Tag Archives: Social media

Door to the River

03/12/2012 By in Musings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

After graduating from Glasgow University in July 2004, I had several ambitions in life and like many arts graduates none of them involved having a career. Well at least I had absolutely no intention of retraining as a history teacher, which at the time appeared to be the only option available to me. Instead I embraced a hazy world of denial and escapism and this involved travelling around Europe on borrowed money and giving up a £65 a week bedsit on the Great Western Road. Such an undertaking came partly as a lust for knowledge and a desire to explore new cultures and languages. Scotland for all its charms is geographically isolated, monolingual and bordered only by England.

However, I must acknowledge that one of the most compelling reasons behind my desire to travel was the chance to ditch my joke finance job at the Abbey National. So before I abandoned Glasgow for the olive fields of Andalucia, I had one ambition left in life and that involved writing my own fanzine. Such was my love of Kelvinside and its bohemian leafy character, I came up with a pun title derived from a mediocre John Fante novel and set about producing an irreverent guide to post-graduate life in the West End of Glasgow. An inky offbeat publication capturing small town blues, film reviews, Chinese takeaways and unwise polemics against high street chuggers. Ask The Kelvin seemed like a good idea at the time.

Unknown to me in the mid-Noughties, I had set about producing a dead tree publication long before the wonders of tagging, Tumblr and all the social interactive elements that assist writers today. Unable to share my thoughts on a global scale, there was no danger of Ask The Kelvin ever going viral. Living in a make-believe world I knew at the time I couldn’t make any money out of a fanzine but for some strange reason I felt compelled to make one anyway.

On embracing the self-funded model, I produced fifty copies at the local stationary store and distributed them at Fopp, Offshore and a ragtag collection of Byres Road charity shops. Back then Facebook didn’t even exist and the audience I secretly lusted and craved for during my sleepless nights in Otago Street never quite materialised. Indeed looking back it does seem really twee and provincial, especially when I compare it to some of the sexy projects on Kickstarter.

Based in New York and providing a self-funded platform to raise funds on a global scale, Kickstarter allows random individuals to become patrons of their favourite projects. Almost like a counter-culture version of the BBC Dragons’ Den, Kickstarter involves a video pitch alongside a synopsis explaining the reasons why you should support them. Not with a lazy like you can get away with elsewhere but with hard cash.

Kickstarter is an amazing place to support new talent and my personal favourite is theNewerYork, an experimental lit mag based in Brooklyn that celebrates radical poetry, love letters and seriously weird pieces of art. Like stumbling into your favourite record shop as a 17 year old and discovering heroin tainted rock zines for the first time, if you tire of the NewerYork, you are tired of life.

Surreally decorated with unfamous quotes and the occasionally haunting story, their magazine blows my wee Glasgow fanzine out of the water. Beautifully humbled by their efforts, I must confess that on reading their e-version, some 3500 miles away in an English metropolis, I never stood a chance back in leafy Kelvinside. Alas I am now older than the 23 year old locked inside a Glasgow bedsit but still similarly way inclined.

Unlike the NewerYork I don’t think I would get $8,119 in funding for the second edition of Ask The Kelvin, even allowing for the social media tools available to young writers and artists today. However, I do take some inspiration from one of their many slogans: everything has been done before, so do it better. 

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Judge yourself

02/26/2012 By in Press & Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Getting a room in a flatshare has never been as straightforward as the utopian laddish fantasies of the Carlsberg adverts. No one can seriously expect Scarlett Johansson undressing herself in the living room and perfectly clean dishes on a Monday night. However, it does seem a lot more complicated than in previous decades. A classified advert in the local paper once provided all the basic details and your moving in date was effectively year zero. A fresh slate with bright new people. And while it’s hardly a revolutionary tactic in 2012, many people are now tempted to punch their new flatmate’s name into a search engine before they move in. Social control has always been aided and abetted by new forms of technology and with trawls of personal data going back to the early 1990s, your new flatmate’s life story is just waiting to be read.

