The Fucking Internet, Fucking Facebook, etc.

[MrsGamp]

Remember when taking photos of yourself incessantly would've been seen as shameful and masturbatory? No? Well it was. In 1986 only weirdos, shut ins, and serial killers took photos of themselves....
Another thing us robust oldsters may remember fondly was phone numbers. And phone books. You had this physical actual, like, BOOK. Anyone who knew the ABC song (or "app") from Sesame Street could use it. You looked up the name of whatever bastard shop or cynical doctor or dickheaded sexual partner you wanted to contact. Their bollocking name would be displayed in small but distinctive black ink in "Phone Book". Next to this would be a number. You "read" it. Then You "dialled" it and within seconds you would be "talking" verbally, using "speech" - for better or worse.
There were disadvantages. It was, for example, much faster. Also you had to make eye contact with people on trains, etc.
And you couldn't take photos of yourself in bathroom
mirrors wearing weird bronzer and showing off your bollocking suspect boobs/gym narc musculature. Or hassle people with 40,000 pictures per day of your new shoes/child/car/job.
C'est la vie. Sometimes I think Facebook would be even MORE BETTER if people were only allowed to upload pictures of themselves shoplifting, cadging or weeping into a cheap glass of port...

 

[MrsGamp]

ps I know the above outburst is both unoriginal and dated. But by Christmas this year all that will remain of me is an Eye and two monstrous thumbs.

 

[Fairy of the Flowers]

And who used to take photos of they're food, take the camera spool to be developed and wait a few days for the to print the photos, then when you collected them you'd show your mates lots of photos of what you ate that week

No it didn't hapoen. STOP TAKING PICS OF FOOD AND UPLOAD TO FACEBOOK IT'S PATHETIC LOL

 

[MrsGamp]

Oh I LOATHE the food on facebook thing. Does it still happen? I used to work with a girl who did that ...

I'm gonna get a MySpace account. I checked and it still exists ...

 

[MrsGamp]

And who used to take photos of they're good, take the camera spool to be developed and wait a few dad's for the to print the photos, then when you collected them yid show your mates lots of photos of what you ate that week

No it didn't hapoen. STOP TAKING PICS OF FOOD AND UPLOAD TO FACEBOOK IT'S PATHETIC LOL

Lol idea of photographing your "breakfast meeting" or what you ate in that new seafood place or yourself in the bathroom mirror flexing your muscles ... but circa 1988 ... is hilarious. HIlARIOUS. Honestly, that's a great premise for a short story. An insanely entitled twenty year old with a big following on Instagram wakes up one day to find ... not that she has been transformed into a giant cockroach ... but even worse.

It is 1983. She does not know it.

Aside from people being perplexed by her insane antics with photos (on disposable camera from supermarket, capacity perhaps twenty photos), she could also be appalled by people smoking in restaurants and expecting her to answer her landline phone. Which in itself is a puzzle, with it's spiraling cord and plug and lack of ring tone options and no call display ...

 

[MrsGamp]

The

Lol idea of photographing your "breakfast meeting" or what you ate in that new seafood place or yourself in the bathroom mirror flexing your muscles ... but circa 1988 ... is hilarious. HIlARIOUS. Honestly, that's a great premise for a short story. An insanely entitled twenty year old with a big following on Instagram wakes up one day to find ... not that she has been transformed into a giant cockroach ... but even worse.

It is 1983. She does not know it.

Aside from people being perplexed by her insane antics with photos (on disposable camera from supermarket, capacity perhaps twenty photos), she could also be appalled by people smoking in restaurants and expecting her to answer her landline phone. Which in itself is a puzzle, with it's spiraling cord and plug and lack of ring tone options and no call display ...

The gyms smell of sweat and have insufficient mirrors ... gluten intolerance is not yet acknowledged ... why do people have such yellow teeth and where will she go to get her eyebrows threaded?

