Facebook is being invaded by advertising

Everyone’s worried about, and infuriated by, the incursion of brands and advertisements into the supposedly safe spaces of our beloved social media . But I don’t think we’re in danger of being brainwashed just yet. We don’t live in The Lawnmower Man, or The Matrix, or A Clockwork Orange. We live in the gladiatorial arenas of ancient Roman times, except now people are goring each other with keyboards instead of swords. Big companies with goods to hock aren’t going to ruin our on-line experiences: we, the baying mob, are going to ruin theirs. To paraphrase The Watchmen’s Rorscharch: “I’m not in the internet with you, Coca Cola, YOU’RE IN THE INTERNET WITH ME!”

I would absolutely hate to be the guy who has to monitor a company’s social media presence, and respond to customer comments and complaints. Any time I’ve checked out the promoted page of a company brave or foolish enough to roll up its trousers and wade into Facebook’s stormy waters, its comment threads have been alive with inspired (and not-so-inspired) trolling, righteous indignation, and insane levels of rage.

A typical exchange goes something like this:


REYNOLDS’ CORNFLAKES

Image result for cornflakes

A little bowl of ever-so-slightly genetically modified sunshine every morning!

angryAngryPat: “YOUR FUCKING CORNFLAKES KILLED MY FATHER!”

tick,octagon,frame,check on,checked,correct,right,yes,checkmark,okReynoldsCornFlakes: “Hi Pat! Thank you so much for your comment, and I hope you’re having an absolutely super day. Brrrr! It’s a bit cold outside, isn’t it? So sorry to hear about your father, but I can assure you that our products are only made from good, wholesome ingredients, and all of our manufacturing is overseen by beautiful unicorns in magical palaces built at the ends of rainbows. If anything, our cornflakes should have added a good five years to your father’s life. Was he a drinker, Pat?


Or


CHIKE MAX-PERFORMANCE TRAINERS

Image result for generic sneakers

If you’re looking for a decent shoe, jog on.

peaceHippyGenoveve: “How many little Taiwanese children had to be whipped to death on a yearly wage of sixty pence to perfect your new range of death boots, you fucking Nazis?”

tick,octagon,frame,check on,checked,correct,right,yes,checkmark,okChikeTrainers: “Hi Genoveve. Amazing to hear from you! My late mother was called Genoveve. Beautiful woman. Let me just assure you that we only subcontract to companies who subcontract to companies who subcontract to companies who subcontract to companies who subcontract to companies who we’ve heard on the grapevine are absolutely reliable. And if that isn’t enough to reassure you, then please remember that our partners use only the best, free-range Taiwanese children.


Or


LEPSY NAX

Image result for fizzy drink

Fucks your heart, makes you fart…

evilCarcinogenicGraham: “What do you cunts enjoy the most, giving people stomach cancer or diverting water supplies from the poor indigenous peoples of the Indian sub-continent?”

tick,octagon,frame,check on,checked,correct,right,yes,checkmark,okLepsyNax: “Graham, I know this is crazy, because we’ve only just met, but how would you feel about our familes all going on holiday together later this year? Thank you for your passionate comment. Reading between the lines, I think what you’re really asking is: ‘How do we get the taste of our mouth-watering cola product just right? Is it some sort of magic?’


There’s something deliciously democratic about all of these conglomerates finding themselves at the mercy of angry (in most cases justifiably angry) proles like you and me. Their on-line pages are slowly transforming into long lists of bad-for-business buzz words; endless cries of CANCER! DEAD KIDS! EXPLODING EYES! YOUR COCOA MADE MY ASS BLEED!

Marvellous.

I used made-up generic brands for the jokey examples in this article, rather than risk using real company/brand names like Kellogs Cornflakes, Nike or Pepsi Max, which would’ve been foolhardy at best.

OTHER ARTICLES ON THE SITE RELATED TO ADVERTISING –

Culture Jamming Pt 1

Culture Jamming Pt 2

Why Advertising is So Full of Shit

Cunt of the Week (23 July 2012) by Robin Grainger

It’s not tricky being annoyed at something. It is tricky, however, finding just ONE cunt or symbol representing said cuntitude, upon which to base one’s annoyance. (I just used the antiquated term “one” there to describe myself. You must already think I am a cunt.)

I had many thoughts about whom or what my victim would be. I scanned the competition. Richard Hunter told the council to fuck off; Fraser Edwards used his wit to banish real ale drinkers (I’m informed he was tucking into a Bishop’s Finger at the time…) and the lovely John McGoldrick did away with an absolute knob of a customer. My contemporary cunt caller-outers seem tough to beat.

