There Is No Plan

In the real world friendship is a big deal. It has meaning. It has to be earned. Losing it can be devastating.

But in the detached, bloodless world of the Social Network much of that meaning is lost. It’s almost as if the same word is used to describe two states that differ profoundly.

There’s a very good reason that social networks use the term ‘friend’. Simply put, it’s good for business. It adds value to what they do. If Facebook were to suggest we “find new acquaintances” or “make new connections” they’d still be operating out of Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room. Connections work for LinkedIn, which has at its core a non-social, almost clinical networking purpose, but “Friend” is a big word, a simple, profound and potentially profitable word. It’s a critical source of Facebook’s success. But the use of the term isn’t at all convincing, and far worse, is damaging and socially corrosive. The Social Network commoditizes and verbifies friendship, appropriating its value along the way, and demeaning the very concept of friendship – which is after all part of the glue that holds humanity together.

It’s the sanitized uniformity at the core of Social Networking that is also its profound weakness. For real life friends, the social network is essentially superfluous. Real friendships don’t need the artificial landscape of Facebook. They did very nicely before it came along, for thousands of years in fact. For obscure acquaintances, and former friends one has lost touch with etc, the term “friend” invites expectations that almost certainly will not be met. The constant swirl of meaningful friendships subtly devalued by the flat-lining semantics of the social network and those meaningless ‘friendships’ overvalued by the same social network make for a rather dysfunctional, intimacy free landscape, driven by habit, marketing, and an unnatural distortion of human relationships.

In short, they are a geek’s paradise. Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t ask why, but I just relistened to Dolly Parton’s song, “9 to 5″ for the first time in many years. Even though it was written thirty years ago, it’s an anthem for the times we’re living in. It reminded me that the harsh recession (and maybe depression) we’re in isn’t just about economic statistics, or even jobs lost or lives destroyed, it’s about who we, as Americans, are at our very core.

Take a listen, study the lyrics.

Tumble outta bed

Dolly in "9 to 5". Her fellow secretaries were played by Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, at the time two of the most politically progressive actors in Hollywood.

And stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawnin, stretchin, try to come to life
Jump in the shower
And the blood starts pumpin
Out on the streets
The traffic starts jumpin
And folks like me on the job from 9 to 5
Chorus:

Workin 9 to 5
What a way to make a livin
Barely gettin by
Its all takin
And no givin
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
Its enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it

9 to 5, for service and devotion
You would think that i
Would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead
But the boss won’t seem to let me in
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me
Mmmmm… Read the rest of this entry »

whither twitter as celebrity mouthpiece

PREAMBLE

We, the people who populate Twitter, in pursuit of a more perfect and democratic social media world, believe that all twitterers are created equal. Twitter is a community, vibrant, electric, ever-changing, and not necessarily like-minded, nor in agreement about anything at all, but for one inviolable truth, that all twitterers are created equal, that the moment you add your username and password, and for the duration of your active use of Twitter, you become part of the community, or “conversation” as it is known among Tweetsters.

But as in all communities, there are those who choose to abuse the proud and ennobling rights of expression granted to them as Twitmeisters. Among those whose action we twitsters do not condone are spammers, overt marketers and proselytisers and most importantly those who take from Twitter but give nothing to its community in return.

THE STATE OF TWITTER

As Twitter has risen in cultural importance, it has attracted a group of people who often, although by no means exclusively, fall into this final category.

This group of people is known as celebrities. Celebrities come from many walks of life, but included among them are the following; performers of popular music, actors in feature films or television programs, leading professional sportsmen and women, popular newscasters and anchors; and politicians or other public figures. Celebrities, by definition, share one trait. They are famous, and as such create a variety of often conflicting impulses in those blessed by anonymity. These include a desire to welcome, please, serve and otherwise connect with a given celebrity on the one hand, and the desire – often borne of schadenfreude or jealousy – to tear down said celebrity.

The traits listed above, exhibited by most non-celebrities in one form or another, even those who profess disinterest in celebrity, are borne of the fact that celebrities are regarded as different, in some ways superior, by virtue of their fame. There is nothing wrong with this phenomenon in itself. It might indeed be an unavoidable, perhaps even primal human response. However, in certain fora, this form of social stratification has no place. Read the rest of this entry »

you wanna see my resume?

Ted Kennedy, one of the scions of the family, is sadly unlikely to serve much longer in the Senate. Before this week when his niece Caroline decided she’d kind of like to be a Senator too, that would have left only one Kennedy left in Congress, Ted’s son Patrick, elected as a Congressman for Rhode Island in 1994, at the highly qualified age of 27. Since then he’s driven drunk into the Capitol building, and checked in to rehab for an Oxycontin addiction, both sterling qualificiations to be a Kennedy in Congress, no doubt. His signature achievement appears to be, well, being a Kennedy.