 

[BK38]

Lol idea of photographing your "breakfast meeting" or what you ate in that new seafood place or yourself in the bathroom mirror flexing your muscles ... but circa 1988 ... is hilarious. HIlARIOUS. Honestly, that's a great premise for a short story. An insanely entitled twenty year old with a big following on Instagram wakes up one day to find ... not that she has been transformed into a giant cockroach ... but even worse.

It is 1983. She does not know it.

Aside from people being perplexed by her insane antics with photos (on disposable camera from supermarket, capacity perhaps twenty photos), she could also be appalled by people smoking in restaurants and expecting her to answer her landline phone. Which in itself is a puzzle, with it's spiraling cord and plug and lack of ring tone options and no call display ...

I like how she's a perplexed girl, trapped in a time travelling cockroach that takes pictures of itself (herself?)

 

[thujone]

Back in the 80s there were people that loved taking Polaroid pictures of everyday people/stuff/events, sometimes they would send those to someone by snail mail. It wasn't that much different except there was more effort involved so people didn't just try to capture everything like some do today.

Maybe all we need is a social network like that, where you have to physically mail in a Polaroid picture in order to have it uploaded to your profile page

 

[MrsGamp]

Back in the 80s there were people that loved taking Polaroid pictures of everyday people/stuff/events, sometimes they would send those to someone by snail mail. It wasn't that much different except there was more effort involved so people didn't just try to capture everything like some do today.

Maybe all we need is a social network like that, where you have to physically mail in a Polaroid picture in order to have it uploaded to your profile page

That's a lovely idea!

You know I really miss writing and receiving actual letters too ....up until the early 90s I wrote everything in longhand, including university assignments. Now I write so seldom with a pen that my hand writing looks sort of weird - like a child's.

There was a young man murdered in the UK by his gay lover. The latter tried to make it look like suicide and penned a fake suicide note. When the cops showed the note to the murdered boy's parents they could not tell whether he had written it or not because they had no idea what his handwriting looked like.

That detail really depressed me,

 

[thujone]

That is sad. I don't know about the future of literacy with the reduced attention span of people caused by the overflow of digital information reduced to clickbait and bite-sized factoids. Many youth don't read books or know how to spell anymore.

When I talk to some kids these days their conspicuous lack of knowledge related to what was part of the core educational curriculum when I grew up is baffling. Unfortunately I think this is a negative omen for the future of our civilization.

I like to still keep notes on paper and pad, even though it's horribly disorganized compared to my methods of organizing notes digitally. On the rare chance I get to trip, especially on mushrooms, I find myself writing beautifully in cursive like I used to often. It's hypnotic to let the hand move across the page letting out little squiggles of art and prose.

 

[MsDiz]

We have to write everything by hand at work which makes sense because it’s notes and what not then transfer to computer. So I guess it’s more like drs handwriting where we use a lot of shorthand.

I have made it a point to still write to my friends in aus by snail mail. We send postcards and whatever once a month to each other. I’ve a whole wall with loads of cards and stuff from them and I love it.

My son is also encouraged to write. He writes to his grandparents who live a good bit away and he has 2 pen pals, one in Germany and one in Norway. He loves reading and writing thank fuck and he has excellent penmanship but then we worked really hard on that. I think too many parents use the screen as a baby sitter now and don’t interact with their kids. Not saying I’m perfect, I’m far from it and he does get way too much screen time but I have tried to make sure some solid basic things are being taught to him.

As for the picture thing, I love looking at pictures. Even disgusting food ones. I just love seeing glimpses to other people’s lives. It interests me. Maybe I’m weird. Haha

 

[thujone]

I have made it a point to still write to my friends in aus by snail mail. We send postcards and whatever once a month to each other. I’ve a whole wall with loads of cards and stuff from them and I love it.

Same! My board got completely filled up, and I literally can't read anyone's handwriting. It's like being blind, I have no idea what any of it means until someone reads it to me

 

[Joey]

It's probably (definitely) a generation difference but the pictures thing has become so normalized to me that I've found myself well entrenched in the pictures of everything culture. It's silly yeah, but it's just one of those things that comes along with free access to whatever, whenever, anytime. I'm not gonna knock it.