In the pre-industrial era, the English and Scottish church-states controlled the sex lives, religious practices and all forms of everyday behaviour through the stoking of village gossip. Anyone working in a hostile office will argue nothing much has changed. But minding people’s business has always been a trait of small villages and they have traditionally ensured that no wrong undoing went untold. Privacy is a modern luxury from a historical perspective and only became available after the capitalist toils of the Industrial Revolution.

While the majority of urban Britons remain fervently individualist in their approach to life, technology has now ensured that the world has become a village again. Google stalking is a relatively new means of social control and at the touch of a button our collective lips have become narrowed – sharpened from making judgements. New flatmates trawling Google for information on their future roomies is one thing but when work colleagues or future partners begin to feel the urge it becomes far more sinister. With your personal history lingering on the cliff edge of an internet search engine, there is no limit to how Google (if used effectively) will harvest its victims.

Only recently a human resources executive, John Flexman, 34, was sacked by his employer over his profile on the business networking site LinkedIn. His crime was ticking the “career opportunities” box.  Having your boss stalk you on LinkedIn is bad enough but to be sacked for contemplating a future career is a grim indication of how the tide is turning. George Orwell was correct in that sense but what he didn’t predict is that everyone would willingly sign themselves up for it.

Social control inevitably leads to some form of censorship and has led to fake email accounts being used when applying for flats or even jobs, as this partly ensures you can’t be stalked back. Being yourself has its consequences. So regardless of whether you are interesting, quirky, weird or absolutely brilliant, there are millions who may think differently when they type your email address into a search engine. Fresh starts have become things of the past and moderating your online behaviour has now become the norm.Village life has gone digital folks and in the post-internet age there are no longer any hiding places from wagging tongues.

The unexamined tweet is not worth tweeting

02/13/2012 By in Press & Media, Sport Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

If the racism scandal afflicting English football has taught us anything it is that the ‘tiny minority’ so often ignored by mainstream society now has a powerful voice. As the private nastiness that had previously been confined to living rooms and unsavoury pubs is now digitally logged for everyone to see. Already bigoted steams of racist abuse on Twitter has seen Manchester City defender Micah Richards abandon the network altogether. Sadly he is not alone with Gary Lineker disappearing after tweeting for little under a week citing that ‘local prejudice just seems to bring out the worst in some people’. Indeed many public figures and footballers have been forced to give up the service because of the bile directed towards them. It’s certainly no place for anyone with a thin skin.

Anyone researching the Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez handshake affair on Twitter will uncover horrible levels of racist abuse. None of this reflects particularly well on the UK educational system and it goes without saying the majority of trolls are incredibly thick. In many ways Twitter has become a Victorian freak show dominated as much by the celebrity users as by the idiots trying to provoke them. Bigotry has never gone away. It’s just that the mainstream media reports hate crimes in such a formulaic fashion that it becomes easy to ignore. Racist abuse therefore becomes a journalistic pain. Something that can be dismissed with a mere switch of a button. But there is something so viscerally awful about Twitter that it simply can’t be ignored.

The CCTV of the mind will lead even the most unwilling of voyeurs to some very ugly places. Unsurprisingly the majority of the online abuse is usually expressed by deeply unhappy young men, which is only made worse by the individuals who associate themselves with certain football teams. Fizzing with testosterone and determined to prove their loyalty at all costs their colloquial prejudices have hitherto never had an audience before. Perhaps this more than anything represents the truly ugly side of the racism debate. If you give people a voice sadly far too many of them will resort to abuse. Indeed you don’t actually learn that much on Twitter but you do learn a lot about human nature.

