Socials

What are these kids doing?

Yes, it has happened. I have got old. After years of clinging on to some notion that I may still be “with it”, I must admit defeat. Why? Social fu@#ing media of course.

I understand the reason for certain Whatsapp groups. I like some of the things that Facebook facilitates. And my brief foray into Snapchat filters kept me entertained for hours – although I don’t think I ever posted me as a Bratz doll anywhere publicly. But what is this streaks thing? Why do all of my children – yes, all of them – raise their phones to their face every hour and pull a wide-eyed, cutesy, pouty, jaunty (and often filtered) grimace-cum-gurn into the camera to share with their friends? I DO NOT GET IT.

Even Mini Seymour is doing it now. My teeny, tiny, baby child is now so au-fait with her device that she, too, is snapping and streaking, pouting and posturing, until I become concerned for what the person on the other end must think. And then I remember – they’re there, doing it too.

And then there’s TikTok. Tick Tock? Tic Tac? Anyway,the thing that used to be MusicAlly or some such nonsense, now has teens in their millions miming (often badly) to part of pop songs that are mostly stolen from us, Gen x, as Number One Child refers to us. Then they have the gall to turn to us in the car, as the radio blasts out some TLC or N-Sync, or one of the Bedingfields, and say, with a curious sneer, “How do YOU know this?”. I cannot bring myself to reply to this question ever, mostly because at the time, I AM BUSY SINGING. All the words.

Only this morning, on our way to college, radio blaring, I think I impressed Number Two with my knowledge of the banger, “Crush” by Jennifer Page. She seemed to know it, too, but soon gave up singing when it came to the chorus. Either she has only ever heard three lines of that song or … me singing it meant that she could no longer do so out of principal.

I get it, I do. I spent hours miming to songs in the mirror in the 90s, dancing badly, pretending to be a Spice Girl or one of B*witched, dreaming of a future behind a microphone, being cool, but I (mostly) didn’t film these moments.* And if I did, I never made the footage public. But although I scorn, I guess I would’ve loved to have the facility to play music in the way they can now: all the songs, all the lyrics, all the videos there, on the World Wide Web – freely accessible. My teenage music collection consisted of a double tape set of 60s songs (thank you Clairey – I loved that!), some actual records I bought in the 80s and then, that magical invention, the DVD, occasionally purchased from HMV, but often borrowed from (and returned late to)  the public library for a quid per week. I never did manage to master the art of recording mix tapes off the radio, but those were a thing, too. Oh, how the youth of today would laugh if they could see what we did to access our tunes!

And Instagram. I have tried doing Instagram. Apparently, my Instagram is “cringe”.  And to prove my children wrong, I have posted a few arty, this-is-my-life pics in recent weeks. They depict the things I get up to on a daily basis with posed, angled and edited pictures of what I see before me.   So far, we have had sandwich making, hot water bottle filling and washing drying… all totally fascinating subjects made even more so with a frame and a filter. Not.**

I must admit, posting such stuff feels pointless, not to mention totally egotistical. I mean, who is interested in the intricate minutiae of everybody else’s life? I am quite nosey and inquisitive myself, but even I have very little desire to see people’s dinner, however pretty it looks, or the view from their toilet. Or to see them get dressed, “glow-up” or squeeze their spots. And if I watch one more reel showing me how to become a yoga pro in six weeks, I will throw the bloody phone out of the window. I try to be optimistic, but this is just utter nonsense, made all the more annoying because if I hadn’t spent too long wistfully watching yoga tuition shorts, the algorithms wouldn’t be sending more my way. They know what I hanker after – and what I will never achieve. Such videos are sent from the devil, to f@ck with my mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I use devices more than I’d like to. I am no paragon of virtue, as proven by the endless ads for self-improvement coming my way, but my problem is with all of the unsolicited material out there. Some of it is crap, some of it is wrong and misleading, and the majority is opinion presented as fact for gullible (young) minds to absorb. It baffles me that we can live in a time when school kids can actively rate others publicly with impunity, and the simple screenshot can make online idiocy infinite.

And, whilst I’m ranting, what is re-posting? Is it just sharing? Even if you didn’t make the material, can you still share it? Is there a copyright issue? Is it the same as re-tweeting?  Although I never could work Twitter out anyway. (And now it is called X, I am avoiding it altogether because it sounds sinister. ) Either way, “socials” just seem like yet another method by which things can get out of hand, further and further removed from the source and the truth, distorted, misunderstood and taken to heart. A hotbed of trouble!

Maybe I am just grumpy because I can’t keep up. I had cause to message someone on SnapChat this morning and could I work out how? I could not. I pressed the screen, stared at it, shook it, but still no message was sent. Admittedly, that may be down to my ancient phone giving up the ghost, but the process was definitely not Gen X friendly. And for a while now I’ve had nightmares about needing to make a 999 call. I am pressing my phone, trying in vain to find a way to dial the number, and in the end I wake up, stressed, because I just hadn’t been able do it. This is now reflecting reality as I am spending longer and longer periods searching in vain for apps on my home screen that I simply cannot see for looking. Why IS that?

I guess all of this is to be expected. I never was keen on technology and now I have to use it. I do see its benefits BUT I will not stop protesting loudly every time I hear one of my kids watching short video after short video of some tw@t posting for posting’s sake, with no content to speak of, no message and no benefit to society whatsover.

It’s ironic, isn’t it, how hypocritical I am being right now. It’s shameful. Apologies.  My excuse?
This blog is excellent. 😉

*With the odd, excruciatingly embarrassing exception.

** Does anyone say this nowadays?