No I Don’t Want to Friend Your Cock

I have been on Facebook since 25 June 2007.  That is like forever in the cyber world.  I have been on Facebook longer than what most people’s relationships last; longer than what most people, including myself, stay at the same job.  Through the last five years I had my fair share of dramas on and with Facebook and I have learned that there are people on Facebook who have very serious fucking mental problems.  Reflecting back on my, sometimes tumultuous, history with “The Facebook” I could not help but wonder, are people really as fucked up in real life as they seem to be on the web.

During the last five years I have been banned from Facebook twice.  Yes banned! Twice!  Coincidentally, both times were preceded by some rather disturbing hate mail I received from some very fanatical religious freaks who took great umbrage at my mere existence.  These were the same freaks that, in all probability, reported me to the gods at Facebook who in return instead of investigating the “complaints” rather opted to disable my account.  Both times it took weeks and a torrent of emails for the Facebook gatekeepers to come to their senses and to reinstate my account.  The most recent time they threatened to banish me was because I had too many friends.

You see, Facebook has a 5000 friend limit.  I have reached that limit a couple of times at which times I were instructed by a faceless bot message to clean up my friend list OR ELSE.  Do you know how long it will take me to scrutinize my entire friend list?  It would not take days – it would take weeks!  The last time I was threatened to clean up my friend list was in August last year and it took me a whole week to delete just over 300 people.  My criteria were simple:  If you don’t have a profile picture of yourself, you were unfriended.  If your name is “Gay Love”, “iFuck a Lot” or “BJ King” or anything ridiculous like that you were gone.  And if you have your private parts as your profile picture you were unfriended.  And this leads me to my next point.  Why do some people think you are on Facebook to hookup?

My Facebook profile clearly reads “married” under my relationship status.  Surely the people who inbox me on Facebook can’t be illiterate?  I have gotten countless messages over the years ranging from people who were soliciting sex from me, wanting to know if hubby and I were into gang bangs, asking how big my dick is, what fetishes I am into and the best ones were “ASL” (age sex location).  Now if you need to ask me that on Facebook you are either just fucking retarded or super lazy!  I mean honestly, don’t these people read your profile before sending you profanities and wanting to have carnal knowledge of your body?  If I don’t know you chances are good that I also don’t want to play occupy the anus with you especially if we are not even on the same continent.

And then there are the people on Facebook who firmly believe that their dicks are their best physical attribute.  They are so very proud of their little sausages that they prominently display it as their profile pictures.  Now if you invite me as a friend and all I can see is your erect pointing the wrong way cock that’s barely disguising your unkept bush and hairy balls, chances are good that I will not accept your request.  Chances are even better that I will report your profile to Facebook and the message you will get in your inbox from me will read “No, I don’t want to friend your cock!”  I mean seriously, would you walk around in public with your crown jewels hanging out of your pants?  Doing it on Facebook is pretty much the same thing, don’t you think?

But Facebook don’t just have overly horny folks, they also have the spammers.  You know who I am talking about.  Those people who like to post products on their timelines, obsessively tag you in photos of brands, inbox 50 people at a time with “You can win a iPad 3” and those folks who troll groups and pages and post links to websites ranging from pornography to dating sites.  I believe there is a special place in hell for these fucktarts right next to telemarketers, homophobes, Hitler and Robert Mugabe.  I don’t know why Facebook don’t ban them.  Most of their profiles are fake anyway and this is why I never accept friend request from girls posing in sexy positions that have a lot of friends but never post anything on their timelines except for spam.

The other crowd of the people that occasionally annoy me on Facebook is the folks that clearly need to be in therapy and never mind airing all of their dirty laundry in public.  Sure sometimes it is entertaining reading their status updates in my news feed.  Following their mental meltdowns during the course of eight hours or reading how they are trying to get rid of their one night stands the next morning is quite entertaining.  But have these folks no shame?  Are they not aware that their friends are reading these status updates and are judging them?  Some days while reading my news feed on Facebook I feel so much more normal and mentally stable in comparison to some of my internet friends.  Watching their shit go down in real time feels a little voyeuristic, but hey if they post it who am I not to read it.