To suggest there are double standards for the Kennedys is just too shocking for words to many, but at least the raw political savegery that put Sarah Palin into a position of prominence has nothing whatsoever to do with her name or family. Caroline Kennedy just gets to make a phone call to be considered for an “appointment” to office. Palin at least had to be elected Governor of Alaska. One can understand LBJ’s feelings about the Kennedy’s. He was a poor boy from Texas made good. The Kennedys were America’s blessed, for reasons which to some extent remain a mystery. Read the rest of this entry »

all children have a gift, not just some

America likes to tout the well-worn myth to its young that if you work hard and persevere you can be anything you want to be. The implication of the propaganda is that there’s a level playing field in this country. That “anyone” can get a piece of the American Dream. It’s a great big lie of course, because America also has an obession with predetermined “chosenness.” We love the idea that some are destined for greatness – which flies in the face of the concept that everyone has a shot at it. But then myths always trump reality, because they’re usually so much more pleasant to ponder when you’re bored shitless at the office. Maybe it’s you that’s going to hit the big time.

There are many clues that lead to the not so bold assumption that the American Dream is a crock; the massive wealth gap, the ghettoization and subtle apartheid that pervades vast swathes of the nation, American gullibility, the proven statistical lack of social mobility in this country. Even the recession is unfair. It’s the poor bums who got tricked into buying a house they couldn’t afford with a time-bomb mortgage that are getting the worst of it.

But there’s one area where the American lie is particularly irksome and that’s education. The harsh realities of inequality are more painful when you’re dealing with the innocent. And the bad hands are dealt from the very beginning. I was recently chatting to a friend who told me of an incident that took place when she was very young. She lived with her uncle and aunt, and her cousin one day informed her bluntly,

“I’m gifted and you’re not.” Read the rest of this entry »

paris and her dog

The zeitgeist is a truly fascinating thing. A few years back we couldn’t get enough of the woman on the left. Her name is Paris Hilton, in case you’d forgotten and she was everywhere, including for a short while she’d rather forget in jail. She spawned an entire species of young women walking around with blonde hair, big sunglasses, bright fashionable clothes, and a small dog, usually cupped in a shapely, nicely tanned arm.

It’s a sign of how far the Paris icon has fallen that we’re going to be focusing on the dog, rather than the celebrity. It was the dog that deliberately epitomized the doting decadence of the boom years. A pampered little yapper that was essentially a rat with a bow on its head, Paris and her dog spawned an entire industry of mini-dog-bags, mini-dog beds, and mini-dog accessories, much of it with the moniker of the great Hilton herself. Read the rest of this entry »

When American kids thinks of trains…

…do they think of this?

Engine 382, where Casey Jones had his Finest Hour. It lives in Tennessee.

….or this?

Thomas, based on an English Suburban Locomotive

I’m afraid it’s the latter.

I know an awful lot about Thomas the Tank Engine. I make it my business to know in detail what my children are interested in, and my son’s choo-choo obsession is no exception. He loves Thomas, the anthropamorphic tale of railroad life on the mythical Island of Sodor. He was also very impressed when last week we visited a great railroad museum just west of downtown Los Angeles. It was there that I realized a small cultural tragedy had taken place. Read the rest of this entry »

Tragedy on Black Friday morning.

The 34-year-old employee, who was not identified, was knocked down by a crowd that broke down the doors of the Wal-Mart at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y., and surged into the store. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 6 a.m.

Who’s responsible for this?

During the election campaign, Palin and McCain were chastised for not stopping people in their crowds from crying racial epithets and worse at Obama. That’s nothing compared to Black Friday. At least nobody got hurt.

But it’s just fine for Walmart, Target, and all the other Crap pushers to prime the crap junkie mob with massive come-ons to buy more cheap stuff. The ads go out, the mob get up at 2 a.m, arrive at the locked doors at the same time, the group mentality gathers pace, adrenaline is running high, there’s a push from the back of the crowd, the mob surges. The doors give way. Everyone rushes in and some poor employee in the wrong place gets trampled to death. Read the rest of this entry »

it ain't easy to kick the habit

You gotta love economists. In way more complicated language than is necessary, they tell us the party’s over for our free spending ways. It’s time to save. We leveraged ourselves up to the eyeballs for a flat screen TV. It’s time to save. We bet the housing market would go up forever and we were wrong. It’s time to save. We’re all broke. We’re worried about our jobs, we’re upside-down on our houses, our retirement plans are in tatters. Winter’s coming and the recession’s on. The economists tell us it’s time to save.

Of course, that makes fabulous sense economically, but it doesn’t add up spiritually. Did the consumer boom of the last twenty-five years truly change us? I think so. I think it’s in our blood. I think it’s the reason we’re more obese than ever and only as green as is fashionable. Can we go back to our parents’ thrifty ways, when polyester was where it was at, and Wham! a really big deal. I think not. Read the rest of this entry »

home wrecker

It’s a startling statistic. Over 50% of people who marry before the age of 24 get divorced, as opposed to only 5% of people who get married after the age of 35.

Of course there are many reasons. Most of them have to do with maturity, like for example, people under 24 are more prone to be swayed by the lyrics of the countless sappy love songs that fill their ipods.

It stands to reason, if song after song keeps telling you “you’re the one”, “there’s nobody else like you” etc etc etc, you’re going to be disappointed when real life sets in.

Less syrupy and unrealistic love lyrics equals lower divorce rates. Perhaps it’s time for songs to carry a warning.

“The publisher, distributor and artists of [insert song title here] in no way endorse familial happiness or passion, and the lyrics of this song are not to be seen as an implicit promise of success in a given relationship. Individual listeners remain responsible for their own romantic liaisons in every respect.”