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Kick it out

02/04/2012 By in Sport Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Celebrity culture and sporting prowess are two branches that only in England could have become intertwined. In the case of the Chelsea captain John Terry, who is facing trial on 9 July for racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand, it is the root of something very ugly indeed. Accused of racism by a member of the public after a YouTube clip went viral, the hysteria surrounding the case says as much about celebrity culture as it does about racism in football. Despite not wanting to defend Terry or any incident of racist or bigoted behaviour, a very dangerous precedent has been set where individuals can be thrown in court on accusations made not by the individual concerned but someone (potentially) sitting on a computer in Papua New Guinea.

With Terry losing the England captaincy because of these accusations, the hype surrounding the case also exposes a glib streak running through English popular culture. As football journalism in England is notorious for focusing on personalities and stories unlike in Spain or Italy where the emphasis is on sporting matters. In Spain journalists are even allowed to watch training and with this privilege comes the honour of improving their own knowledge of the game. As a result their coverage of football revolves around sporting excellence and not the personal lives of players.

Only in England could a journeyman footballer such as Joey Barton receive such press attention. Best known for being jailed for attacking a Liverpool teenager in May 2008, the notoriety surrounding the QPR player has been fuelled by his Twitter account. With over a million followers, the player bristles with self-righteous indignation and has a narcissistic desire for attention and thus provides scandal hungry English journalists easy headlines on a near daily basis. With the notable exception of Stan Bowles and Les Ferdinand, not many QPR players have attracted so much press attention as the former Newcastle play maker. However, Barton’s guttersnipe opinions and propensity to get into online feuds with journalists and fans has generated a level of hysteria that belies his achievements in the game.

Playing for a series of marginal clubs with no history of winning trophies, Barton has no medals to his name after a decade playing football. Alas the sporting culture in England is now all about being somebody rather than what you have achieved. Twitter only further accelerates a culture of gossip and spin allowing a narcissist such as Barton a global platform to broadcast his views. Already some players appear more pleased with the number of followers they have than trophies, where previously it had been medals and caps that were the benchmarks of success. Would for example a moderately talented Spanish player who takes the corners and free kicks for a minnow club like Getafe receive front page coverage in Spain?

With the ex-England captain now dethroned it looks like Terry won’t travel with the Euro 2012 squad this summer. But it is all too easy to forget that Terry had been previously stripped of the captaincy by Fabio Capello for having an affair with his team mate’s girlfriend. Sadly the celebrity circus goes on and the build up to the tournament from an England perspective will inevitably circle around their former captain’s court case.

As mediocre players such as Joey Barton try to establish new careers for themselves as ‘brands’, it will be fascinating to watch the English and Spanish sides at the Euro 2012 finals. Not just for their contrasting style of play but for their dignity and approach to the game. No one doubts that Spain are by far the better side. As the majesty of football is on the field of play and that is where it should remain too.

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New Kids on the Block

01/28/2012 By in Press & Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Rarely is anyone judged for who they really are. As anyone who has ever attended a party or social gathering will already know, new friends and acquaintances will invariably want to know ‘what you do’ for a living. It’s unsurprising really. Perhaps it is just human nature for us to compartmentalise our personalities and responsibilities in this way. Graduates lose their progressive status within a year of leaving university. Thereafter some of the greatest young minds on this planet will be defined by their occupation – waitress, drug dealer and freelance blogger; or as they are more commonly known in the Eurozone – unemployed.

Our preoccupation with status has been further amplified by the sheer number of people who have a handle or profile promoting their job and lifestyle. Such a culture inevitably leads to people branding their identities and heightening status anxiety to extraordinary levels. Alas in the words of the late Virginia Woolf ‘the eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages’. The lowly shelf-stacker at Tesco, who has read the works of Joyce, Mishima and Ezra Pound, is certainly not going to feel any better by spending too much time on LinkedIn.

Although there is a light blogging alternative to the online brand phenomenon, where nobody knows your name or what you do. Tumblr is an offbeat social media service with a pop-culture twist. Irreverent by nature and heavily meme based, the Tumblr generation is largely college educated and they post endless streams of fashion, photography and literacy quotes in splendid anonymity. With no comments or trolls, there is something highly refreshing about Tumblr’s eccentricity and complete disregard for how we all have to make a living. Nobody cares what you do, it’s all about what you feel and know to be true.

