Trending topic instamemes
Twitter recently introduced a 'trending topics' sidebar, showing the most popular words/phrases over the last few minutes. This is a) pretty clever, given the volume of messages it must be parsing b) a time sink. The latter because people dream up topics on which to make very silly jokes, 'tagging' them with a keyword like #whymonkeysareawesome or #thingsivehadupmynose. I then feel obliged to join in, and the situation naturally degrades into total filth. Witness the results of #whensweetsgobad:
- Wether's Reject
- Poolos
- SARS Bar
- Sknickers
- Sugar-daddy mice
- KitCat Chunky
- Curlies-wurly
- Cream Egg
- Turkish Delilah
- Minnie Eggs
- Bendicks Mingeles1
- Chocolatey Claires
I couldn't bring myself to submit 'Stick of Cock' or 'Jewsters'. Much time is spent clicking on the trending topic to see everyone else's ideas: 'Milf duds' was a favourite, and I gave up when some genius posted 'Menstruals'. Then there was the less dirty but equally addictive #unlikelysequels:
- Turns Out, Breakable
- Being John Major
- When Harry Met Cindy
- The Terminal: This Time It Just Might Be
- The Land About Now
- Frost/Grossman
- Mamma: MIA
- The Abyss 2: Polyfilla
- Saving Private Equity
- Blade Roller
- The Grapes of Nom
- Groundhog D-Day
It's actually ridiculous fun, and a new type of thing: twitter's instant broadcast-messaging is really quite remarkable. But it eats my evenings.
(apologies for the title: I can't decide whether 'instameme' is a terrible thing to do to the English language.)
- I apologised for this one, and a friend remarked he'd never be able to look at them the same way again [↩]
Where Were You When
Paul tagged me in the Where Were You When meme.
Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997
In bed. My radio alarm clock came on, and I couldn't work out why Extra AM (now long-defunct, but I can still hear the jingles) was playing endless classical music. And then the hourly news came on. I went to Drayton Manor Park that day. Everybody seemed to move slowly, and it rained.
Margaret Thatcher's resignation - 22 November 1990
No idea. I was seven, so probably under my mother's feet.
Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001
In my car, sitting at a junction right here. I heard the breaking news alert on the Steve Wright show. Being the innocent that I was, I assumed it was due to some awful navigation-system problem.
England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany in - 4 July 1990
Was this the one where Paul Gascoigne cried? I have a vague memory of seeing that. It's unlike me to watch football, though, and memories from that long ago (particularly of famous images) aren't reliable. So I don't know.
President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963
I wasn't even an idea for a picnic. Hell, my parents weren't at secondary school yet.
Most people have been tagged already...open to anybody interested.
Infectious suicides
Update: Ben Goldacre points out that a) there is no suicide chain - the numbers are pretty much average, and the local journalist suggests it's more to do with the death of a pretty young girl attracting media attention and b) some cretin is claiming it's caused by mobile phone radiation.
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The spate of teenage suicides around Bridgend is pretty horrific, and has the media speculating about cults. The police have found no links, though, and they suggest the blame lies with the media coverage. This topic comes up in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point:
One chapter, for example, deals with the very strange epidemic of teenage suicide in the South Pacific islands of Micronesia. In the 1970's and 1980's, Micronesia had teen suicide rates ten times higher than anywhere else in the world. Teenagers were literally being infected with the suicide bug, and one after another they were killing themselves in exactly the same way under exactly the same circumstances. We like to use words like contagiousness and infectiousness just to apply to the medical realm. But I assure you that after you read about what happened in Micronesia you'll be convinced that behavior can be transmitted from one person to another as easily as the flu or the measles can.
There's obviously a difference in time periods and area size, but Gladwell had more subtle examples1:
In his study of motor fatalities, Phillips found a clear pattern. [Media stories] about suicides resulted in an increase in single-car crashes where the victim was the driver. Stories about suicide-murders resulted in an increase in multiple-car crashes in which the victims included both drivers and passengers. Stories about young people committing suicide resulted in more traffic fatalities involving young people. Stories about older people committing suicide resulted in more traffic fatalities involving older people.
What do you do about this? Media blackouts would seem to be an unreasonable request (although any hint of glamorisation should obviously be nuked from orbit), but still...
Meme Cats
Meme Cats. Warning: this website will suck out your productivity. Possibly forever. I mean this.
Language not safe for work. Because people at work don't know any bad words. Or something.
Taking pride
I was tagged with the 10 Things I Would Never Do meme this week. It's a strange little thing, and the temptation is to extol what I see as my virtues. However, there are always hypothetical situations in which I could see myself doing anything (so speaks the secular humanist in me), and I couldn't come up with much. Maybe that's taking the whole thing too seriously, but there's another sense that's been picked up by some participants: one in which they list things they're proud of not having done. And that quickly gets snide.
I'd guess the meme was originally inspired by the Daily Telegraph's aren't-we-clever impromptu feature in which letter-writers proclaim their pride at having never seen The Sound of Music, for example. A few people mentioned it to me this week. It's vaguely amusing until you realise that most of the contributors are totally serious, then it's just sad. Tom Hamilton puts it exactly right:
Again, there is nothing wrong with not doing any of these things. But there's nothing wrong with doing them, either. And if you're proud of not doing something, then there's a strong implication that you think that that failure makes you superior to people who do do those things. It's not just that you don't much like the taste of Coca-Cola, or are diabetic, or on balance prefer Dr Pepper, or are an alcoholic: it's that you have refused, on principle, ever to try Coca-Cola - that you are so closed-minded and so full of hatred for everything you think that Coca-Cola represents that you are not even prepared to give it a chance. Why would you do that?