Lastly, I have a certain group on Facebook which I have been trying to close down now for well over a year but with little success.  Apparently winning a war in Iraq is easier than closing down a group on Facebook.  I decided to close the group down due to spam, people using it as their personal sex hookup spot, endless “add me” posts and a few other unsavory reasons.  I have closed the wall, banned hundreds of folks and outright threatened people.  Yet, the group continues to grow and currently have well over 22 000 members.  It boggles the mind.  Why would people stay in a group where you can’t do anything?  Moreover, why the hell would anyone want to join the group either?  The group is called “Gay” but should be called “Whores Orgies & Spam” instead.

Yes, Facebook is filled to its cyber brim with some fucked up people.  Perhaps some folks on Facebook think that I am fucked up, the lord knows I too have my moments.  But no matter how fucked up some people are, I keep on going back to some of my more favorite messed up friends’ profiles.  I do this because their problems and the fact that they are so vocal about it make my problems seem less severe and it’s fun to read and sometimes to watch it happen.  After all, only on the web can people truly embrace and express how fucked up they really are, something they dare not do in their real lives.  It’s just a pity that sometimes, when they least expect it, the two worlds collide and often times it does so with less than desirable consequences.

Till next time.

Is Social Media Turning Us Into Lazy Voyeurs

Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin, Google+ and Twitter are just some social networking websites most of us visit every day. The world has indeed become a smaller place as it is getting easier for us to communicate and connect with people from across the globe. The convenience of checking up on what your friends are doing with the click of a button has in some cases replaced a simple phone call. Names have been replaced with handles or avatars and it all have become very impersonal. This led me to ask, has social networking websites driven as further away from each other instead of bringing us closer?There are very few people I know that are not on Facebook. The scary reality is that if you don’t have a Facebook, Linkedin or Google+ account you almost do not exist and if you don’t tweet or know what Twitter is you have probably been living in a cave. Cyberspace no longer is a mere tool to do research, get information, sell or buy products and communicate, it has evolved into an alternative means of socialization. We share information about ourselves with hundreds if not thousands of people every day and in return we get to know more about others. Sometimes we learn things about people we rather could have done without.
Having just over 6000 friends on Facebook my news feed gets flooded with status updates every few minutes. Some status updates are quite interesting and others are just plain bizarre. This one person on Facebook insists on providing blow-by-blow accounts about the status of his erections – like I care! Seriously, is his life that uninteresting or should there be some cause for concern regarding his obsession with his cock? Another person seems to have serious relationship problems as her relationships status fluctuates between beings single, in a relationship, engaged, to it's complicated and back to single again in the course of just one week. Either she’s experiencing some schizoid episodes or urgently needs to evaluate her “relationship” as it does not seem healthy.

Something I find particularly bizarre is the Facebook profiles people create for their pets and children. A family member (whose name I wouldn’t dare mention) have created and maintains profiles for her dog and cat complete with photos, careers and relationship status. Another person I know has done the same for her 9 month old son, and he already has 67 friends. It’s just creepy, but I did accept their friend requests, I do know them after all.  I too have created a Fan Page for my cat "Killer Pussy", so yea I am no better than them either.  At least my cat has more fans than the average person on Facebook have friends.  She has 815, but she doesn't give a rats ass about that (and yes the pun is fully intended).

Even stranger is the fact that on Twitter I am now following a cat. No you didn’t read incorrectly I am really following a critter of the feline persuasion. I get hourly updates from the feline lounging around the house, taking a nap or taking a poo in the litter box. Now, I will admit this is my own craziness for following the daily toils of a fictional cat, but curiosity also got the better of over 1 416 057 other people who are also following "Sockington" the famous tweeting feline. One would think having 5 cats of my own I would have better things to do, but clearly I don’t.  (PS: Killer Pussy is on Twitter too!) 

