Posts Tagged ‘internet’

Keeping Your Distance or Getting Connected?

Monday, December 5th, 2011

We hear arguments all the time that social media is not all that social at all – that it is, in fact, making us drift apart as a society. We’re becoming disengaged from ‘real life’, disconnected from people and simply chained to our computers rather than out there, living. But I wholeheartedly disagree. With the advent of social networks, blogging and the internet in general, I’ve never felt more connected to people.

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Posted in life, relationships | 15 Comments »

The Real Life Vs Online Gap

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

Last week, I saw a documentary called Catfish, which is described as ‘a riveting story of love, deception and grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue’ and it doesn’t disappoint. I saw a trailer for it a few months ago and wasn’t sure what to expect, but I left the cinema with a lot on my mind.

The film is based around Nev, a photographer in New York. In early 2008, one of his pictures was published in a New York newspaper. A few months later, he received a painting of that picture in the mail from an eight year old girl in Michigan called Abby. The painting was remarkably good and Nev started up a correspondence with her. This grew over a period of months and extended to Abby’s family and their friends. They all became Facebook buddies. Abby’s older sister, Megan and Nev got in contact regularly and sparked up somewhat of an online romance. Nev’s brother and best friend, who are film makers, decided to start documenting this blossoming friendship with Abby, her family and the romance with Megan.

But before long, all was not quite as it seemed and when Nev and friends decide to pay an impromptu visit to Abby and family in Michigan, the story unravels rapidly.

Without giving too much away, it’s all rather tragic. One person had created a whole cast of characters and everything is either half truths or outright lies. But it’s hard to be mad at the one at the eye of the storm. They haven’t created this fantasy life for malicious reasons. Within minutes of meeting the family, you understand. This person had woven a very intricate web of make believe people, no different to if she was say, writing a novel, except that this obviously involved real people, feelings, emotions and a fairly massive breach of trust.

I’ve been involved with someone I knew predominantly online, whose entire existence turned out to be a lie. It’s quite a bombshell when it hits. Earlier this year on Twitter, someone a fair few of my American tweeps and myself followed turned out to be a completely made up person. Once she was found out, overnight her Twitter and Facebook pages disappeared and there wasn’t a trace of her online. It was beyond bizarre.

I can barely even manage my own personality in life, online or otherwise. The thought of going through the extreme measures of stealing peoples pictures and creating profiles, personalities and life stories for someone other than myself completely baffles me. Who has that kind of time on their hands and what do they gain from it? Well, in the case of the guilty party in Catfish, escapism and a chance to live out elements of their own character that had never come to fruition.

While in some cases, this kind of behaviour can clearly be sneaky, malicious and mean, I came away from this documentary feeling sad. For some, loneliness can drive them to create a whole other world to escape what they have going on. And it really does take a level of creative genius to pull it off.

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Posted in relationships | 18 Comments »

Internet Lovin'

Sunday, September 7th, 2008


Given the complete shit storm that was my last relationship, I’m a little anti-romance right now. Maybe in time (when I can bear to be around someone with a penis for more than five minutes, without wanting to sucker punch them) it’ll pass. But in the meantime, anything to do with romance or relationships makes me want to gauge my own eyes out.

 

Nothing induces more eye-rolling from me of late than TV ads for internet dating sites. A bunch of happy people who all found their ‘soul mates’ and can’t stop professing their undying love and happiness – bitch please! I keep awaiting the giant thud I’ll hear when they come crashing back down to earth. It’s a relationship – someone’s gonna fuck up somewhere, eventually, that’s just the way it is.

 

The ad that reaches new heights of annoyance, is one featuring Joshua and Tanyalee, who met on a popular dating site (if you’re anything like me, you’ll find those names annoying enough).

 

I’m not sure how long Joshua and Tanyalee have been together but they are soooooo unbelievably in love. They wax poetic on it in this three minute commercial.

 

Here’s some of the highlights, the gems, if you will, that they offer about why they are so perfect for each other and soooooo unbelievably in love:

 

“Our first conversation, we talked on the phone for six and a half hours!”
Who the hell does this? That’s one hell of a cell phone plan you’ve got there. Where can I get me one of those?

 

“Then we saw each other and it was an instant connection, we just clicked!”


