internet – A Message In A Blog

I’ve posted about Social Media before, and no doubt, there are countless blog posts about this subject all over the World Wide Interweb. But ever since I published my previous Social Media posts, things seem to have changed. A lot. Social Media has darkened, it has become a place of confrontation, trolls and sarcastically dry humour. And I love it.

Social media, it seems, moves with the tide of ever-changing society and it, again, seems to evolve and adapt to current affairs and, more importantly, how and why people react to things. That’s why it’s such an important aspect of modern life. It’s an entirely organic form of web-interaction.

When it comes to so called social media ‘trolls’, the most important thing to do is simply to ignore them. It’s so easy to keep replying to the bait, to keep feeding them more ammunition so that they can continue to ‘troll’ (or just bug the hell out of) you. I always find it curious that people become so wound up, or hurt or are emotional because of internet trolls. Let’s use Twitter as an example here, Twitter uses the system of following, so that each member of the Twitter society can follow each other and see what all of their favourite people are up to. Unless of course you want your social media private, in which case there is the private option, whereby only people you allow access to your feed, get to make any contact. You can also ‘Block’ and even ‘Report’ any suspicious or potentially harmful activity, or for the sake of this paragraph, any Trolls. This is the case for almost all social media website these days, so there really is no excuse to allow internet trolls to have any affect on you.

My favourite form of Social Media has, for a long time now, been Twitter. Facebook is old and out-dated; it’s struggling to keep up. Vine burned bright and extinguished hard and fast. And Tumblr is massive, but I still think it needs time for everyone to actually know what it does and more importantly, how to use the damn thing. In fact the only form of Social Media that seems to be keeping up with Twitter’s appeal, in my opinion, is Instagram, which, ironically, is owned by the incredibly dull and very tired Facebook.

Although it faces the same level of so called ‘trolling’ and sees a never ending stream of bad feeling in some comment sections, YouTube still has a wonderful sense of community to it. If you’re a fan of YouTube; and by fan I most definitely do not mean watching cat and angry driver videos. I mean if you are a fan of YouTubers who upload regularly to their channels and create consistent and entertaining content for dedicated viewers, then you’ll know what I mean about a community feeling. It’s really quite a marvellous thing. But as I said, you won’t know if you don’t watch YouTubers. Their fans are some of the most loyal, dedicated and often ruthless people. Sometimes more so than fandoms of pop-stars or actors. These people will defend their favourite YouTubers to the end and it’s a relationship between YouTuber and fan that only grows organically over time, that lasts. Fascinating really. There is no room for a ‘viral’ YouTuber. And certainly (for most fans) absolutely no room for ‘vine’ users to think they can become YouTubers. Leave it out.

Isn’t it weird how society has moulded itself around social media. In some ways it’s rather concerning, I mean, we spend more time speaking and interacting with people on social media rather than people in real life, and by doing so, gradually distance ourselves with the more important things in life. But on the other hand, you could say that we meet new people all the time on Social Media and really it’s not as dark and scary as your parents want you to believe. YouTube is such an amazing place to find new friends, I mean like real friends, not cyber friends. I’ve met a few people through YouTube and they’re the best. So it can be a good thing, when you actually end up meeting your YouTube friends, but when these people remain on the internet, it’s probably time to get out of the house.

Social Media is very quickly becoming one of the most common forms of interaction between young people. It has its ups and downs, its pros and cons. It has it’s wonderfully innocent and beautifully like-minded communities and it’s incredibly small-minded internet trolls. One thing is for sure though, it’s growing, and it’s growing fast.

Here are a few statistics:

YouTube has over a billion users–almost a third of all people on the Internet–and every day, people watch hundreds of millions of hours of YouTube videos and generate billions of views.
YouTube overall, and even YouTube on mobile alone, reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S.

And of course, the big statistic…

The number of channels earning six figures each year on YouTube has increased by 50% y/y.

YouTubers are earning BIG. And it’s only going to get bigger. TV, watch this space. This YouTube Space.

I love mostly everything about social media and am a self confessed addict.

But what I want to know is what YOU think of social media, Good? Bad? Not quite sure? Leave a comment!

And Until next time…

BYE!

Over the past month or so, the internet has blown up over a certain YouTuber’s attempt at ‘fat shaming’ over-weight people. Nicole Arbour (I had to google it because i’d never heard of her) uploaded a video called ‘Dear fat people’. Now, i’ll be honest, i haven’t watched more than about 20 seconds, and i’m not going to, for obvious reasons and the fact that I can’t stand that the girl clearly is trying to BE Jenna marbles.

Anyway, she, I believe, tries to shame overweight people for no real reason. So i’ve heard. But, this is a subject that does need talking about and that’s what i’m going to do here.

Let us have a quick look at a couple of statistics from the last couple of years, shall we:

39% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight in 2014, and 13% of those were obese.
In 2014, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 600 million were obese *insert unbelievably shocked reaction*.
42 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2013. *insert ‘disappointed-in-human-race’ reaction*

I mean what the hell, people?

It boils down to something so simple it’s painful to say. STOP EATING!

The simple fact of the matter is, you become over-weight when you take in more calories than you burn off. Now I know, I know, some people are born naturally larger than average and that’s OK. But to all of those people who spend their days in fast-food chains and who guzzle fizzy drinks, there is no excuse. Simple.

Our intake of sugar is crazy off the charts. Women should have no more than 6 teaspoons per day, which is 25 grams or 100 calories from sugar. And us men? We can have up to 9 teaspoons of sugar daily, or 38 grams of sugar, which is around 150 calories from sugar. No matter your gender, a single 12-ounce can of Coke goes over the maximum sugar allowance for the day. FOR A WHOLE DAY!

And did you know that that Mango and Pineapple fruit smoothie that you’re giving your 5 year old because ‘it’s a healthier option to coke’ contains 40 grams of sugar. Yeah. 10 TEASPOONS OF SUGAR! And the choc-chip frappe? 47 grams…

And yet people still allow their children to drink this stuff!!

If we simply educate our children from day one that these products are damaging to their health, and we teach them how to eat properly and bring them up in a healthier environment, where they don’t crave these sugary drinks, or crisps or cakes, then that generation would grow up healthier and so on and so on, surely? It’s not hard!

I’m not for one second saying that everyone should be super skinny and be the same size, because that’d be a bit like communism, really. But to just look after your body and be sensible with what you feed it. If we take these steps together, it CAN work.

Even with people such as Jamie Oliver who tell us to be super healthy and then simultaeneously feeds his customers super sugary food in his multi-million £, massively successful chain of super healthy restaurants.

See, I didn’t call anyone fat, I didn’t ‘fat shame’ anyone. Just pointing out some simple PREVENTABLE truths.

But please, for the sake of the generations to come. Stop it with this excessive eating culture.

Until next time…

BYE!