Predominately US-based and with over 120 million users every month, Tumblr has given rise to some of the most entertaining and offbeat blogs around today. From the sexual intellectualism of Book Porn, soppy boredom of Dogs on Trains and the late great Kim Jong-Il looking at things, Tumblr is a wonderful place to waste time. A digital scrapbook for the creative moths of this world, there is something refreshing how people can express themselves so vividly online in such a weird and odd fashion.

However, success comes at a price and while the light blogging service remains the domain of hyper-intelligent college kids. Old media organisations such as The Guardian and New Yorker now want a piece of the digital action. With traditional newspapers spreading their ‘content’ online, there is a danger Tumblr will succumb to the wishes of large media groups wanting to promote their corporate image. Indeed it has probably happened already such is the power of big business.

But while people remain weird and strange there will always be a place for the marginalised and ignored on Tumblr. It remains somewhere pure and anonymous and relatively untainted by the status obsession culture found on other networks. And while the pressure to be someone will never cease and every fresh handshake and sideways air kiss will inevitably be followed by an enquiry into your occupation. There is now a small place where outside thoughts no longer have to be our cages, and where labyrinth minds can express themselves freely on laptops in unkempt bedrooms and solitary library chambers.

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The Web is Not Great

01/23/2012 By in Press & Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Coming into work with your eyes stinging from the night before doesn’t require a night out to remember. The world is flooded with electronic light and it no longer requires anyone to go outdoors. After spending all day in front of a computer and returning home to converse in the same fashion, there appears to be more and more ways to communicate than things to say. Cyberspace has become a black hole, where our thoughts and emotions are distributed on Facebook and Twitter, and sold on and repackaged to make a profit. God once commanded his flock to down tools on a Sunday but there is now an even more powerful designer in charge and like the celestial dictatorship of old he is entirely man-made.

With the internet going on strike over proposed anti-piracy laws, the Wikipedia protests only further exposed the excessive amount of time we spend online. Such a powerful new religion now requires a Sabbath. Luxury is a result of scarcity and what leather, travel and prawn cocktails were to the working classes in the early twentieth century, spending less time on the internet will be to the twenty first. As anyone with a compulsive refreshing habit will already realise there is something wrong with having permanently sore eyes.

Online activities are too passive to stimulate and often leaves the mind under-nourished but like junk food served in neon-aisles of 24-hour supermarkets it remains curiously addictive. In a world dominated by Twitter storms, reblogging and hang outs, there is a never-ending spectre of what the computer industry calls ‘content’. But even the most erudite of web pages will leave you jaded and disillusioned after clicking the refresh button once too often.

With the Apple Ayatollahs of this world religiously defining their personalities through their digitally branded toys, a dangerous cult is emerging and abstinence is a potential cure. It may involve abandoning your phone and being disconnected for a few hours. Ignoring friends might not seem the most sociable way to re-engage your mind but anything that doesn’t involve being online is time worth cherishing.

Some cellular weary businessmen in the US are checking into ‘black hole’ resorts such as the Black Mountain Ranch on holiday. Granting them a chance to unplug and rediscover their love of literature and human conversation, the resort proudly boasts of having no Wi-Fi or television facilities. A Sabbath luxury of a different kind, these black hole resorts relieve the eyes of tedium by denying access to the greatest communications system of all time. All man-made religions need challenging and especially one as powerful as the internet.  So when jumping down a black hole feels like a worthy alternative you know it’s time to put down the Kindle and reads as many books as you can.

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Rules of Engagement

11/29/2011 By in Press & Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Until quite recently the number of friends you had on Facebook really mattered. Friendship was a numbers game and anything less than a hundred confirmed you were of a lowly social status and resoundingly unpopular. In order to seem normal then tagged pictures of you drinking Mojitos with friends were vitally important. Going to see a band with friends or a house warming party must be a public event or otherwise people will think you’re loser that never goes out. Friends are social points and likewise so are the stock greetings you receive on your birthday, which are especially poignant coming from the friends you unsubscribed from three years ago.