Quite. Is it the laziest way to feel good about yourself? To see virtue in something which requires just the one negative thought? It's really, really easy to do. I've never got around to reading The Great Gatsby, and everybody tells me how wonderful it is. Well, dammit, who are these people to tell me what to do? I hadn't thought about it until just now, but my not-having-read-it makes a statement that I won't be lectured to or told what to think, and I'm arbitrarily proud of that! Hurray - instant self-esteem in a big bottle of Ignorant Smug Juice. I shall tell people.
I've never watched I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here because it doesn't appeal to me, and I sometimes catch myself wanting to tell people this when the show comes up in conversation. Why would I want to do that? To make people feel bad about themselves? So that I can feel superior? Probably the latter, but it's just an appalling way to think, and I kick myself mentally whenever it happens.
This kind of thinking is easy to pick out, because it can't be reversed. If you're proud of never having had a Coca-Cola because of their business practices, what you're actually proud of is a positive thing: you've looked at the situation and logically concluded that you don't want to support the company. But if you're proud of never having had a Coca-Cola because you just are, or because it's (horror) popular, what are you actually saying? What are you adding to anything? Like Tom says, such pride only indicates you're closed-minded and full of hate. Why define yourself by what you are not, rather than what you are?
I verb
Originally spotted at Rullsenberg Rules, this should have been quick and easy. Hours, it took. Nobody tagged me, so I guess you could call it masturbatory memeing:
I am wondering why anybody would drink cider from a lemon
I want to attend a friend's wedding. Nobody's even engaged as yet, so it could be a long wait.
I wish ironing wasn't so bloody dull
I hate cynicism
I love the happiness of the first few repititions of a really great song
I miss having somebody there
I fear getting depressed
I hear Embrace's 'Ashes', right now. Is cool.
I wonder why people hate Heather Mills McCartney so much
I regret not doing a better job on my secondary school yearbook, which I edited
I am not very good at face-to-face debate
I dance the first foxtrot weave without a problem, then fail spectacularly at the second, which involves the exact same steps with a different intro
I sing when washing up, then remember I'm standing in front of a window
I cry at the briefest moment of selfless heroism. Really. Don't come see United 93 with me.
I make really bad mashed potato.
I write because, as somebody I've forgotten said, it's the only time I don't feel like I should be doing something else
I confuse bonobos, chimps, gibbons, etc. The names, you understand. I don't just go around confusing gibbons. Well, sometimes.
I need to keep my flat tidy, or I get all stressed about it
I should join some local social group
I start many computer games
I finish few computer games
Question Meme
A surprisingly time-consuming meme spotted at normblog.
- My uncle once: fell into a volcano, but managed to climb back out
- Never in my life: have I seen 'The Great Escape'
- When I was five: I broke my arm by falling from the arm of a chair
- High School is: on the whole, bloody awful. College is much better.
- My parents are: exceptionally reasonable people
- I once met: a man who asked, repeatedly, "does your husband work?" I eventually answered in the negative, and ran away
- There's this girl I know who: sent me an anthropomorphic orange
- Once, at a bar: I told a joke and slowly became aware that every table was quietening down to listen
- Last night: Lynsey and I danced to three successive sambas
- Next time I go to church: I'll become annoyed by the gross exploitation.
- When I turn my head left, I see: a puppet, a sofa and a small, rather cute, christmas tree
- When I turn my head right, I see: some washing-up that needs tidying away
- How many days until my birthday?: 154 (hint)
- If I was a character written by Shakespeare I'd be: Mercutio
- By this time next year: I hope to have written a novel I'm happy to show people
- A better name for me would be: Zacharias Randallian
- I have a hard time understanding: spiteful people
- If I ever go back to school I: will study more science
- You know I like you if: I find rather spurious reasons to talk to you
- If I won an award, the first person I'd thank would be: my parents
- Take my advice: if something doesn't feel right, don't do it and don't apologise - it's the only way to sleep at night
- My ideal breakfast is: a fresh baguette with jam, and a cup of tea
- If you visit my hometown: come say hello
- Why won't someone: tell me whether I'm allowed a minidish outside my flat
- If you spend the night at my house: we should take a walk around the streets while they're quiet
- I'd stop my wedding: if something awful happened in the world. I think.
- The world could do without: scientology
- I'd rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: go to a boxing match
- Paper clips are more useful than: imperial measurements
- If I do anything well, it is: resist eating Easter Eggs until they go off
- And by the way: there's a new Katie Melua song on her latest single; it's called 'Pictures on a Video Screen', and is lovely.
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
Recent Comments
- vicky: going up this weekend having done all the welsh peaks except 4 snowdon, cant wait
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: what, how can u live in the 21 c and say that, probably a sexist thing
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: da iawn laura, cant believe what im hearing, all this fuss, anyway love the site, and i agree, normal people who swear and curse clomb mountains cos we live in the...
on Climbing Snowdon. - Andrew: Did a few quick test shots to check the light levels, then balanced the camera on the arm of a bench, set it for a 20s exposure and hoped for the best
on ISS. - lynsey: Wow, how did you take that photograph?
on ISS.