Social networking sites have also made us lazy and voyeurs. Where are the days when friends returned from an exotic holiday and we would pop by for a visit to check out their holiday photos? These days you can follow their adventures online and in real time. This makes it really convenient for all your stalkers to track where you are and what you are doing. No need to hide in the bushes are purchase expensive plane tickets.  Facebook has brought us Cyber Stalking.  Personally,  I have to admit that I am guilty of this myself.  I do check out certain people's profiles regularly to see what is going on in their lives, and I will admit I do this mainly to feel better about myself.  You can't lie, I know many of you do the same thing, come on admit it.

How many of us really know the people we are friends with online? Very few of us have actually met half of our virtual friends. I am one of the biggest culprits in this area. Out of my 6 742 Facebook friends I shamefully would have to admit that I know maybe 200 of them. From the 200 I probably have only met 50. Yet, on a daily basis I have an unadulterated bird’s eye view of their turmoil’s and joys of all of them and they have the same of mine - quite frightening if you sit back and think about it. Effectively we are sharing vast amounts of personal information about ourselves with perfect strangers and yes even with “cats”.

To a certain degree technology has made it easier for us to communicate. Whether you use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, MSN, Skype, Google+ or any of the other platforms to stay in touch, the one thing you should really be asking yourself is whether these mediums are a better substitute for personal contact? Social networking websites have changed the way we connect with people but even though you can reach a friend or family member that’s on a different continent with the click of a mouse there still is a barrier between you, and the Internet will never be able to replace face-to-face personal contact or the warmth of a hug.

Till next time.

Facebook thinks I’m a Pornographer!

Oops I did it again.  This week Facebook blocked me for 24 hours. This is their version of sending you to the corner for being a very naughty boy.  Apparently, some fucktard reported a certain photo which I uploaded to my fan page resulting in the gods at Facebook thinking that I am a “pornographer”.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my porn just as much as the next fag, but there’s a time and a place for porn and Facebook is not the place for it.  Besides who goes onto Facebook armed with lube and tissues ready to molest themselves?  Not me, that’s why we have Tumblr.  But I digress…

As you know I have made some enemies through the couple of years that I have been blogging (3 years to be exact).  Having enemies and people who hate you isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I take it as a sign that I am doing something right and sometimes their hate mails are seriously funny, especially the ones that like quoting Leviticus.  But every so often one of those people does something that seriously inconveniences me.  Sometimes they report me to Facebook and on occasion I am punished for it like the dirty bad boy that I am.  In the last 3 years I have been banned from Facebook twice, have been blocked 7 times and even received an email from Facebook accusing me of Hate Speech.

Now we all know there are some seriously fucked up people on Facebook and I have blogged about this before.  Those folks who are offended by the world, lives in a bubble of ignorance and waves around their intolerance as if it is an Olympic event.  It really is a pity that their profiles don’t come with a mandatory idiot warning and that there isn’t a Facebook app that can block them outright.  But the world needs idiots and whether we like it or not – they are here to stay.  Besides if there weren’t any idiots who would we laugh at?

With my latest incident on Facebook I have come to the conclusion that maybe some folks need to download themselves a sense of humor.  Because whoever got offended by a naked man’s butt cheeks and is incapable of thinking that the “offensive” picture is funny needs to go on some strong medication.  Have these people not seen some of the really nasty shit other people upload to Facebook?

I have blocked and banned so many people from my one Facebook group because of the stuff they post there.  I have had to report and delete hundreds of pictures of cocks, cum, fisting, water sports, vaginas, and stuff people like to shove up their assholes.  I didn’t see those people get blocked or banned from Facebook.  Could it be that Facebook have a problem with pictures that are not hardcore enough?  If the man had a dildo hanging from his rectum would that have been ok?  One can only wonder.