(On the internet for 24ish years from a child)

I do write a lot on paper though, in cursive. I feel an obligation to hold that torch. Can't just lose everything up to and including basic legible handwriting to the phone.

 

[lovemissile66]

I'm with you, MrsGamp! I lament the days of yore, when you made a phone call and maybe the person you were calling picked up or maybe not. IT WAS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD. Jesus, when did
every damn thing become so urgent??! Like, call me if the house is on fire, someone is dying/dead. I would chuck my cellphone in the lake if I could. I guess, I could. I just had a landline reinstalled and a total of 3 people have the number. My anxiety levels have dropped considerably. My daughter shuts her cell off completely for days because she's inundated with texts...hundreds. Fuck that nonsense.
Are people really that surprised there is such a need for antidepressants/anti-anxiety meds? And how sad to watch folks in restaurants (pre-COVID), stare into their respective screens instead of being able to talk with one another.
I'm also the weirdo that still writes letters longhand, sends them via snail mail. And quite possibly I believe cursive is no longer taught in school. Sadly, I know teens that cannot tell time unless its digital.
Okay, thanks! done ranting!

 

[bongdong]

Haha, nice thread. I also have a natural talent/tendency for ranting on how a lot of things were better in the old days, even though it's not necessarily true and a waste of time essentially.

I remember the mystery of standing in front of the ringing phone *rrrrrrr rrrrrrr rrrrrrr*, having absolutely no clue who's at the other end. And people misreading/-dialing phone numbers, basically calling strangers, was a common occasion.

I like to still keep notes on paper and pad, even though it's horribly disorganized compared to my methods of organizing notes digitally. On the rare chance I get to trip, especially on mushrooms, I find myself writing beautifully in cursive like I used to often. It's hypnotic to let the hand move across the page letting out little squiggles of art and prose.

I usually take a lot of notes on paper in general too. One day, as i was under the influence of a substance, taking notes, i was able to switch to my fathers unique style of handwriting. And then, at will, i could switch over to my mothers! This was a really magic moment, to see their legacy flowing through my hands right on to the paper. Usually i can recognize a mixture of both of their styles in my own writing, but in that situation i could distinctively channel each of them seperatly. That was special..

As for FB: did away with that YEARS ago. Also got sick and tired of wasting data on seeing what somebody just had for breakfast! Lol! Sad part about THIS though: it's become difficult, if not impossible, to conduct a business WITHOUT having accounts with the whole bunch e.g. FB, Twitter, and the other usual suspects. And now they're talking about implants so you don't even need a phone or notebook or iPad to read this shit and make or receive phone calls. Nah. I drew my line in the sand a long time ago. Not going to happen! Lol!

I also quite this social media stuff a long time ago. If that means i'm excluded, so be it. My thinking is, if something is not worth the effort to write me an E-Mail, then it's probably not that important (almost like a spam filter). Turns out, very few things are these days.
And its true, the business world is shoving these things onto people. The rat race for attention forces one into digital prostitution if you want a slice of the market pie, selling ones fake online-persona. But i think the internet in general is a fantastic thing, although the way we use it ..tells a lot of our collective psychology. Aaaaanyway.

 

[Japhy Ryder]

That is sad. I don't know about the future of literacy with the reduced attention span of people caused by the overflow of digital information reduced to clickbait and bite-sized factoids. Many youth don't read books or know how to spell anymore.

When I talk to some kids these days their conspicuous lack of knowledge related to what was part of the core educational curriculum when I grew up is baffling. Unfortunately I think this is a negative omen for the future of our civilization.

I like to still keep notes on paper and pad, even though it's horribly disorganized compared to my methods of organizing notes digitally. On the rare chance I get to trip, especially on mushrooms, I find myself writing beautifully in cursive like I used to often. It's hypnotic to let the hand move across the page letting out little squiggles of art and prose.

