You’re there to be noticed, praised and worshipped for how unsocial you are!

26 – Always be hyper-choosy about who you have on you’re friends list and remain loyal to your clique of like-minded hostile arrogant twerps. Occasionally you will encounter someone who is nice, quirky, a little odd and outspoken but generally nice and accidentally add them to your friends list. But worry not because either your clique will point out your mistake or you’ll suss out the new person and you can always unfriend that interloper right away. After all, the last person you want on your friends list is someone with “A heart of gold” but is “Common as muck. Especially if you earn more than £30k per annum, have been to university, have a posh accent, only ever attend wine and cheese parties rather than go to “Shindigs”, and only ever read Booker Prise-winning books. Why sully yourself by associating with someone who likes horror movies, reads James Herbert and Franz Kafka and Catherine Cookson, likes Red Dwarf and The Mighty Boosh, laughs at sick jokes but would gladly do anything for a friend, when you have your clique of insufferable snobs who you can enjoy a good game of “Look down upon the poor” and secretly despise you behind your back?

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All in all, this is not an exhaustive list but it does give you at the very least an idea of how SOME and not ALL (see what I did there!) people can be downright nasty to folks with whom they are meant to be friends.

I understand that it’s impossible to be friends with everyone, that one person just may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and that you can’t please everyone all of the time, but there are ways and means of speaking with people and the above examples are a sure-fire way of not only how NOT to treat your friends but also a sure-fire way of making yourself damned unpopular if you DO live by these guide lines.

I know not everyone is perfect and I’m not expecting everyone to be, but it’s so infuriating to see so much hostility between people who are meant to be friends with each other. People being removed from friends list because they are sad about their partner leaving them, for wanting to host a party and for being told that a friend fancies them. People only ever getting touch in order to bring someone down.

If a friend being in need is your reason for not wanting to be your friend anymore, then you’re not much of a person. How callous and vile must someone be for only concentrating of the negative things someone says about being lonely and wishing they could find love, but ignoring all the jokes and even the fun times that have been had? How heartless to say “You’re only here to entertain me. For daring to show your human side and tell everyone you’re actually feeling depressed for being unemployed…delete.”?

And if someone does something not to your liking, like telling a Fritzl joke, or singing a Steven Lynch song, don’t try act all big and brave by telling them public absolute twaddle like “Sick jokes are my trigger for punching people like you in the face!” or “The last person who told that awful story came very close to getting their legs broken by me!” No one will think you’re big, brave and heroic. Anyone can threaten someone on the internet, especially someone who you think is a friend and won’t fight back. If you honestly feel so strongly about it then just block them.

I just thought it might be an idea to bring this to everyone’s attention. And if anyone is going to take this as a direct personal attack, don’t have a go at me for your guilty conscious. Instead, do what I do, take it on board and decide whether or not you feel you should change, apologise, or stay as you are.
Or as SOME folks like to say, stop whinging and suck it up!

Laters!

I am not a number! I am free man!

Good evening.

Most online journals begin with the author telling you about themselves. I'll come to that later. Right now, I want to talk about a subject I feel strongly about.

Online cowardice.

In particular, a very special breed of online coward, that being the people in question being all big and brave when dealing with someone who cracks a joke but then freezing with fear when dealing with a real-deal bad guy.

So imagine the scene: you're with friends either face to face or online, you're all telling jokes and you tell a sick joke. No malice, no underlying admission that you hate the type of person you're joking about, just a joke. Someone pipes up and tells you they don't like your joke and think you are a bad person for telling it.

Here are some comments from these self-righteous moral crusaders -

"Rape jokes are my trigger for hitting people like you."

"If I had heard you telling a joke like that in person, I'd have punched you."

"Making a joke about Subject X is actually worse than perpetrating it for real."

You get the idea.

Now, and this is the best bit, what happens when these Defenders of Other Peoples' Faith do when confronted with a real-deal rapist/animal abuser/neo Nazi/etc? I'll tell you what happens. That brave hero who told you he was "So close to punching your head in!" for telling a sick joke is out of the window along with his self-respect faster than you can say "Pussy".

I've stood face-to-face with a neo-Nazi and on another someone who actually bragged about raping someone. And to be fair to them I said the same to both, in so many words, that if they fucked off out off the country then I'd leave it at that, but if not then it's only the fact that we were in a public place that they're in one piece.

But the very same people who claim that as the defender of Earth it's their sacred duty to tell you "If you weren't a friend, I'd kill you for telling that joke!" are the very same people who, if confronted with someone who has actually committed the subject of the joke, would run a mile whilst screaming like a little kid being chased by the Devil himself.

So this lesson has taught us that moral crusaders are only brave when picking on friends for telling jokes. But if they see a friend in deep shit and being attacked, don't expect that moral crusader to rush to your aid as they'll be too busy rushing to the nearest panic room.

I've been on the receiving end of a verbal joke which was about something I was currently going through and I didn't find funny. I didn't make a big song and dance about it, and instead just mentioned later on when we were alone that I looked a bit glum because of the joke and all I got was "Grow up and stop being so bloody sensitive!"

Paradoxically, that very same person a few years later ticked me off in front of a large group of people...for telling a joke. Go figure...

"Control how people speak and you control how they think. Control how they think, and you have control." is not cool. It's 1984 made real.

And while we're on the subject, what is it with people going ape-shit when it comes to certain ways of expressing yourself? Like "Do NOT say such-and-such as you may offend Minority X!" or "When you make a comparison between X and Y, you're belittling what Z went through."

Point 1 - Having spoken with an old school friend who was born Pakistan, he said what he finds offensive are middle-class dolts dictating what THEY think will offend him. He went to say that he's big enough to speak up and tell people when they've offended him, which has been very rare. Would've been better if it was never, but there you go.

Point 2 - When someone likens their political leader to a despot like Pol Pot, Stalin or Hitler, it's because they feel passionately about their country and how it's being run. It's not because (and I'm quoting remarks by the so-called Intelligentsia "I've got a degree so I am better than you, prole!") they are stupid, dull-witted, moronic, uneducated, idiotic, etc. It's because treating the physically and mentally disabled as non-citizens and a burden on the state is exactly how despots in the past have treated the disabled. As for belittling what genuine victims of those despots went through, the grandfather of a friend of mine was Jewish AND went through the horror of the Holocaust, and he himself said how he felt Thatcher, Heseltine et al reminded him of a certain socialist party. Are people like him being told that by making their similes that they are belittling themselves? I won't because 1 - they were there, I wasn't. 2 - Dictating what they can and cannot say might be a bit too reminiscent for them and make them want to brain me.

All in all, please stop crusading against your friends. If you're that vehement about what others' might find offensive, tell your complaints to the BNP.