The previous time Facebook gave me a timeout was because of a picture I uploaded of nuns painting a naked man.  Again the only thing you could see was his very nice and tight ass.  That too “offended” someone so much that they just could help themselves but to report it.  I wonder whether that person did it before or after they masturbated.  It seems that Facebook has double standards and that some on Facebook, especially heterosexuals Christians, are more equal than others.  Since I created my Fan page I have encountered numerous problems due to people reporting my page.  The culprits were mostly the fanatical religious far right.  The same people who also have fan pages devoted to their anti-gay rhetoric and dire tripe.  The same people who propose that all homosexuals should be killed and that we are abominations.  Yet these people are allowed to preach their hate on Facebook and that seems to be ok.

The world seems to be filled with double standards especially when it comes to gay people, so why should Facebook be any different?  With over 8000 likes on my fan page and with over 700 people having shared the picture that got me blocked for 24 hours, I couldn’t help but wonder whether we are being picked on.  It’s not my fault the photo went viral.  It’s not my fault it was fucking funny.  Did the person at Facebook who ultimately decided to block me not use his/her discretion and realize this was a malicious report?  Could that person not see the humor in it or was the decision to block me based on my fan page’s name and the fact that it is dedicated to LGBT news and issues.  Was that person homophobic?  Who knows…

One thing is for sure – I will not lose sleep over this.  This queer has more important things to worry about other than scared little homophobes trolling Facebook trying to take out one homosexual at a time by maliciously reporting them.  If that is the only thing that gives them pleasure in their sad little lives then who am I to take it away from them.  I will much rather focus my attention on what is really important: Recruiting homosexuals to ensure that Queer HQ is prepared and well resourced for our end game – Taking Over The World!  Suck on that Homophobes!

So Facebook thinks I am a pornographer, who the fuck cares.  I don’t know what type of porn they are watching or downloading but something gives me the idea that they are doing it wrong.  At least my 24 hour ban is over and all is back to normal.  As for the person who reported me, I have three words for you: Go. Fuck. Yourself.  Just try not to do it in front of a mirror; we don’t want you to offend yourself now do we.

Till next time.

The Psycho Who Friended Me

We live in a sick world.  Sure this is not breaking news, but sometimes I have a tendency to want to forget that this is true.  Last week I read an article about a certain washed up gay porn star called Luca Rocco Magnotta.  This sick puppy allegedly killed his boyfriend, videotaped the murder, then proceeded to cut the corpse into pieces and then mailed a hand and a foot to certain politicians in Canada.  You may think this is the worst of it but you’d be wrong.  The worst part of it is that, unbeknown to me, I actually was Facebook friends with this psycho, at least until I unfriended and block him.

Luca Rocco Magnotta also goes under the aliases of Vladimir Romanov or Mattia Del Santo, but his real name is Eric Clinton.  It is believed that he killed his boyfriend, Jun Lin, while videotaping it and then uploaded the video to a certain snuff and gore website.  The video shows a man with an ice pick stabbing another naked, bound man.  He dismembers the corpse and then performs sexual acts with it which can only be described as horrifying.

If you have never been exposed to dead bodies or images thereof I strongly recommend that you do not search for this video or its images online.  It is horrendous and you cannot unsee what you have seen.  There were earlier signs that Luca was not mentally well.  For nearly two years animal activists have been looking for a man who tortured and killed cats and then posted videos of this cruelty on YouTube.  It wasn’t until Lin’s murder that Montreal police released a photo from one such video that clearly shows that it is Luca in these appalling videos.

Luca would take kittens and place them in a clear plastic bag and have them suffocate while he filmed them.  He has drowned cats and kittens in videos and even fed a live kitten to a snake.  Clearly, he is one demented individual who is cruel and have no respect for life.  Lucas was a ticking time bomb whose natural progression would be from animals to humans and Lin tragically became his first human victim.  So how did I learn that I was Facebook friends with such a sick and dangerous person?

