The 10 most unexpected consequences of being online

As our Media Studies class for B-Tech has us pretty elbow deep in social networks, I have used my own experience of being online (both educational and private) to compile the 10 most unexpected consequences of exactly that:

1. Being online is like entering into a new dimension – it consumes you. You forget about everything else. You forget about the real world and as opposed to living in it (the world) you become a critique of it. Your hands-on experience falls by the way side and is replaced by a new life, one created in a space where your world is determined only by text on a screen.

2. Being online is like being listed on a high school registry – anyone and everyone you DON’T want to be in contact with finds you.

3. Being online is like being in the celebrity section of a glossy magazine – people who don’t know you anymore, nor have ever met you, feel compelled to engage in gossip criticizing you publicly on a global network so enormous you just can’t miss it (the problem here is that nobody else misses what’s said either).

4. Being online is like being told for the first time that there really is no Santa Clause – people are actually free to share their honest opinions and these may not always be quite what you were hoping for, nor always what you want to hear.

5. Being online is like heading a society for people who have no direct influence in your life - yes you make friends but are they of any real significance to you? I mean hello…they exist only in cyberspace. Good luck planning a road trip/taking a photograph of/or simply being with people you never meet. P.S. That person you’ve committed your every evening online to – is an axe murderer/has a husband or wife/is only 12 years old/runs a trafficking racket/couldn’t make it in the real world.

6. Being online is like being popular – yes you have ten trillion friends following you on myspace/Facebook/Blueworld/website/blog/LinkedIn/etc but guess what? No one really cares. P.S. All those 'friends' you love to brag about don’t care about you either.

7. Being online is like living in the Victorian era – people are shocked to learn that your personality runs deeper than the square, well-behaved and polite person you are expected to be when at school/at varsity/at work, not realizing that it is not being ‘online’ that changes you but it is being online that provides you with an opportunity to share what really defines you – something apparently forbidden otherwise. These people are idiots; post something extravagant to really get them talking.

8. Being online is like taking candy from a stranger – it encourages you to participate through all of the ‘possibilities’ as promised by being online…and once you take the first bite it’s not very easy to walk away from.

9. Being online is like not having a life – eventually you will become a social network stalker. It will happen. And it is pathetic.

10. Being online is like being friends with the Grim Reaper - you give away a little piece of your soul every time you make something of yourself public.

Blogging perceptions

The general public (please do not crit this description…I quite literally mean general) have no clue what blogging is, what it’s for, who uses it or why. I’m not parading myself about as an expert (because I am far from an expert) but I like to think that my stumbling through self-experience has taught me if not some, at least a few, blogging basics.

When asked in conversation to share my URL address, I am generally forced to endure (by some putsy individual participating in the conversation), the following 10 lines of dialogue:

Other: ‘So you blog right?’

Kerry: ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’

Other: ‘Ah (the irritating, self-satisfactory kind of ‘ah’ when used in any other sentence would sound like ‘Ah, I’ve got you all figured out’) so you blog about your day right? What you’ve had for breakfast, what you did, who you met up with…how often you went to the bathroom?’

Kerry: OH.MY.WORD. ‘Uh, no not exact…’

Other: ‘What makes you think people care about you and what you do in a day? I wouldn’t read your blog. Jeez, just keep a diary. ‘Attention-seeker’ much?’

Kerry: ‘Like I was trying to say, no, that’s not wha…’

Other: ‘Well, I wouldn’t have time in day to read what someone else has to say anyway. Far too busy with my own s**t.’

All the while I'm thinking, 'Yes, well, they'll never find your body...'

Kerry: ‘Okay…good thing I wasn't giving the URL to you then.’

Other: ‘No well, maybe give it to me; I’ll have a look.’

Kerry: ‘Ah…’ (Yes, the very same ‘Ah’ as explained above).

