Where would I be without YouTube. I love music – and discovering new bands is a big part of my life. Every time I seem to find I’m listening to someone fresh, or catching up with a track I’d missed before. But there’s one particularly unsavoury aspect I struggle to get my head around…
Its just the people who comment. Now I’m as passionate about my music as anyone. It fills my life. But YouTube does seem to attract the worst kind of intolerant and downright psychotic following. Psychiatrists would have a thesis-worth of content on just one three-minute movie.
People post movies and clips about the stuff they like. Then open up to comments. So far so good. Just never say you don’t like something. You’ll get the most vitriolic abuse that you’ve ever heard. You’ll be double-locking your doors and imagining footsteps behind you for weeks.
Clearly, the majority of these numb-nuts are young American males – their grammar betrays them – and a stark thought occurs to me. This is the generation soon to run the world’s only super power. And they’ve got guns and a nuclear missiles to back up their intolerance. That’s scary.
Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in someone else’s world. How come we’ve gone all Puritan suddenly? What I’m talking about are modern stag nights. That magical, final night of freedom where you kiss goodbye to the things you did as a single guy.
Very often, it no more than a sanitised, same-sex piss-up where instead of being the last of anything, its just business as usual for today’s castrated males. I mean, what’s so different about getting pissed with your mates at the local boozer or at the races?
And what’s with this idea of planning “your last night of freedom” weeks ahead of the main event? Whatever happened to the drama of waking up on your wedding day?
Traditionally, a stag night’s about moving on. Confirming that you’re ready to give up the single life for a life of wedded bliss with that wonderful woman of your dreams.
Instead it becomes something that your future Mother-in-Law had worked-out for you. On a bad day. Sorry, guys, but its just wrong. But what about the other extreme. The overseas stag night?
As if a marriage wasn’t expensive enough. Now you factor in flights and hotels. That’s out of order! Please, bring back waking up and not knowing where you are. The battle to get to the church in time. That vague, fuzzy memory you have of that girl last night…
Let’s face it, the wedding won’t be about you, you’re just a bit-player, a prop – like the wedding cake. You may as well have something to remember your last night for other than a huge credit card bill – you’ll have plenty of those to come, believe me!
You know, I must get at least one a day popping up on my Facebook Wall. Invitations from friends. Try this new app, repost this post, sign up for whatever. And because they come from your friends, you seriously think about doing what they ask. You don’t want to seem rude or unfriendly, do you?
The thing is, this is how you’re tempted to give away your security. Because many of these things are scams. If not out to steal stuff from you, they’ll be trying to get your personal details to sell on.
So, a word of advise, don’t accept them. Any of them, on principle. No one will feel bad about you. And you never know, your privacy may just be a little bit safer by not getting caught up in them.
Imagine. You’re a graffiti artist. Its 2005 and an Internet geek asks you to paint the walls of his office. Instead of giving you cash for doing this, the guy offers you shares in his new company.
I can’t think of many struggling artists who’d choose to take up this offer. But David Choe did just that. Here’s the thing. The Internet geek was Mark Zuckerberg and the company, Facebook.
When Facebook goes public later this year, the artist will be sitting on a cool $200 Million. Not bad. Not bad at all. Good choice, my man.