Well, after reading the news reports of this ghastly murder I decided to search for Luca on Facebook.  And lo and behold I found his profile and saw that we were friends.  I was flabbergasted!  I don’t ever recall accepting a friend request from him nor seeing any of his status updates.  Was this really him?  I wondered.  So I started reading his timeline and to my further horror discovered it was indeed him.  Even more interesting I saw that, even though he was the subject of a massive man hunt by Interpol, he updated his current location to Paris on Sunday at 18:39.

Not only is he a murderer he is stupid too.  You know the world is looking for you but you go into an internet Café and then tell the world where you are.  Maybe he wanted to get caught.  I was tempted not to unfriend him as my professional curiosity urged me to wait and see what he was going to do next.  But in the end I was overwhelmed with my utter disgust for this man and mortified that I was in any way connected to him.  So I decided to unfriend and block him just in case he felt like fleeing to South Africa and decided to look me and hubby up.  I will not look good dead and dismembered and I really never want to be featured on that disgusting snuff video website.

So in the absence of having sight of his status updates I followed the news closely.  On Monday afternoon Luca was finally apprehended in Berlin.  Naturally he was arrested at an internet Café reading news articles about himself.  An employee of the Café recognized Luca and luckily the police were close by and Luca was arrested without any resistance.  He will in all probability be extradited back to Canada where he will be charged with several offenses one of which will be first degree murder.

It is a pity Canada don’t carry out death penalties anymore.  Luca seem to be a good candidate for execution when he is found guilty.  Unless he can prove that he has a psychiatric disorder I don’t believe that he would be likely to be rehabilitated.  After all he did write on his wall “Once you have tasted human blood there is no going back”.  And I believe him.  He will kill again if he is allowed to remain as a member of society.

Whether I have any other homicidal friends on Facebook, I do not know.  It is just shocking when you read about a horrific crime and then later learn that you have the wanted murderer in your friendlist.  It just once again goes to show how small the world has become due to social media.  Now, not only can you reconnect with old school friends, you can be friends with Interpol's most wanted too.

Till next time.

Facebook, Twitter & Skype

I just love vintage advertisement.  Usually they are a great source of amusement to me.  So imagine my delight when I stumbled across these three ads on Pinterest this morning.  They were too good to keep to myself. (Click on the image to enlarge)

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Social media have proved to be the most powerful medium of our generation to communicate, share, educate and connect.  Recently we saw revolutions, riots and protest organized, mobilized and carried out via social media.  With this in mind I'd like to ask all of you who have a social media presence, what are YOU using it for?

Google+ wants to be my Pimp

Ok, so recently being the Social Media Whore that I am, I finally decided to accept my Google+ invitation. Apparently I was flagged by Google as a superuser or in layman’s terms – the type of social media whore that “will love you long time!” The first invitation reached me just over a month ago and like a typical skittish intraweb socialite I required some more wooing. And wooed me they did. After being somewhat harassed I finally decided to check it out. And now I find myself in a social media ménage à trios, which led me to ask will Facebook, Twitter and Google+ make for good bedfellows.

I have been in my fair share of ménage à trios’s in my life, believe it or not. Some good and other’s not so much. So when the prospect of being intertwined in a social media three-way came up (so to speak) I found it quite daunting. I have spent allot of time and effort building my relationship with Facebook and I have spent the last two years trying to figure out my short -worded Twitter bird and its fail whale. So involving a third party in our cosy and comfortable little social setup was not something I took lightly. I wasn’t sure if Google+ would be a good fit and how this would affect my relationship with Facebook or Twitter.

Naturally, when I decided to check out Google+, I did so without the knowledge of Facebook and Twitter. My first rendezvous with Google+ was to be a secret one. I made sure the other two were closed in my web browser and I decided to use Google Chrome instead of Explorer to access my new potential social media lover. Feeling guilty and excited at the same time, I logged on and discovered a new social media world filled with potential. Circles, hangouts, sparks and being able to +1 websites and things I liked. Google+ was younger, prettier and its video chat application much faster and more robust than that of Facebook. Clicking and poking my way around I got the sense of being on the verge of a social media revolution and then like a lightning bolt it hit me -this could be my second chance, a chance to start over in social media!