The elephant in the room (and a list of promises)

The elephant in the room; generally that elephant is me. I’m carrying weight – not too much but not exactly too little either – and in a room of people you would probably be able to pick me out of the ‘skinnies’ as being the more ‘sizable’ of the ladies, if you know what I’m saying (I.E. A telltale sign; I can’t wear skinny jeans because my calf muscles are too big – promise).

I’d have to say that my diet (read: my implausible inability to say no to fried foods, fast foods, anything chocolate, baked goodies, salt, cheese and oh, pasta with cream) is my downfall - I'm a gobbler - gobble gobble. Well, that and my hate for the gym (it’s not that I hate exercising, it’s just that my ideal is exercising outdoors…something I’m now too scared to do on my own thanks to a flaw in the universal plan of public areas called CRIME).

I have to admit however that my weight doesn’t get me down very often; I am an avid believer of loving yourself for whom and what you are and not loving yourself because others love you (or should I say, rate you ‘acceptable’ in everyone’s high school mentality of what is socially acceptable – they’re called curves, get over it).

Extra weight comes with its perks too; I’m warmer than most in winter, I’m comfy to snuggle up to and I pretty much get to eat whatever I want, whenever I want (BONUS!).

What I hate the most about - shall we call it, comfy weight? – is the knock to my confidence whenever I am comparing myself to others. By recognizing my weight as a hindrance to my personality provides others with the right to judge me according to my size. If it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother them. On the contrary should it bother them, I just couldn’t care less.

The truth is that clearly it doesn’t bother me enough to make a compelled effort to shed the extra kg’s even if I don’t look good in the devils invention – a bikini. Why not? Because I am pretty content with who I am and although weight is my issue, I know that others have similar issues; funny toes, bad breath, gangly teeth, ratty hair, too-pale a complexion, too-dark a complexion, too short, too tall, too thin (yes, these people do exist, I have met one in real life – promise) etc, etc, etc.

My point? We are not perfect, we are simply ourselves and the sooner we come to realize it, the better for us – promise.

Lyrically sound sentences

Just as the sounds of nature may inspire music, every element of life offers the potential to encourage creativity.

I recently had a silly dispute with a square-minded friend regarding sentence structure and the idea that anything and everything has the potential to encourage creativity and the make shift compilation of art, design and…sentence structure. This blog is dedicated to adding meat to my side of the argument. Enjoy.

• ARTISTS AND ALBUMS SELECTED AT RANDOM ON iTunes ON MY PC (Yes, it is possible to make a sentence out of anything. Really.)

The Fray – How to save a life (Great sentence for a personal conversation)

‘Heaven forbid’ you think I want to live in a ‘Little house’ forever because you would be ‘Dead wrong’, ‘Trust me’ (I want a house so huge it has a ‘Cable car’) that’s why ‘She is’ teaching me ‘How to save a life’ ‘All at once’ so that I can ‘Look after you’ until you’re a ‘Hundred’ and we can finally move away, ‘Fall away’, and grow old in ‘Vienna’.

Katy Perry – One of the boys (Great sentences if placed at the lips of a drunken twit trying to piece together an insult)

I’m ‘One of the boys’ because ‘I kissed a girl’ while ‘Thinking of you’; you’re so ‘Hot ‘n cold’ I’m ‘Lost’ but ‘I’m still breathing’. You know ‘You’re so gay’, dolled up like a ‘Mannequin’ you’d look perfect ‘Waking up in Vegas’ with ‘Self inflicted’ ‘Fingerprints’; bruises on your body. Call me, ‘If you can afford me’.

Lydia – Illuminate (Fantastic sentences if spoken over a phone after a night out…eep)

Yes, it was ‘A fine evening for a Rogue’ but ‘Now the one you once loved is…’ well, in ‘Hospital’; ‘…Ha, yeah it got pretty bad’ but all ‘I can see’ is that it’s ‘Fate’ because ‘This is twice now’ ‘I woke up near the sea’ so, what a laugh. Um, he’ll have to stay here ‘One more day’ but he can’t ‘Stay awake’, they need him to ‘Sleep well’.