Saturday 1 March 2008

All is Vanity

Ok folks, here's a shocking - and probably unique - confession. I don't have an account on Facebook! Nor do I have one on MySpace, Bebo, Twitter or any of the other trendy social networking sites. And, as if that weren't bad enough, I don't plan to get one.

Yep, that's right. I have no use for, or interest in, all this Web 2.0 social networking bull, and I certainly don't want to be in constant contact with a bunch of like-minded folks (i.e. sheep) who do. I can do all the communicating that I want, need and intend to do via email and instant message, resorting to fax and telephone where necessary.

So I am at something of a loss to explain why, according to the Telegraph, "Three-quarters of people who post their images on social networking websites have confessed to 'cheating' by touching up their pictures." To my complete astonishment, the article goes on to say that Brits are the vainest of all Europeans, with over 75% of social networkers "touching up" their pictures before posting them online. Of the folks dumb enough to do this, it seems that the over 55s, with 49% of them digitally enhancing their mug shots.

Firstly, who has the time or inclination to do research like that? Haven't they got ANYTHING better to do with their life?? Secondly, the same comments apply to those who bother to upload their images, and doubly so for those who arrange a virtual face lift on the sly. You sad, sad buggers.

Trust me, absolutely nobody on Earth gives a damn what you look like. And if, by some remote chance, somebody is interested, how long do you think that will last when they figure out the pic has been doctored? Somewhat less than a femtosecond, I should think!

When you consider that, according to this bizarre research, better than three quarters of Brits involved in social networking sites are so brazenly vain and deceptive, is it any wonder that I have no time for the concept? Yes, I suppose it might, somehow, just possibly be useful in a limited way, but is the value worth the aggravation of hanging out with tossers like that?

Not to me, and, I suspect, not to many other people too. The social networking bandwagon has hit a pothole, the bubble has sprung a leak and (I DEARLY hope) the whole phenomenon is heading back to the obscurity from whence it so recently emerged.

Maybe now the rest of us can get some work out of the MySpace-obsessed masses, at least until the next fad comes along!

Billy Seggars.

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