You see, maintaining another social media presence is not something I would have been likely to consider. Maintaining my Facebook and Twitter accounts takes up enough time as it is. But with Google+ there seems to be an opportunity: An opportunity of having more control over my online presence; an opportunity of having more control over my privacy settings and more control over my social connections. Effectively, if you have been overwhelmed by your current social media accounts, have been smothered with social connection over which you have lost all control, and want to have a new beginning Google+ provides this for you. Whilst in the grips of this mental orgasm I could not help but think, is this social media whore wanting to turn all “I’m only going to be friends with people I know in real life”. Well the answer is NO.

Deep down I am an incredibly loyal person. I have spent far too much time building my Facebook fan base, cultivating followers on twitter and all this at no financial benefit to myself. So effectively this makes me more of a social media slut than a whore. I am cheap and easy and love traffic! After I have had my shag in the virtual hay with Google+, I spent a good few minutes starring at my Facebook login page. Feeling a little bit dirty and ashamed I did not want to enter. What if Facebook knew? What if my Facebook friends saw me? So I did the only thing I could think off. I status updated my indiscretion.

Will I be cheating on my Facebook friends with Google+? That is was how I choose to confess. It was a good ten minutes before anyone responded. I was nervous. Then the first whimper of a reaction, first one person liked the update, and then two more. I was confused. Was it OK? Didn’t they mind? Then the answer came - a flurry of requests by my friends to invite them to Google+. It seemed there were many folks out there wanting to try something new. Maybe they were just curious or maybe there are some people genuinely wanting to start afresh. Once you hit your Facebook friend limit of 5000 and start missing important status updates from your close friends, this tends to happen. If you have spent a whole Saturday going through your friend list deleting people you don’t know, never interact with and by the time you get to the P’s in your social alphabet it’s 8pm already you will understand.

Before any of my Facebook friends freak out – NO I WILL NOT BE LEAVING FACEBOOK! However, I have joined Google+ and I am going to give it a try. It’s like opening a brand spanking new book with all its pages blank, ready for me to write a new chapter. This social media slut’s ménage à trios is going to be my own little experiment. Which one of the three will prevail, who knows but I plan on having fun finding out.

Till next time.

Techno Addiction, Do You Have It?

Finally I am the proud owner of a brand spanking new BlackBerry. Once more technology has found a new way to infiltrate my human existence and suck me further into the scripts, codes, numbers and programs of the virtual oblivion that is technology. Technology is advancing at lightning speed and new tools are being developed everyday all to help make our lives easier. Technology are also becoming more and more integrated into our lives and instead of making life simpler, in many respects, it’s making it more complicated. This led me to wonder, are we becoming unwittingly addicted to technology and its by-products?

We live in the information age where with the touch a button we can share our inner most thoughts with thousands of people, check up on what our friends and family are doing, keep abreast on current events or even learn how to make an atomic bomb, if you’re into that kind of thing. Now we can do all of this anywhere, anytime and as often as we like. Technology has made the world smaller, people smarter and information more accessible. But technology also has a flip side – as much as it has landed the world at our finger tips it has also made us more accessible to the world. And frankly, I am finding this exhausting and my BlackBerry is making matters worse!

You see there was a time when I had to be in front of my laptop or my PC to share my mind meanderings with the world, learn about the state of the gay planet and fan my flames of fagotry, but not anymore. Now the world lives inside my BlackBerry! The world follows me around, knows where I am, knows what I am doing and knows what I am thinking. The world is staking me and is insistent on updating me twenty four hours of the day, seven days a week and 365 days of the year. Whether I am in the bathroom making a number two, having sexy time with my husband or naked sun bathing my e-mails will reach me, strangers will poke me and CNN will Tweet me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that I will never miss a single thing. My trusty BlackBerry is sure to update me when Lindsay Lohan has her inevitable relapse, when my friends shocks the world by changing their Facebook relationships status from married to single and when Twitter wants me to know that Vigharthur from Iceland mentioned me in one of his titanic rants. Sure I can turn off these updates if they irritate me, sure I can switch my phone to bedside mode, sure I can cancel my Facebook and Twitter feeds, but I don’t because BlackBerry is evil!

