Everybody knows a certain type of person.
An approval junkie, so scared to appear 'ordinary' that they go out of their way to advertise any quirks, foibles, flaws or abilities that might lift them out of the 2D world and into the world of human types that you inhabit... (not me obviously, you.... I am made of text and wires... you are a fleshbag)
These specimens are usually dull enough that dullness becomes a genuine, physical danger for them.... if their dullness reaches a critical level, their heart will stop beating out of sheer despair... or perhaps to save those around them from a slow and tedious death...
Sadly the quirks, foibles, flaws and abilities they use to bolster themselves are usually every bit as dull as the actual personality they are struggling to obscure...
And always they announce these 'quirks' with ludicrously overblown adjectives, thus...
Oh My God... I watched Eastenders last night... So Random!
It's mental how many crisps I can eat. My cat had been laying in one position for an hour, it's insane!
...and the classic phrase, the one that sends shivers down the spine of every office worker and ensures that whichever face it emanates from is the one to be avoided at all costs, even if it means hiding in stationary cupboards or leaping from windows... The Winner is:
"I'm Crazy me..."
Now... I know 'interesting people' I also know 'Interesting people who crossed the line into full-blown mental illness'
These people never tell you they 'are crazy'
They don't have to... you'll see it in their eyes... and they'll deny they are crazy... even as they talk about the government plot to convince them that they were part of an experimental drugs program designed to make men experience pregnancy*
(*All true... well he believed it anyway)
This is actually rather an upsetting thing to see in the real world... and you can't believe that anyone would aspire to attain this kind of crippling condition, no matter how naive... Anyway...
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a colleague in which he insisted he is 'quite Random' and likes to 'keep things interesting'. What was the behaviour that triggered this pean to the joys of independent thinking? What does he do that is so goddamn unusual that it was worth starting a conversation with me when I was in a surly and unpleasant mood? (ie, in the morning)
Well... he has soup... sometimes.
He thinks that makes him 'Random'
He also thinks his soup is also 'Random'
Now glossing over his misuse of the word 'Random' for a minute I... in fact no... Let's not Gloss over it... let's turn the light on this ludicrous misappropriation in the hope that it causes it to wither and die forever.
Ok... Humans are actually very very very bad at random. We can't do it. It has no evolutionary function, so we didn't evolve it... and neither did any other species of anything. We are pattern seeking creatures, guided by a huge number of factors. If someone says: think of a random number, you say something you have chosen... if you have a soup it is because, for whatever reason you have chosen soup from a number of options.
Basically to be 'randomly' eating a 'random' soup he would have to have tripped over, face first into some unidentified liquid, into which some solid matter had gathered by chance, then eaten it and called it soup.
Now that would have been genuinely 'crazy' and the story would have been worth hearing... at least until I called in some appropriately trained medical professionals.
Conversely, hearing about how his girlfriend selected his soup, gave it to him and he ate it is not a worthwhile story. It is a dull story... and no amount of crazy, zany, madcap adjectives will alter that... all they will do is increase the ambient desperation in the room to an unbearable degree.
So, how can I strangle, batter and stuff this metaphoric outline into the conceptual hole in which I dwell, social media and politics and trends and blee blah blah blah...
Well... luckily, or not... the entire political establishment seem to currently be afflicted with a serious case of the "I'm crazy me"
After all... who is more of a desperate approval seeker than a politician?
Yesterday we had Alex Ross's Autotuned Viral of Clegg's apology.An approval junkie, so scared to appear 'ordinary' that they go out of their way to advertise any quirks, foibles, flaws or abilities that might lift them out of the 2D world and into the world of human types that you inhabit... (not me obviously, you.... I am made of text and wires... you are a fleshbag)
These specimens are usually dull enough that dullness becomes a genuine, physical danger for them.... if their dullness reaches a critical level, their heart will stop beating out of sheer despair... or perhaps to save those around them from a slow and tedious death...
Sadly the quirks, foibles, flaws and abilities they use to bolster themselves are usually every bit as dull as the actual personality they are struggling to obscure...
And always they announce these 'quirks' with ludicrously overblown adjectives, thus...
Oh My God... I watched Eastenders last night... So Random!
It's mental how many crisps I can eat. My cat had been laying in one position for an hour, it's insane!
...and the classic phrase, the one that sends shivers down the spine of every office worker and ensures that whichever face it emanates from is the one to be avoided at all costs, even if it means hiding in stationary cupboards or leaping from windows... The Winner is:
"I'm Crazy me..."
Now... I know 'interesting people' I also know 'Interesting people who crossed the line into full-blown mental illness'
These people never tell you they 'are crazy'
They don't have to... you'll see it in their eyes... and they'll deny they are crazy... even as they talk about the government plot to convince them that they were part of an experimental drugs program designed to make men experience pregnancy*
(*All true... well he believed it anyway)
This is actually rather an upsetting thing to see in the real world... and you can't believe that anyone would aspire to attain this kind of crippling condition, no matter how naive... Anyway...
