Social Media

A post about my experiences of Social Media.
Social media, good or bad?
I've drifted in and out of social media for many years.
Initially it was Friends reunited connecting with old school friends, but on the whole it didn't really draw me in.

I liked MySpace mainly because of the music element, I could follow all those bands I loved and find lots of new music from up and coming bands.
Had a few actual friends who were in groups who would tip me off about anything worth listening to.

Tried the Bebo one but it didn't really tick any boxes, think it was more for kids.

Son got me into Facebook in 2007 but other than exchanging a few messages with him it seemed quite dull, so didn't really bother with it.
One day I tried a few of the games available to play through Facebook and got quite hooked.
Added loads of 'friends' I didn't actually know just to enable playing some of the games, and did chat to a few around the world who were interesting.
Over the next 10 years nearly everyone seemed to join it and I was getting Friend requests from relatives, workmates, ex-workmates etc meaning I actually knew about 100 of the 700+ friends I had.
Sadly it has turned out nearly all my real friends are a bunch of bigots and idiots online, saying stuff that they would never had dared to when I knew them, or had always conceded when I'd had face to face arguments.
Early last year most of the games I used to login to play stopped working through Facebook, and they also changed the layout to suit phone use so I rarely go back. Only missing one ex-workmate who I used to share music videos with.

Joined Twitter back in 2011, when tweets were done by text message.
Only really got back into that 2 years ago.
Think I'm liking it because I don't really know any of the people I connect with, I've got about 250 followers who must have liked something I tweeted and follow about 700 interesting people.
Although there is a high percentage of morons and dickheads on there, it's good that you don't actually know them in real life.
Also a good window on the mind sets of famous people and politicians, so you know how to think of them when you see them on telly.
One thing that has really struck me over the last 2 years is just how actual news is covered by mainstream media, you can see varying points of view on Twitter about nearly everything that happens in the world and can judge the credibility of the story by the people who are reporting it, but then you watch the news on telly and if they cover the story at all it is usually skewed to one particular view and totally unbalanced.

Well that's it for now, just felt I had to post something once in a while.
Was reminded I have this blog after hearing the latest Bojo comment about people using common sense when the latest herd immunity is rolled out next week, and seeing England fans on Sunday with flares up their bums!!

Kleptocracy

Surprised this word doesn't get used more?

Kleptocracy is a government whose corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) use political power to appropriate the wealth of their nation, typically by embezzling or misappropriating government funds at the expense of the wider population.

Democracy

Basing this on years ago when I had kids under 18.

If one day I said "Mum's gone out how do you four fancy take-away, what do you want I'm having a kebab" and the kids all shouted "Pizza".
So I order 5 kebab's and they all get the hump.
I could point out "it's the will of the people".
Because 20% of the population voted for the Conservatives in 2019 and evidently it's all you need to claim this.