I chatted online a while back with a bunch of folks around the topic of do kids read, what do they read, and a crotchety old person zone for us all, do they read classics or anything previous to contemporary books. it was interesting as their were parents, some teachers, a librarian and an academic researching children's lit. the gist was kids read. a lot. They read a lot of what would look trashy or silly to us (captain underpants. a thousand young adult fantasies simpering love triangles.).

but they often don't read or know about Poe, or Twain, Conan Doyle. My nephew watched a film adaption of Call of the Wild. had no idea it was a book, never heard of London. He wasn't interested. I have a grown daughter who when i rarely saw her would tell me she loved books (so i always brought her books). she never read them and over time i realized she didn't read at all. If I took her in a bookstore, she was bored and daydreamed--she actually never paid attention to the shelves, like they weren't there. I started thinking about home, my apt was wall to wall books, that she had never been the slightest bit curious about. People who like books gravitate to people's shelves, they can't not do it. I think she just thought saying she liked books was the right answer given my habits.

Neither my nephews and nieces, nor my daughter will watch anything that isn't contemporary to themselves same way they won't touch old books. I don't even know how she could be my kid. But that's weird, isn't it? When I was small we had several public/state broadcast channels, and also got two American versions of the same (PBS channels). Just on those, I had a steady diet of old b/w movies dating to the thirties. Everything from comedy franchises like Ma and Pa Kettle and Francis the talking Mule, oh and Andy Hardy, to practically an education in film noir. our provincial channel had a host for these films, and you would get a little talk, some context, an interview with a surviving director or actor, etc.My folks had a projector too, and the library loaned reels and i got to see even older movies, shorts, silent films and the early comics--Chaplin, Keaton, Oliver and Hardy. Then there was the late night B-movie double bill sci-fi/horror from the 40s-60s. I don't get it. It just never would have occured to me to have the age of the media as a criteria about viewing. Maybe it was just different. Theatres very regularly played older films. a lot of what I saw in theatres as a kid were movies from before i was born

The few kids I have interacted with also seem to know little and have little interest in knowing anything, but paradoxically, they are always laden down with mountains of homework. They also cram more than our curriculums were. They condense the material and the kids do it younger. i was crazy when the niece and nephew were doing Kindergarten, gr 1, gr 2, and they had fairly advanced math and science stuff. When i was in kindergarten, we coloured, were taught not to run even with safety scissors, and we ate paste a lot. Grade one and two, they were still teaching the kids the numbers, and tedious rote phonics. I had picked up reading a couple of years before this and endured regular corporal punishment for getting into mischief all the time because i was so bored. I've rambled off topic. Point is, at least where I live, those poor kids do mountains of homework. They look ridiculous in the school yard, like turtles. They all have these big backpacks filled with textbooks every day, so heavy they hunch over and walk like hunchback zombies.

I don't have any nostalgia for pens. I went to remedial penmanship every year in grade school. By twelve I was typing, on a typewriter and a home computer. Typed everything--school work, my own stories, to do lists, inventories of comics, etc. I stayed on an electric typewriter until I was about 28-30 before switching reluctantly to a computer. I corresponded copiously with many distance friends as we all wandered, usually 10-15 page letters, on a pretty weekly basis. letter writing was a lot of my personal life. LOL, nothing has changed, most of anything i communicate is mediated by the screen, I just don't have personal relationships, pushed them all away years ago during a difficult period of complicated grief. Now, I meet people, say, on facebook, but then I alienate them because I've become really oppositional, argumentative and fierce in some areas that i am always a minority position. I will likely do that here as well.