When I do switch off my updates something terrible happens – I end up missing them! The absence of the chimes followed by the red flickering light indicating I have an update leaves me feeling desolate. It feels like the world has forgotten me. I know this must sound pretty pathetic, and it probably is, but the allure to be connected is a wicket curse perpetuated by my natural curiosity, and this frailty of mine is fully exploited by my obnoxious mini portal to the universe that is my phone. So, is this a curse, will my little minicomputer communicator consume my soul, destroy my actual social skills and render me void of free will?

There are many BlackBerry owners, some I know personally, whose social skills have suffered since they acquired their handheld windows to the world. They are unable to make eye contact during conversations as their eyes are firmly fixed on their phone’s screens, they are incapable of completing full sentences as they are constantly distracted, and if the date and time of an appointment is not loaded on their calendars or IM’d, Blue Toothed, SMS’d, MMS’d or E-mailed the appointment simply doesn’t exist. Some people’s entire life is loaded to their phones and the day a fatal system error occurs and the phone and SIM memory fails the world comes crumbling down, along with a complete and total shutdown of that person’s central nervous system upon the realization that their phone was last backed up more than a week ago.

And then there is BlackBerry Messenger, another “social” network devoted entirely to the BlackBerry elite, the people that shirked off IPhone. As if Facebook, MySpace and Twitter aren’t enough now there’s another network to divide your attention and some people spent every free moment chatting, or rather typing on it. It’s only a matter of time before they actually incorporate OMG, LMAO, LOL and WTF into an actual face-to-face conversation. Luckily I am not quite that far gone yet, but I fear I might be closer to the point of no return than I thought.

I’m teetering on the precipice of the matrix of avatars, profiles, screen names and Internet handles. My BlackBerry is gently coaxing me down a high-speed broadband path to complete and total connectivity, a virtual world that never sleeps, a world that’s constantly busy changing and a virtual world that doesn’t shut the fuck up! No one person is meant to be this up to speed with everything and nothing all at the same time. Information overload will one day kill us all unless we can stand up and say “Hi my name is Pierre and I refuse to be a techno addict!”

With all said and done, I still love my BlackBerry but I am aware of its potential dangers. After all it comes with a manufacturing warning that reads “If you’re BlackBerry causes you any physical discomfort, please refrain from using it for a couple of hours”. Technology is changing the way we live, communicate, make friends, connect and work. It is making our lives easier, but we can easily over complicate our own lives with our useful, over used and shiny gadgets and once you cross that virtual line you will become a techno addict – an addict whose drug of choice is mostly useless information and whose quick fix is an e-mail. The Betty Ford Clinic currently has no rehabilitation programs for this kind of addiction, so user beware! Don’t become a techno addict and please make an effort to, every so often, speak face-to-face with an actual human being and not just with the ones that lives inside your BlackBerry.

Till next time.

Cher Talks About "Burlesque"

Top 15 Queers on Twitter

Here are the Top 15 most followed Queer Celebrities on Twitter (as on 2 September 2010), courtesy http://www.advocate.com/