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a colleague in which he insisted he is 'quite Random' and likes to 'keep things interesting'. What was the behaviour that triggered this pean to the joys of independent thinking? What does he do that is so goddamn unusual that it was worth starting a conversation with me when I was in a surly and unpleasant mood? (ie, in the morning)
Well... he has soup... sometimes.
He thinks that makes him 'Random'
He also thinks his soup is also 'Random'
Now glossing over his misuse of the word 'Random' for a minute I... in fact no... Let's not Gloss over it... let's turn the light on this ludicrous misappropriation in the hope that it causes it to wither and die forever.
Ok... Humans are actually very very very bad at random. We can't do it. It has no evolutionary function, so we didn't evolve it... and neither did any other species of anything. We are pattern seeking creatures, guided by a huge number of factors. If someone says: think of a random number, you say something you have chosen... if you have a soup it is because, for whatever reason you have chosen soup from a number of options.
Basically to be 'randomly' eating a 'random' soup he would have to have tripped over, face first into some unidentified liquid, into which some solid matter had gathered by chance, then eaten it and called it soup.
Now that would have been genuinely 'crazy' and the story would have been worth hearing... at least until I called in some appropriately trained medical professionals.
Conversely, hearing about how his girlfriend selected his soup, gave it to him and he ate it is not a worthwhile story. It is a dull story... and no amount of crazy, zany, madcap adjectives will alter that... all they will do is increase the ambient desperation in the room to an unbearable degree.
So, how can I strangle, batter and stuff this metaphoric outline into the conceptual hole in which I dwell, social media and politics and trends and blee blah blah blah...
Well... luckily, or not... the entire political establishment seem to currently be afflicted with a serious case of the "I'm crazy me"
After all... who is more of a desperate approval seeker than a politician?
It single handedly turned a stomach churning cringeathon video into a chirpy, affirming joy. The day prior to this the same apology was blasted as stagey, trite and ill-judged. After some ALX magic it was so universally loved that some tinfoil hat types started to say that Clegg had set up his own spoof in advance... which shows how little they understand this internet thing...
To be fair to Clegg, he was quick to say that he found the whole thing funny, giving his blessing the thepoke to release the track as a charity single...
Either way, it worked... and I imagine there are quite a few wonk-types looking up auto-tune software today...
Also today the story emerged that Andrew Mitchell had gone a bit Downton Abbey on some Police who wouldn't let him cycle out of a gate... he allegedly called them 'Fucking Plebs'. Lefties are painting him as an olde worlde baron, slapping at his peasant guardsman. Righties are just trying to confuse the language, saying he could have said anything... 'For King Pubs' perhaps...
Now... it was probably just a frustrated man, wanting people to let him through and not expressing himself with any eloquence... but in these internet heavy times, everything a politician does will be commented on and scrutinised endlessly...
I'm wondering how they might try and spin this one... a lot of his 'friends' are stating that the allegations are 'impossible' and 'he'd never say anything like that'... but perhaps these friends are misreading the political weather...
Perhaps they should accentuate his alleged class-based douchery, make him into a caricature tory-toff, a comedy figure... an out of touch anachronism, harmless codger who can say outrageous things that are 'just funny'... even if they are utter dick-words, like an elected version of Prince Phillip... or your racist, but still somehow charming, nan.
... and why not... after all, the public like, and in fact vote for, comedy villains over competent, but bland politicians every day, in all parts of the world.
So where are our wonks and Spads getting the idea that this is how we want our politicants to be portrayed to us?
Obviously, Boris is the motherlode for this trend... or at least that's how it comes across to the political peeps when they see him make a tit of himself, but surge in the polls... What they fail to see is that Boris actually 'is' like that, a huffing, puffing force of Tory nature who just happens to be lucky enough to live in a time where politicians are better thought of if they can hold their own on a panel show. There is no act there.
Boris is not standing up saying 'I Am Crazy'... He doesn't need to... and with his personality it would seem at best an understatement... no, he is too breathless from hanging from Ziplines or splashing about in Rivers...
And that's what people want...
Or at least they appear to... on the internet, which is the fastest and most fickle of feedback mechanisms...
But when the politicants believe the 'net entirely at face value, they will doubtlessly attempt to recreate those moments on purpose... so we will get more of them, and being planned by dull, career politicos/meeja-types as opposed to hobbyists and geeks and pranksters they will get progressively less and less inventive and amusing...
Suddenly we wake up in a world where the whole political establishment starts wearing wacky ties, doing Youtube videos in silly jumpers, pretending to love our 'plebian' jokes about their 'downfall parody' and shrieking 'all your base are belong to us'... over and over... whilst autotuned... over a Rhianna backing track...
Thus, I will retire from blogging for ever, because parody will have officially been 'bully rammed' to death...
In fact, if that happened and the population didn't rise, as one, to renew that quaint old London tradition of decorating poles with the detached heads of deposed rulers, I would probably just retire from breathing altogether.
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