I thought perhaps to target my rage on racists. Nah, racists are too easy. It would be much more fun, hypocritical and overall cunty of me to focus my rage on an area of modern life. An area which spills in on us like a randy priest, not just on Sundays, but daily: social networks.

How ironic to hate social networks when this display of vitriol will be shown on social networks. I realise I am as much a slave to social networking as anyone is, and this annoys me. I’d much rather have posted the blog by carrier pigeon.

Social networking is helpful if you want to promote something, share music and engage in shoot-shittery,but some people want everyone to know fucking EVERYTHING. Who gives a fuck where you are eating? Who gives a fuck that you got a new job? All that does is remind me that I have eaten tear-sodden rice for 11 consecutive days while wanking over the fact that I might not get the woman with the glass eye at the job centre.

Social networks also take the fun out of life. If you are with mates drinking and have a laugh, why do you have to return home to find yourself tagged in a status that reads ‘Drinking and having a laugh’? You know! You were there! None of the world’s important events would have happened the way they did had social networking been around. The Last Supper would have simply been: ‘Jesus is in Nandos tagged with 12 others. The waiter totes knows we didn’t order the wine. LOL.’

At this juncture I’d like to express hatred for social networks simply because they have become a breeding ground for fucking abbreviations. Use the whole sentence you dicks. We didn’t learn speech just to piss it all up the cyber-toilet wall did we? The fact that this generation is progressively more retarded than the last isn’t a coincidence; it’s because morons are saying ‘LOL’ as opposed to actually laughing.

On the other hand, at least the JFK mystery wouldn’t have been a mystery: the killer would have ‘checked in’ at the book depository.

Social media is just too time consuming. It takes over everything. Remember the thrill of meeting anyone new and learning that they are interesting? Facebook timeline punched that joy right in the gooch. Now, if you are single and like someone, you can stalk them backwards to find out they had an eating disorder, own a Sex And The City boxset and have a fondness for Jedward. In the good old days it would take a long-term relationship to build up that kind of hatred for a person.

Social media also makes people – mostly retards – believe that their opinion is as valid as everyone else’s, when it is actually formed from ignorance and fucking stupidity; Before this, you wouldn’t have to see these people spew their polyp-heavy, tabloid-flavoured diarrhoea all over your life and laptop screen. More people care about what lip balm Katie Price wears with which to boredly glaze a monosyllabic moron’s cock, than they do about actually having a conversation with a real person in real life. Celebrities for the most part are cunts; they are worshipped on social networks by cunts, therefore social networks are cunts for keeping the whole cuntcycle in motion. Kill them all.

I suppose it all boils down to me really. I need social networks, but I fucking loathe them. Perhaps if I dedicate the rest of my life to tabloids and The Only Way Is Essex, with a full volume backing track by Bieber on repeat, I may find myself joining the masses of mindless, joyless fucks out there. Let’s hope I’m not converted. Or cuntverted.

PS: The original draft of the blog wasn’t about social networks, it was about onions. I fucking hate onions. I don’t trust them. No vegetable should have the power to make a person cry. Unless that vegetable is a terminally ill loved one.

Robin Grainger

THIS WEEK’S GUEST WRITER Robin Valo Grainger is a 23-year-old stand-up originally from Mordor (Cornhill, Banffshire), but now living in Edinburgh, because he thinks he’s better than you. Especially YOU. He’s been on the laugh circuit since September 2010, and in that time has made it as a semi-finalist in the Laughing Horse New Act Of The Year competition, and semi-ed it again for the Scottish Comedian Of The Year competition in both 2010 and 2011. Some cunts from The Skinny have said that he’s like ‘David Bowie going through an emo phase,’ and credited him with ‘swagger, energy and some great ideas.’ The Daily Record called him, ‘The most diabolic sex criminal since Glitter.’ Grainger alleged that he was abused by a ghost in 1998, and since then has never been able to watch an episode of Scooby Doo without screaming in primal terror and masturbating himself into a bloody, crying mess. Puzzlingly, any TV show featuring John Craven has exactly the same effect on him. Robin Grainger is really looking forward to being dead.

FOLLOW ROBIN ON TWITTER: @robinvalo
READ ROBIN’S BLOG: aboynamedrobin.wordpress.com
SEE HIS FRINGE SHOW: http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/applause