Camera time.

Pictures, the old age way of collecting memories in a slightly more permanent way than our fragile minds. Memories are great, I mean sure who does not want a picture of a new born or when a cloud resembles a ship floating powerfully in the sky. A picture of a group of friends can be used to look back on when down to see times are not always bad. A picture can also change the world, it can wake the world up to a cause and shake beliefs to their foundations. For instance the striking image of that brave man in Tiananmen Square or the photo of Kim Phuc Phan Thai burned horrifically during a napalm attack in Vietnam.

Yes this all seems great but as with everything in life there is a dark side to events. It is the seemingly unstoppable combination of vanity, social networking sites and digital cameras. Every little thing for some obscure reason known only to them has to be recorded and shown to everyone on the Internet. Whole albums dedicated to their new fringe. They have had it cut to resemble something like Posh Beck‘s or whatever ‘celebrity’ they wet their knickers over when reading heat magazine. 360 photographs of this haircut to make sure people see every glorious angle of it. Yet the only people who are going to see it, who will take the effort to drag the mouse towards the direction of the photographs and click whatever times necessary to see it would be friends or family. These people you would assume are people you interact with in everyday life, and in turn would see it anyway. If someone truly had to put it up as someone they want to see it could not, then I’m sure a singular one photo would suffice.

So now they have 50 different albums with 100 or so photos in each one that makes a lot of photos. Do not fret though readers they don’t stop there, they now go on to comment each one of their own pictures with self deprecating comments. Tagging all their photos with words like ‘fat’, ‘rolls’ ‘ugly’ they wait like make up laden vultures to see if a nice comment from a friend arrives. As always it does, a fellow explorer of the interweb soon argues with their friend. ‘Oh no you are beautiful hunny don’t be silly.’ This at first seems nice and a lovely thing to do, but on closer inspection the real truth is revealed. The friend which complimented also has photos, and said photos are also numerous and are also tagged with self loathing phrases. So it would seem they do it in the hope that their friend returns such a favor which they, of course, do.

This of course is not a mere matter of vanity and pride. It, if anything, shows how desperately tragic the life of a teenage girl must be. As a male the ideal may not be as strong to look ‘perfect’ but it is there and grows stronger every day. But with the female of the species the constant and powerful pressure put on them by the mass media has created millions of woman with little or no self confidence. Feeling so low about themselves they take as many photos they can and only show the ones which they feel reflect them best. They then proceed to pick about that photo and find any flaws they can, real or not. They hungrily seek compliments; however they know those who do so are as insecure as them and because of that their opinion is invalid. On the march for approval they will never realize, chasing a dream thought up by sadly the only people who are awake. While I may attack things like facebook or those who take the pictures, the ones at fault are the media and the advertisers. They seek to milk every person’s soul for as much money as they can. They poison and wreak havoc in good and honest people. The most upsetting thing is, no matter how much any one says this in all likely hood nothing will change.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. Oscar Wilde.

Hollyoaks.

Powerful emotive television.
Television is not something I am a huge fan of it consists of mainly badly written, badly acted and badly directed piles of visual and audio excrement. However sometimes it hits that quality mark big time, for instance the first series of House or any series of South Park. However there is something which misses the mark so much, fails in such gigantic proportions that one has to wonder how the creators have not committed group suicide and burnt every existing tape of it. You may be wondering what show this is, you may already know or you may not care. I however wish to keep you in suspense no longer so this show name is HOLLYOAKS! Right now people reading this are having one of three actions, nodding furiously while vomiting on their shoes on the memory of seeing it that one time. Others are sitting wondering what Hollyoaks is. The last group are sitting there wondering how I can attack a show which makes them feel happy. I am with the first group in changing my socks and I wish I belonged to the second group. The third group however confuse me oh so greatly.

The reason being is that I have spoken to those who enjoy watching it. They enjoy the whole package but most of all they feel as if it connects to them. This does sound like a nice idea at first, a show which gives people a chance to feel normal and someone they can associate to. I would like to point out I would be all up for a show that does that, but does it well and does it without exploiting. Because that is what Hollyoaks essentially does. It creates easy to identify 2D characters with little or no chance to feel empathy for them. The story lines are a pathetic and frequent attempt at appearing modern and ‘down with the kids’. There is one particular bad case in the character of Newt who is played by Nico Mirallegro. I actually think he is one of the better actors, maybe not amazing but it must be hard to make that writing amazing. His character is what I’m sure the writers think all teenagers who are angst ridden and listen to rock must look like. He is used to aim towards the ‘emo’ audience. He dresses all in black, has piercings and even a fucking black fringe. Not only does he dress as what that person is thought to do, he also has severe physiological disorders. Considering the emo group is usually also labelled as being self harmers and suicidal I am sure that is not just a coincidence. The story line is ridiculous; he is schizophrenic and makes smoke bombs because someone in his head told him too. He then gets the entire usual mind* stuff and comes out very shortly, which is odd for someone who has an irreversible mental disorder and made bombs. But it is not just him; every character is so plain and very, very boring to watch. They never make any one who is watching to really think about an issue. Each issue is set out to be so black and white, with only obvious characters taking part. It constantly promotes the idea of making sure you belong to a social group. It tells its young audience that you must dress and then act accordingly. Not once is the audience every really let to draw its own conclusions about events each answer is given. It just is a mind numbing, brain washing exercise and anyone with any sense would either turn into something else. Or even better turn it off altogether and actually hang out and be with people and see who they really are beyond the superficial limits applied to us by programmes such as Hollyoaks.

Also the music is almost always shit.

*Technical terms fail me.

Bear Grylls

Why Bear Grylls has it easy.
Bear Grylls, as you may know, is the explorer who goes to random hostile environments and shows the public survival techniques. Now this either makes him a very brave man or a complete and utter drooling retard who has not yet understood hotels. Either way he has become an icon for a lot of people. Which mainly consist of two types of brain damaged folks; those who wish they could join the army but could not finish scouts, and scouts. He climbs mountains, sweats, drinks water from sand, and cuts open dead camels. He does a lot of overly pointless things to tell people pointless information. The clearest reason to understand why his show is pointless is that it will never aid any one. The sub human degenerates that watch that show are too fat and too lazy to even venture out the door and towards Pizza Hut without the need of a car. The whole concept of what he is doing seems alien to them – why eat dried turd when you can eat a McDonalds meal? Ironically, they both taste very similar. His show only teaches things that people who wish to do what he is doing already know, and those people will not watch that show to learn. And so I think I have come to the conclusion that he and what he does remains largely pointless. BUT there is something that can lighten the heart of even the most dead wretched soul. And it comes from deeper viewing.

As you watch Bear* do his inane tasks, it occurs to one that there is a brave, brave soul. That is the lowly cameraman. YES HIM! The guy who is forced to carry a heavy recording device on his back like a cross. He has to lumber this across cold or baking hot terrain. He does it so we can see someone actually go out and do stuff slightly more interesting than bingo. He is the one showing us the evil ways we live our lives from our microwave meals to our exciting adventures to a man made manicured plastic park. He does this for little or no thanks, not grumbling and not complaining. Not until the day he collapses from the strain and breathes his final words ‘the show must go on’ shall we realise the prophet that had been before us. He shall step up to the pearly gates, which I’m sure he will prefer as I’m sure they have Coke machines. And he will be welcomed by open arms by Jesus. (That’s mainly because he has trouble closing them.) And when Bear is finished pointing out how fucking lazy we are, and passes away, he will fall down to the fiery pits of hell where he shall be forced to wrestle Steve Irwin for eternity.












*quick television idea, Bear and The Dog team up to find Eskimo criminals.