In bars, clubs and parties people exchange Facebook details as a user friendly alternative to calling someone. With a new media landscape comes a new set of rules and social etiquette now involves protecting your internet history. Adding a date on Facebook is a potentially ruinous move. Sexy pictures of former partners, neurotic status updates and flirty comments will be revealed to a virgin pair of eyes. Becoming friends online will inevitably ensure you go too far, too fast and if things do go awry you will be a humiliating click away from the recycle bin. A six month probation period is essential before you can even consider adding a new partner on Facebook.

Since people are growing sick of sharing their most intimate thoughts with idiots they never liked in the first place. Private circles are now becoming increasingly attractive. On realising that you don’t want Jakers, Spanner and the pregnant girl from school following you anymore – social media is gradually becoming more nuanced and exclusive. Rules are therefore required. With Facebook becoming increasingly unpopular, alternative forms of social networking are slowly taking its place. Agenda setting and forming part of the national conversation, Twitter first began as a smug past time for media savvy professionals in London but has now opened up to the public at large.

Dangerously addictive social media has rewired our brains to such an extent that nearly everyone is now prone to shocking displays of mental promiscuity. Books lie unfinished and articles remain half-read, as the mind diverts towards refreshing a laptop instead. However, as our brains are being rewired to suit the net, the rules of engagement are still being defined. Self -publicists on Twitter ‘retweet’ praise about themselves and this involves resending a tweet/update/comment to your own band of followers. This is a massive faux pax in the social media world. Already this type of behaviour is frowned upon in dinner parties and gastro pubs as incredibly annoying. Therefore let others retweet praise about you rather than be defined by slovenly antics.

It is also important to remember that no one outside of your social circle has any interest in what you have to say. Like the gold rush of the Wild West, the people who made the real money were those selling the spades, not the poor souls digging in the wilderness. Twitter has thus become a narcissistic ponzi scheme full of link exchanges and diversions that people rarely (if ever) pay any attention too. Social networking remains an illusionary stage and while it may lack authenticity it certainly has transformed almost every aspect of our daily lives. With old media rendered obsolete, breaking news is no longer announced on the BBC or Sky News but on Twitter instead. Falling behind the curve is particularly embarrassing online – like when people tweeted about the death of Amy Winehouse three hours after it went viral in Uzbekistan.

Again like retweeting praise about yourself, announcing old news as an OMG exclusive is not good practice and with over 300 million users worldwide there are plenty of news channels to choose from. If failing to keep up with a modern news cycle is understandable then tweeting #RIP tributes to dead celebrities is certainly avoidable. Empty tributes to movie stars, actresses, sportsmen you had previously shown no interest in won’t reflect well on your brand.

In future these social media rules will have an impact on our future relationships, friendships, work and one’s personal integrity. A new social contract is slowly being formed and shedding a few dimwits from the friends list and refining your manners will benefit everyone in the future. Our generation’s thoughts and opinions on Facebook and Twitter is a learning process for mankind. Something that will prove essential when the brand building narcissists discover they are nothing but mere noodles on a graph.

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Don’t feed the troll

11/07/2011 By in Press & Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

With internet trolls causing a misogyny scandal after female bloggers complained about the abuse they have been receiving. Questions have to be asked why the internet allows horrible, vindictive little men (and it’s always men) to threaten radical female writers with gang rape and murder. Trolls are traditionally perceived as sexually inadequate men living in their mother’s basements. Deeply unhappy they unleash their frustrations out on the anonymous playing fields of the internet, revelling in the attention that otherwise eludes them in real life. Everyone needs feedback after all, especially lonely young men with right-wing prejudices. Feeling that one has an impact on this world is usually enough to make a troll feel really happy when he retires to his Thomas the Tank Engine duvet covers.