Of course you did – you’ve been talking to each other for six and a half hour stretches, checking out each others profiles on line to be sure the other person doesn’t look like a farm animal and emailing back and forth for however long. Unless the other person has six fingers or something, there’s not much room for error in the personal meet and greet after such an epic build up.

 

“Everything we do together is fun!”


Give it time my friends, give it time. That weekly shop at the farmers market is gonna make you want to kill each other one of these days.

 

“We once stayed up all night, took a six foot canvas, she painted one half, I painted the other and it just came out amazing!”


They then show the finished painting and rather than thinking of the love they poured into it, you just think ‘it took you all night to do that?’

 

“There’s a part of my life that felt like she should have been there the whole time. The past doesn’t matter – she’s here now.”


At this point in the commercial, I am knee deep in my own puke, so I’m not sure what happens after that, but undoubtedly it’s just more drivel about their perfect lives, how that website made it all possible and how the rest of the world sucks because no one has a love comparative to that of Joshua and Tanyalee’s.

Maybe when I get the puke off myself, I can go out and find me some of that kind of lovin’. Anyone know a good dry cleaner?

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Posted in relationships | 5 Comments »

It's Over – Now go Blog About it

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008


Childish breakups seem to be very en vogue right now.

 

Painful, difficult relationship meltdowns have been around since the dawn of time, but now people are taking it to the web and gearing up for all out war. No, not just 14 year olds who break up with their current beau via a Facebook status update, actual adults, who apparently can’t hold their shit together, are getting in on the act too.

 

The latest in a long line of women scorned is Rachel Marsden. (Click on her name to read all the ins and outs of her story. It made my head hurt.) The long and short of it is; she was dating Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. He chose to end their relationship via that site. Yes, beyond pathetic. Definite wanker move.

 

High road? What high road? Rather than dig out a map and look for it, Rachel Marsden decided to retaliate by selling some of his clothes on ebay. Groan.

 

“Hi, my name is Rachel and my (now ex) boyfriend, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, just broke up with me via an announcement on Wikipedia. It was such a classy move that I was inspired to do something equally classy myself” she said on her ebay posting.

 

I don’t understand why they broke up. Clearly, these two dickheads were made for each other. Yes, he is a complete knob for not just breaking up face-to-face, but why did she have to channel her inner twelve-year-old and start a tit-for-tat internet spat?

 

My favorite part of the article is her saying: “My only focus right now, to be really honest, is on my career and finding a way to get back into print, TV or radio here in NYC. All this other personal stuff is just an unfortunate distraction.”

 

Bitch, please! You put it on the internet! I’m sure your career will kick into overdrive now that everyone knows you’re a petty, childish fool.

 

The article also mentions Julia Allison, editor-at-large of Star magazine, who started a blog to document all the mushy moments of her relationship. Then it crashed and burned (the relationship and the website). What I don’t get is why she would flatter herself into thinking anyone would give a rat’s ass about her relationship in the first place.

 

Whichever way you cut it, the woman always comes off looking worse. It’s OK to get all emotionally nuts when it’s just you and him, fighting over who gets to keep the Duran Duran CD, but the second you put that shit on the net, you can and will be portrayed as the crazy bitch. He, on the other hand, will be painted as the the calm, logical, hard-done-by rogue who just can’t understand what the big fuss is about. You might have video evidence of him crying like Halle Berry at the Oscars over that CD, but it doesn’t matter. It is you, the lady, who will be seen as an emotionally unstable idiot. So ladies, before you take it to web to thrash it out, forget planning your revenge, have a cup of tea, chill the hell out, keep it classy and most of all, keep it behind closed doors. Ain’t no one wanna know your business honey.

 

Taking it to La Rue

The largest student union in France, UNEF, wants more money to go to student housing. So, they’re taking it to the streets. Their campaign revolves around a poster which shows two nude students, doing the wild thing, in the middle of a bed, shared with sleeping parents. According to Macleans: ‘The message was clear: a chronic shortage of campus accommodation means that many students have to live at home and attend local universities.’

 

Really? That’s the message they got from that? I could have sworn it was that they don’t wanna have to romp it up at home where there’s a risk of waking the ‘rents.

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Posted in relationships | 7 Comments »