Let’s face it. We can’t live without Facebook. We love being nosy and finding out what our friends are up to. With so many social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the people that we can meet are endless. As a fan of Twitter (when I can be bothered to use it, out of sheer boredom), I am fascinated with the different types of people who follow me. For regular readers of my blog, you know I love watching documentaries, so this post is no different. The show entitled “Don’t Blame Facebook” explored different uses of social networking sites and how they don’t always work in our favour. It seems like they are more of an hinderance than help. I think everyone should be aware that you can never been too sure of who is monitoring, reading or sharing your social media timeline.
Davey Taylor was using MySpace a lot in order to update his friends about his whereabouts and what he’s getting up to. It’s amazing the type of information we give away to strangers when we are updating. Harmless, right? WRONG!!!!! After a night out from a party, he came home to find one of his MySpace followers in his BED. It seems a bit far fetched, I agree, but when he thought about some of the comments he’d been sharing, it was no surprise that the guy knew exactly where he lived. One of the comments he had shared on MySpace was “Moving into my own place tonight…. Finally some freeeeeeedom. Call me the King of George Street!” To me, this was really stupid. You wouldn’t give your address to a stranger on the street so why would you do it online? I’ve said in many posts before common sense isn’t as common as it should be. In fact, that was stupidity. The guy had convinced the flat mates that he was a friend of Davey’s in order to gain entry into the flat. It just goes to prove that you should think about what you write on the Internet. It’s so easy to want to inform everyone of your doings but you never know who is reading it. Once you publish something on the Internet, it is hard to retrieve it.
Camron Reilly was a Scots Guard employed by the Ministry of Defence to protect the Royal family days before the marriage of Kate Middleton and Prince William last year. A few days before the wedding he updated his Facebook status which read “hue and William drove past me on Friday and all I got was a sh***y wave while she looked the opposite way from me. Stupid stuck up cow am a not good enough for them! Posh bi**h … who really gives a f**k about hur”. Firstly, his spelling, punctuation and grammar makes me wonder how he got a job in the first place *rolls eyes and shakes head in disbelief*. Secondly, he has quite an important job so you’d think he’d be a bit more discreet with what he shares on Facebook. It would be really funny if the Queen herself was scrolling through her Facebook newsfeed and came across his comment. MoD were not impressed by it and questioned whether Reilly was capable of protecting the royal family and Kate Middleton, a future queen. He was given a “less glamourous” role within MoD.
There were two friends, Leigh Van Bryan and Emily Banting, who were planning a trip to L.A Hollywood. He was so excited about his trip, he constantly tweeted about it. One of the tweets were “We are totally in LA in 3 weeks on Hollywood Blvd and digging up Marilyn Monroe.” The next tweet “free this week for a quick gossip / prep before I go and destroy America?” was the one that was unknowingly going to get him in trouble when he landed at LAX airport. They searched his belongings as well as going through the content of his phone. In an interview he said “Airport security told me that how I answered his questions would determine whether or not we were allowed in. Then he asked me if I had a Twitter account, and I thought ‘Oh no he’s going to want me to follow him.’” I’m sure security have better things to do than increase the amount of Twitter followers they have. That was a really stupid thing to say, especially on national television. Silly man! Anyways, he explained to the officials that he wasn’t a terrorist and that destroy meant “drink”. They were questioned and booted out of America and sent back to England. He did admit that now, before he sends a tweet, he constantly thinks about what he is writing, how it could be misunderstood and so on. Too late, mate. You should have thought about this sooner.
Moral of the story: If you wouldn’t share certain information with strangers on the street, then don’t share it online. I’ve always thought that social media sites are more hassle than they are worth and these examples prove me right. Think twice before you click the share/send/tweet button.
I was stuck in traffic the other day and was listening to a song called ‘same love’ by Macklemore featuring Ryan Lewis. It was the first time I’d heard it and the lyrics were quite meaningful when I’d listen to them properly. Listen to the song here. Before you start thinking, no, I won’t help people promote their mixtapes on my blog. I get enough of that on Twitter. I’ll actually tell you some of the lyrics which stood out to me and made me think about them more. Before I go on, I must say that this post may start a debate. I have no problem with people expressing their opinions against my posts but I have to remind you that these are my OPINIONS. You may agree with what I’m saying, you may not. But in no way, shape or form am I trying to state facts, neither am I trying to offend. So here goes.
“The right wing conservatives think it’s a decision and you can be cured with some treatment and religion“. This prompted my thought of whether people are born gay or if they “turn” gay. A lot of people may call me ignorant, others will have strong opinions about it, but I don’t think there is a clear cut answer for this. In the song, it comes across as though people are diseased if they are gay. I don’t think you can ever win a debate as to whether being gay is right or wrong. Personally, I couldn’t care less. I’m not very keen of the practise but it is what it as. As I’ve said in a lot of posts before “different strokes for different folks”. What happens in people’s bedrooms, love lives, sex lives is nothing to do with me but it is shocking how quick some people are to form an opinion. I will definitely write a separate post about this. But until then, we’ll stick to the lyrics.
“America the brave, still fears what we don’t know and ‘God loves all his children’ is somehow forgotten but we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago.“ Debates get serious when religion is involved. The first part about about fearing what we don’t know is an interesting line. It makes it seem like there is a lot of ignorance in the world especially when it comes to homosexuality. There’s always a stigma that comes with it as it was a taboo in history. It still is, to a certain extent. I think this is the reason why people need to learn about it and deal with it because homosexuality will always exist. The second part of the lyrics is about the Holy Bible. To be honest, I kind of agree with it, in the sense that people pick and choose part of Holy scriptures that they want to in order to raise a point. I can’t mention too much about this because I’m not sure what is written in the Bible about homosexuality but I do know it is frowned upon. In most discussions about religion and homosexuality, there will always be someone who mentions Adam and Eve and how it’s the norm for a male and female to be together. However, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
The second verse of the song was very thought-provoking.
“If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me Have you read the YouTube comments lately? “Man, that’s gay” gets dropped on the daily We become so numb to what we’re saying A culture founded from oppression Yet we don’t have acceptance for ’em Call each other faggots behind the keys of a message board A word rooted in hate, yet our genre still ignores it.“.
Truthfully, the word “gay” is overused and not always in the correct context. It’s a term that is used so loosely that we actually forget what it really means. We tend to forget the deeper definition of the word as it’s become street talk now. I’m not saying that’s an excuse for people to say what they want, but it’s the world that we live in. It’s the way that the world is changing (in a bad way). The way in which gay has been used this context, linking it to hip hop, is more insightful. Music and video games receive a lot of flack about the way people view the world, in particular, women, sex, violence, drugs and so on. I know that’s slightly off topic but when you think about it, it all interlinks. Women always have amazing figures in music videos so it becomes the norm for women to have curves in the right places as well as look pretty. The men always have muscles so we expect to see that in reality too. So it’s no shock that the word ‘gay’ is being becoming a part of the norm.
“I might not be the same, but that’s not important. No freedom till we’re equal, damn right I support it.”Again, the fight for equality is hard to win but it’s worth the battle. I take my hat off for anyone who is trying to make a difference. Women have fought hard for their rights but I don’t think we’ve completely won. Now it’s time for homosexuals for fight as well. It’s not going to be easy but definitely needs to be fought for.
My Naughty Views 