However, it is far too easy to blame the rampant levels of misogyny and abuse on marginalised sections of society. As the majority of abusive comments are composed by seemingly upstanding citizens with families, friends and surprisingly well paid jobs. Almost all newspapers are full of deranged comments by readers posting under alpha-numeric pseudonyms. Usually they are one-eyed political nerds parroting their respective party’s views. Unrepresentative of the population at large, they get their voices heard by shouting the loudest. Comments, of course, come from all members of society. In the football sections, especially in the tabloid press, the barely-literate abuse their rival team’s players, blissfully oblivious to the concept of slander.

But like those who enjoy hard drugs and unprotected sex, there is something viscerally thrilling about participating in such terrible behaviour. For people have always derived pleasure from eliciting reactions in others. Getting a rise out of someone is exciting. Classrooms, pubs and workplaces are full of characters that like to goad, provoke and cajole their friends into a reaction. Socially rewarding and always entertaining, the darker side of provocation can be found on the internet. In this anonymous fantasy land the risk of being held to account for your views is virtually eliminated. Stripped of all social responsibility the trolls are able to throw muck at their respective targets without fear of reproach.

Female bloggers are subject to disproportionate levels of abuse for commenting on serious issues like economics and world affairs. Writing in the New Statesman several female writers, of all political persuasions, have highlighted examples of the gender-based hatred they are subjected to on a daily basis. Sex is frequently used by trolls as a means of teaching feminists a lesson. Belittled for being ‘ugly’ and ‘disgusting’, male trolls have threatened to bayonet, torture and rape female writers at bus stops. Exorcising their base lusts and repressed sexual fantasies, anonymous men with laptops and smartphones, instead of engaging fairly with the substance of the argument, subject female bloggers to sordid levels of abuse.

All journalists receive aggressive criticism but radical women in particular are torn to shreds by the lowest-common denominator of humanity. What is perhaps most shocking is the mistaken assumption that society has progressed beyond this type of behaviour. As social media becomes increasingly mainstream and not just the domain of the urban middle-classes, there is a horrifying realisation that beneath the surface of civility, anonymous trolls are shedding a new light on the darker side of human nature. It’s a sad state of affairs that in the twenty-first century, a feminist writer won’t really have ‘made it’ until she is abused by men who probably tortured worms in their childhood.

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Let them eat cake

10/28/2011 By in Press & Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

As blogging is increasingly becoming the New Jerusalem for anyone looking to forge a career in e-commerce, marketing or journalism. Casting a lens on the digital cathedrals of the modern age, social media is nothing if not revealing. Some of the more popular blogs on the web are being written by affluent, middle-class women.  Busy ladies with not much time on their hands, they purport only to care about their material needs. Writing about their love of all things pretty, the Domestic Sluts have forged a lucrative freelance career eulogising about their consumer lifestyles.

Whether you love writing about dresses, lipstick or baking, the blog has become an essential part of any new graduate’s portfolio. Not only does blogging have the entrepreneurial potential to generate a new income – with many blogs becoming small businesses in everything but name. The blogging phenomenon also provides social historians with a fascinating insight into the values and ideals of the twenty-first century.

Cheating their way to the good stuff, female lifestyle blogs like the Domestic Sluttery and Never Enough Shoes have reclaimed domesticity for themselves. By challenging the etymological and cultural assumptions behind their name, the Domestic Sluts are poster girls for the post-housewife generation. No longer chained to the drudgery of serving a man’s home and confident enough to reclaim slut from the misogynistic gutter. The explicit message of this blog appears to be one of female empowerment. At least for those women earning 40k a year and living in Islington with a lentil eating cat.