 

[MrsGamp]

I'm with you, MrsGamp! I lament the days of yore, when you made a phone call and maybe the person you were calling picked up or maybe not. IT WAS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD. Jesus, when did
every damn thing become so urgent??! Like, call me if the house is on fire, someone is dying/dead. I would chuck my cellphone in the lake if I could. I guess, I could. I just had a landline reinstalled and a total of 3 people have the number. My anxiety levels have dropped considerably. My daughter shuts her cell off completely for days because she's inundated with texts...hundreds. Fuck that nonsense.
Are people really that surprised there is such a need for antidepressants/anti-anxiety meds? And how sad to watch folks in restaurants (pre-COVID), stare into their respective screens instead of being able to talk with one another.
I'm also the weirdo that still writes letters longhand, sends them via snail mail. And quite possibly I believe cursive is no longer taught in school. Sadly, I know teens that cannot tell time unless its digital.
Okay, thanks! done ranting!

Great rant ...

I have actually thrown two mobile phones not in the lake, but in the toilet. Because my ex kept wanting to read all my texts etc to see if I was "betraying" him or secretly recording him, etc etc.

I was living in women's shelter's for about six months last year, and a lot of the other women there couldn't have mobile [phones at all because their violent ex partners were always able to locate them, even if the "show my location" app was turned off. There are some very sneaky surveillance apps around ...

 

[MrsGamp]

I chatted online a while back with a bunch of folks around the topic of do kids read, what do they read, and a crotchety old person zone for us all, do they read classics or anything previous to contemporary books. it was interesting as their were parents, some teachers, a librarian and an academic researching children's lit. the gist was kids read. a lot. They read a lot of what would look trashy or silly to us (captain underpants. a thousand young adult fantasies simpering love triangles.).

but they often don't read or know about Poe, or Twain, Conan Doyle. My nephew watched a film adaption of Call of the Wild. had no idea it was a book, never heard of London. He wasn't interested. I have a grown daughter who when i rarely saw her would tell me she loved books (so i always brought her books). she never read them and over time i realized she didn't read at all. If I took her in a bookstore, she was bored and daydreamed--she actually never paid attention to the shelves, like they weren't there. I started thinking about home, my apt was wall to wall books, that she had never been the slightest bit curious about. People who like books gravitate to people's shelves, they can't not do it. I think she just thought saying she liked books was the right answer given my habits.

Neither my nephews and nieces, nor my daughter will watch anything that isn't contemporary to themselves same way they won't touch old books. I don't even know how she could be my kid. But that's weird, isn't it? When I was small we had several public/state broadcast channels, and also got two American versions of the same (PBS channels). Just on those, I had a steady diet of old b/w movies dating to the thirties. Everything from comedy franchises like Ma and Pa Kettle and Francis the talking Mule, oh and Andy Hardy, to practically an education in film noir. our provincial channel had a host for these films, and you would get a little talk, some context, an interview with a surviving director or actor, etc.My folks had a projector too, and the library loaned reels and i got to see even older movies, shorts, silent films and the early comics--Chaplin, Keaton, Oliver and Hardy. Then there was the late night B-movie double bill sci-fi/horror from the 40s-60s. I don't get it. It just never would have occured to me to have the age of the media as a criteria about viewing. Maybe it was just different. Theatres very regularly played older films. a lot of what I saw in theatres as a kid were movies from before i was born

The few kids I have interacted with also seem to know little and have little interest in knowing anything, but paradoxically, they are always laden down with mountains of homework. They also cram more than our curriculums were. They condense the material and the kids do it younger. i was crazy when the niece and nephew were doing Kindergarten, gr 1, gr 2, and they had fairly advanced math and science stuff. When i was in kindergarten, we coloured, were taught not to run even with safety scissors, and we ate paste a lot. Grade one and two, they were still teaching the kids the numbers, and tedious rote phonics. I had picked up reading a couple of years before this and endured regular corporal punishment for getting into mischief all the time because i was so bored. I've rambled off topic. Point is, at least where I live, those poor kids do mountains of homework. They look ridiculous in the school yard, like turtles. They all have these big backpacks filled with textbooks every day, so heavy they hunch over and walk like hunchback zombies.

