social media – Page 5

More of this, please

Posted on January 24, 2019January 25, 2019

“More of what?” I hear you ask.
More of this, please:

Our local “influencers” need to do this too, please.

I’m so tired of Instagram posts in which the subject “just happens” to be wearing the dress she got from this store or the bag that she was sent by that brand. Blog posts detailing wonderful weekends away, the best bit of which – you later discover – was that the experience was provided free of charge (or at least in exchange for a blog post detailing just how wonderful the wonderful weekend was).

The lack of any clear disclosure that product endorsement is being paid for is duplicitous and disingenuous. In the UK, it’s also illegal. But this isn’t the UK and there are plenty (or more) budding “social media stars” and wannabes who are quite prepared to leave their ethics at the door and quietly sell their pixels for an unnamed fee.

Of course, fooling the public relies on the public being foolish enough to be fooled, but look at those 419 emails telling you about the $11,000,000 ELEVEN MILLION USD that they’ve been left in a will, which they’ll gladly share with you if you help them out with the legal costs. You wouldn’t ever fall for one of those though, would you? But clearly, some people do, because those scammers keep sending them. So it stands to reason that some individuals will be taken in by an undisclosed product endorsement.

I’m not saying that our local influencers are scamming anyone, of course. But what a lot of them are doing is ethically dubious: promoting a lifestyle they don’t lead, with goods that they haven’t paid for, in places they’re being hosted for free, while making out that it’s the best thing ever and that you can have it all too.

Sadly, it seems that this trend of social media influencers isn’t going away any time soon. So maybe it’s about time that there were rules put in place to ensure a bit more honesty in the way that they behave. Please.

This post was not sponsored by anyone.

World’s gone mad (Volume 4,386)

Posted on January 18, 2019January 18, 2019

Chaos in UK over Brexit.
Have you done the #10yearchallenge yet? It’s (possibly) sinister (or not).
Scientists being forced to apologise for calling out acupuncture for being the shitty pseudoscience that it is.
A ridiculous amount of fuss from everyone – yes, everyone – over a shaving ad.
Zimbabwe in a mess. Again.
Terrorism in Kenya. Again.
USA in Government Shutdown paralysis. Again.
And the usual suspects on SA’s social media scene reminding us what we should think, type and how we must feel about all of these things.

If ever there was time for an asteroid intervention, this would surely be it.
But I’d actually like to see how the footy season ends first. Please.

So I’m a bit torn right now.

Thankfully, there’s always one voice of sanity in this mad, mad world. The steady, sensible voice of independent Primedia Broadcasting on the Medium Wave. The rock on which ~~millions of~~ several upper middle class South Africans can depend. I don’t listen myself, but if I was 70, I would, because they’ll tell you exactly what’s going on in a no nonsense fashion – just like in the 1950s. Not the 1950s here, obviously: there was plenty of nonsense happening then. No, the 1950s in good old Blighty where you knew where you stood and people were polite and frank and honest – and didn’t subscribe this this kind of BS:

Oh.

Woowoo peddling is obviously to be expected from some sources out there, but maybe you’d assumed you’d get better from Radio 702, because you thought that they were more highbrow, more discerning, more intelligent.

They’re not. They’re just as bad as all the others and if you choose to accept this from them, then what other compromises are you willing to make whiling away the daytime hours with their smooth-talking disc jockeys? And why?
Honestly, if this is an example of their political insight, surely just head to the Daily Sun for your election news? At least there you know what you’re getting and there’s no pretence about being all la-di-da and genuine.

World’s gone mad. Seriously. (I may have said this 4,385 times before .)

Cleaning out my (digital) closet

Posted on November 15, 2018November 14, 2018

What with one thing and another (but mainly one thing), I’ve spent less time on social media over the past few months.

That’s no bad thing: social media was becoming an increasingly unpleasant place to spend time (and continues to do so), and so I don’t feel that I’m missing out on anything particularly worthwhile. What has also changed, however, is that I haven’t been tidying up my social media accounts as often as usual.

Some digital housekeeping is called for.

There’s an awful lot out there, but I’m happy to limit myself to just a few different apps, and each of those requires me to take a different approach with regard to keeping things in order.

Instagram: Find me at instagram.com/6000coza

It does seem that I’m rubbish at following people on The ‘Gram. I like many of the photos that I see from people I have already followed, but I never seem to get round to following new people. This must change, and following new followers is probably one of the best ways to start to do it. I’ll be playing catch up over the next week or so in this regard, and if your name is in there, I’ll be seeing you(r photos) real soon.