Celebrating their ability to buy coffee tables from Venezuela, the Domestic Sluts make virtue of their consumer powers. Although at the dark heart of the sluttery is a paradox. By writing under the guise of unpaid independents, these lifestyle blogs are deeply misleading to their readers. For they are Jennifer Egan style “parrot” inventions at the whim of the PR industry – viral marketing catalogues promoting household products to thousands. The Domestic Sluts may appear to be a grass-movement network of independent women but their subliminal message is rigidly conformist in tone and character.

By openly celebrating their love of cakes and cocktails, female lifestyle blogs have more in common with 1950s magazines such as  Housekeeping Monthly. Back then it didn’t matter how insulting and chauvinistic their adverts were towards women, as the majority of people were already socialised to accept the female housewife stereotype. Adverts in the 1950s portrayed wives as being completely controlled and influenced by their husbands, and promoted feminine products to help impress their husbands, cleaning products, and endless references to the benefits of staying in the kitchen.

After decades of free education these stereotypes appear laughably oppressive to a twenty-first century audience. Modern lifestyle bloggers pay their own way and no longer have husbands to please, or if they do, they certainly won’t be making them roast potatoes for dinner. Instead they go online to satisfy their own desire to go shopping. No longer wanting to serve their husband’s wishes, the Domestic Sluts celebrate lipstick, teapots and cocktails in order to please themselves.

Although as maidens of their own kitchens, what the blogging phenomenon reveals is that the commercial pressures to buy the same products as the 1950s hasn’t changed.  Cakes might taste very nice and designer sofas will always embellish the most slovenly of homes. But if social media has anything to say about twenty-first century life it is how easily our desires and values can be bought.

 
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The Pen is Dead

09/14/2011 By in Arts & Culture Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Letter writing is an increasingly rare occurrence these days. With the rise of smartphones, there are simply more convenient ways of expressing our feelings. As a frequent note jotter myself, I despair at the slow disintegration of my own handwriting. Although I do take solace in that I still compose my thoughts in legible English. For the shape of most people’s written ovals, loops and slants has been in terminal decline for decades now. Writing a letter to your friend has almost become a Victorian anachronism. It’s something quaint and romantic but no longer necessary. Like revitalising dead languages in areas they were never originally spoken, letter writing has now become a sentimental way to communicate.

Chatting online is more convenient nowadays but handwriting forces you to slow down, to think, to form your thoughts more carefully. Everybody’s handwriting will die out eventually without regular practice. Each year I witness my handwriting deteriorate and I still scribble my thoughts down on a regular basis. But note jotting doesn’t require anywhere near the same level of discipline as writing a letter. There is something about pressing the tip of a pen against a page and watching your thoughts form right in front of you. Letter writing is a genuinely cathartic experience and it helps you remember things. Unlike any messages you may compose online, there is no undo button in real life.

As a former teenage boy of letters, I feel something has been lost by the instant muses of mobile technology. When composing your thoughts on paper, the writer has to form relationships entirely dependent on their written skills. Letter writing is certainly a more genuine way to express your feelings. Receiving a handwritten letter in the post will always feel more meaningful than a hastily composed email or Facebook message. In fact putting pen to paper feels almost too personal now. Composing something online is easier because the medium provides a cloak of anonymity that a pen cannot provide.

With the evolutionary demise of handwriting being predicted by some experts, there is a now a romantic movement trying to restore the art of letter writing. The Domestic Sluts are kicking off a debate in London this week about social media and how our letter writing has changed since we started emailing. Does it really matter that we don’t write by hand anymore? On a practical level it doesn’t matter at all. Our need to communicate has never been driven by romantic sentiment. Once technology is established in people’s lives, it doesn’t go away. Indeed the very existence of a restoration movement suggests letter writing is dead already.

Romantic movements meaning well but they are niche by their very nature. Letter writing was never meant to be a kitsch lifestyle choice. Letters are now exhibited as period pieces in retrospective galleries, where once they lay on the porch floor awaiting to be torn open. With the rise of modern technology we arguably exchange more messages and communicate than ever before. Progress is inevitable. But as our handwriting passions slowly die, it sometimes comes at a price.

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