FFS... and all that

Social media is great.  Really.  Mostly.  Okay, sometimes.  Like when you find out first about breaking news via Twitter or FB and beat the Murdoch and Fairfax papers to it.  Don’tcha just love that those outdated print media only run out once a day?  The world is all over that stuff by then.

So it really annoys me – yes, really – when newsworthy stuff that appears in my newsfeed is followed by so many completely un-newsworthy and unintelligent comments… “WTF?”, “Say wah?”, “FFS.” You get the picture.  Yep, I too have been guilty of the odd FFS or two.  But usually only until I delve a little deeper and read the linked report and do a bit more research.  Which, unfortunately, so many morons on social media can’t be bothered doing.

Like a recent “breaking news” story which happened across my feed because someone had passed it to someone who had passed it on because it was so important, only to turn out to be 2 years old.  Yes, it was important, but not in today’s context.  It garnered the usual flurry of “WTF”s and “FFS”s, but very little intelligent comment, and no-one seemed to have realised – or cared – that the story was 2 years old.

Then there are the oft-seen complaints in comments that “the link won’t open for me”.  So Google it instead! Doh!  What are we, your computer technicians or something?? Man, if you can’t find shit yourselves maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to be in charge of technological equipment.  Like D.U.I. (Driving Under the Influence), we need a category for these turkeys – maybe M.I.C. – Moron In Charge.

And my personal favourite?  “This information is great but needs to be backed up by research.”  What is that crap, designed to make the writer look intelligent?  Maybe that is the intention, except I can Google and find the relevant research, why can’t you???  M.I.C!

Social media has had a huge part to play in changing the way we interact with the world around us, but it is only as good as the people who use it, and, frankly, I would hate to see it reduced to the same lowest common denominator as the MSM.  The quantity of information is huge, and it is up to individual users to filter it, but it is all too easy to ignore or bypass stuff that really is important when you get fed up with reading the crap that follows it.  So do yourselves a favour – read the articles and links that interest you – really read them – then do your own research to fill in the gaps, and then, only then, make an intelligent comment to add to the discussion.

And if the M.I.C.’s still persist, quietly leave the page and find somewhere that doesn’t have so many of the MFs.