Twitter: Hi, I’m @6000

For me, the most useful and entertaining of all of the social media platforms. And also one of the most toxic. Again, I do follow new people on here, but I have rules. I need some connection, some relevance. Perhaps they live in SA, like Sheffield, enjoy playing with their drone (careful now), or suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in also owning a beagle. I can like to sympathise.
Good, interesting, decent, sane people are quite hard to find on Twitter, but I think I’ve done ok in my choices so far. I don’t find it difficult to drop people if they get on my tits, though. My rule is “Three Strikes And You’re Out – Or Just One If I’m Feeling Particularly Irritable”. Actually, I just made that up, but I might give it a go.

Facebook: The blog is here: https://www.facebook.com/6000coza/

Things I use Facebook for:
1. Sharing new blog posts.
2. Marvelling at the number of people who will have their Brand New Excess Stock Audi Q7 in “white, please”.
3. Looking at pics of snakes and birds, photos of Sheffield and drone videos.

Things I don’t use Facebook for:
1. Everything else.

My Facebook won’t need much updating because I haven’t done anything with it in years anyway. It just sits there and I wander in occasionally and then usually wish I hadn’t.
Still, every new blog post on here is shared on there, so hit me up and don’t miss out.

Flickr: I put my photos here.

Is Flickr “social media”? I think that they’d quite like it to be. I use it to share my photographs and look at other people’s photographs. I don’t communicate with anyone on there. There are other, better apps for that sort of thing (see above). Still, if you show me yours, I’ll show you mine. Stop sniggering at the back!
(Note to self: a blog about the new changes to Flickr is required.)

Youtube: It’s for videos.

Is Youtube “social media”? I think that they’d quite like it to be. I use it to look at other people’s videos. I mean, I do have some videos uploaded on there, but I don’t actually expect people to look at them. I do follow some trashy accounts on Youtube though, and so a spring clean is required.

That’s it for me. No Snapchat or Linkedin. No Tumblr or Tinder. No Periscope, Plurk or Twitch.
And certainly no MySpace or FriendsReunited. Those were the days…

So as I said, I’m going to make an effort to tidy things up a bit. In the meantime, please feel free to follow me on any of the links above and I’ll endeavour to be equally and reciprocally social. 🙂

Instagram breaks flower farm

Posted on August 31, 2018August 30, 2018

Humans are weird things. We get carried away in the weirdest way about the weirdest things. Canadian sunflower farms, for example.

The Canadian sunflower farm in question belongs to Marlene Bogle and her family. They open up their farm to the public for a few days every now and again. This year, things went bad.

It started mildly enough. The Bogles opened up their farm to photographers on July 20, charging $7.50 an adult. They had done the same thing three years ago, with a few hundred visitors providing a modest boost to their main business of farming sunflower, corn, millet, oats and barley, as well as selling various kinds of birdseed from their big red barn, which remains open for business.

I’ve never been to the Bogle’s sunflower farm, but I’m finding it easy to imagine the scene: Peaceful, tranquil, sunlight filtering through the trees, the gentle sound of children’s laughter echoing across fields of beautiful sunflowers.

“Everyone was laughing and having fun,” says Barry Bogle, of that first week. “Then all of Toronto showed up.”

Oops.

The apocalypse arrived on Saturday, the 28th. A few pictures of people posing among the roughly 1.4 million sunflowers had gone viral on Instagram. Cars began rolling up the driveway at 5:45 a.m. “We knew then something was up,” says Barry, who called Hamilton police for help.

I can’t do justice to the carnage that followed, save by copying and pasting the Globe and Mail’s description from the link above (oh, ok… or here, if you can’t be arsed to scroll back up) which I’m not going to do.

The sunflower is a notoriously fragile crop. If the lower leaves are damaged, the plant becomes far less resistant to drought and disease. The Bogles won’t know the extent of the damage until they harvest the plants in late September or early October.
“I used to love these flowers,” says Marlene, waving a Tesla away from the driveway. “Now I can’t stand ’em.”

Our (their?) obsession with Instagram has broken a sunflower farm. It’s ruined a good, healthy, educational family day out simply because we are narcissists and are desperate for instant gratification, more LIKES than the next person and some sort of transient security through affirmation of our petty content.

Humans are weird things. Really weird.