I don't have any nostalgia for pens. I went to remedial penmanship every year in grade school. By twelve I was typing, on a typewriter and a home computer. Typed everything--school work, my own stories, to do lists, inventories of comics, etc. I stayed on an electric typewriter until I was about 28-30 before switching reluctantly to a computer. I corresponded copiously with many distance friends as we all wandered, usually 10-15 page letters, on a pretty weekly basis. letter writing was a lot of my personal life. LOL, nothing has changed, most of anything i communicate is mediated by the screen, I just don't have personal relationships, pushed them all away years ago during a difficult period of complicated grief. Now, I meet people, say, on facebook, but then I alienate them because I've become really oppositional, argumentative and fierce in some areas that i am always a minority position. I will likely do that here as well.

Re:
"Neither my nephews and nieces, nor my daughter will watch anything that isn't contemporary to themselves same way they won't touch old books..."

My daughter, who is 17, claims that a lot of her friends have no interest in anything - anything - that isn't extremely new.
More spookily, however, she insists it is not just a question of zero interest, but a strange Orwellian loss of memory. Her friends don't remember stuff that was popular only a year or eighteen months ago...

 

[MrsGamp]

Re:
"Neither my nephews and nieces, nor my daughter will watch anything that isn't contemporary to themselves same way they won't touch old books..."

My daughter, who is 17, claims that a lot of her friends have no interest in anything - anything - that isn't extremely new.
More spookily, however, she insists it is not just a question of zero interest, but a strange Orwellian loss of memory. Her friends don't remember stuff that was popular only a year or eighteen months ago...

PS yours was a very interesting post.

 

[MrsGamp]

I doubt that.

And yours was a lovely post by the way. Well thought out and presented and a nice read. Thank you.

I wasn't going to continue here but for the record (now that I'm here):

I think the media and entertainment industry could be brought in here too and could be, and should be, taken to task (although it's never going to happen).

I don't know if this is just a South African thing or what but over these past years there's at least one news report per week (give or take) where a 13 year old child has raped a 7 year old child at school (sometimes even younger on both counts). Or a 10 year old has stabbed a 4 year old to death. Where the FUCK (excuse the expletive) did THIS all come from? I know for damn sure when I was 8, 9, 10, whatever I didn't know what "it" was for other than for taking a piss. And I know for sure that the thought of stabbing somebody at school because I had a beef with them didn't cross my mind. My opinion: Internet, movies, TV, you get the picture. Nowadays you have to try real hard to find something to watch that does NOT contain gratuitous sex, violence, drug use and abuse, rape, murder, you get the picture. Or just take a good look at some of the online games that are available to all and sundry nowadays. Basically over the years it's become a "free-for-all" and "anything goes" and it's resulted in not only children, but adults as well, becoming totally desensitized to certain things and so on and so forth. Matter of fact in some cases certain things are glorified nowadays that before would have been considered debauchery. Personal opinion is that the technology has taken us way too far and to a point of no return i.e. Pandora's box has been opened and there's no closing it.

And for the record I'm not just some old prude "fuddy duddy" i.e. I'm 55 now and I've been around the block a few times and gotten up to my own mischief over the years as has/did all of my peers. But it was, back then anyway, almost "nice mischief" if you know what I'm mean. You know: you had a beef with somebody at school so you met after school at whatever the "designated spot" was and gave each other the odd beating (to the best of your ability) with your mates cheering etc. But that was about the extent of it. That type of thing. Now: they meet at the "designated spot" armed to the teeth and there's basically a binary outcome (or if pissed off enough just take out the whole school).

Anyway. Let me move on from this i.e. I could go on about this for DAYS! Lol!

I'm with you completely re the "where the fuck did this shit come from"?

Recently my brother and I watched a documentary about a female serial killer in the UK called Joanna Dehenney. This young woman seems to have actively aspired to fame as "the worst ever female serial killer". She went on an escalatory killing spree - the more men she killed, the faster she went. On the day she was arrested she had stabbed two men, both of whom would've died, except the assaults were so public and brazen that medical help was prompt.

But along the way, she and her male accomplice took incessant photos, including photos of dead bleeding bodies, and shared these on mobile phones ...