282 970 follower

308 900 followers

527 314 followers

563 293 followers

635 930 followers

777 462 followers

1 060 245 followers

1 091 073 followers

1 123 498 followers

1 549 607 followers

1 564 457 followers

1 679 131 followers

1 746 386 followers

2 237 242 followers

5 151 765 followers

Deceived by Monsters

The Internet has become such an integral part of all our lives that very few of us can do without it. It has made our daily lives easier and the world accessible to all. Social Networking Sites has also become a tool used by many to stay in touch with friends and family, meet new people and maybe even find that all elusive soul mate. However, with the good also comes the bad: Some people use the Internet with malicious intent, some are predators feeding off the gullible and others want to satisfy their own demented fantasies leaving a trail of virtual victims in their data tracks. This led me to ask: Do we really know who we are chatting to on the other side of our Internet cable?
Last week I reported on the suicide of a person that was one of my Facebook friends. We chatted a few times, he had mentioned wanting to come out of the closet and sometime during December 2009, whilst doing “cyber housekeeping”, I deleted him as a friend as I had reached my friend limit on that site. Learning of his suicide I was devastated as is evident from my blog post “Rather Have a Gay Child than a Dead Child?”. The issue of gay teen suicide has long been a matter of grave concern and an issue very dear to me. By Friday it was revealed that the whole thing was a hoax. By Saturday it was confirmed through the media. I was shocked, angry, felt abused and also embarrassed for being gulable and deceived to this extend. The perpetrator of this hoax had made a mockery of teen suicide, tarnished the image of the gay community and damaged the integrity of my blog!

From reports it was learned that the profile was fake and possibly as many as 3 other profiles are linked to the same account. This amount to 4 profiles (possibly more) all managed by the same person who nobody knows, have ever met and the motive behind the hoax and future malevolent endeavours of this person is anybody’s guess. Over 1200 people we distraught with grief, including myself. Over 1200 people were lied to and upset over the “suicide” of a very convincing and totally fictional character.
This is nothing new as many people misrepresent themselves on the Internet: The old socially maladjusted overweight guy posing as a twenty year old hunk, the fourteen year old girl pretending to be 18, the sexual offender looking for his next victim. We all know they are out there, and chances are you have chatted to one of them. The anonymity the Internet provides makes it very easy for any person to create a whole different persona for themselves – the person they wish they were or the shadow that lurks in the deepest disturbing fantasies they no longer can or have to suppress. In this virtual realm they can say and do things they would never do in the real world. They can live vicariously through their alter ego and when they tire of it just discard it or in this case kill it off. However, not all such instances are innocent and some of these individuals pose a severe threat.
It is well known that paedophiles prowl around in Chat Rooms and Social Networking Sites, patiently enticing their potential victims into their web with attractive lies. They gain their victims trust and before long the damage is done and a child is hurt. The frightening aspect is that some victims never even know they have been done any harm. I learned of a paedophile that pretended to be the same age as his victims and convinced them to send him pornographic photos of themselves all of which ended up on several child pornography websites. Once these images are on the web there is no way of stopping its distribution after it has been downloaded! This does not only happen to children and many adults have been victimized in the same manner.
The virtual dating scene is another sea of data to be sailed with caution. Who’s to say the profile picture you see is indeed the person you will meet? How much can one really learn about another person just from e-mails and online chatting? I know of a few people who have met the love of their lives on the Internet, and yes I am sure there are many success stories. However, horror stories are also abundant. It’s easier for some people to communicate over the Internet and have a whole relationship that includes cybersex with another person. The fantasy of a perfect partner sustain these relationships but once the relationship is brought into reality it soon disintegrates as pressures of the real world and real needs burns away the illusion. Some discover truths about their online partner’s shady past too late, some people gained stalkers instead of lovers, and some people received regret instead of love.
I too now have my own Internet horror story of deception and embarrassment. For some reason I believe, deep down, we want to trust people and believe what they say is true. Does this make us gullible? Maybe it does! We sometimes forget as we enter the virtual world real human beings also venture there with us and we can’t see them as they truly are. In some instances only a computer screen, keyboard and an internet connection stands between us and monsters.

Till next time.

The Perils Of Internet Dating

Gay Witch Hunts – Uganda Hates Us!

Who would have thought that in this day and age real life witch hunts could still occur? Living in a country where homosexuality is legal and gay marriage has been made possible, I sometimes forget how fortunate I am, and sometimes I can be oblivious to the suffering of others. But every now-and-again I am reminded of how much hate still exists and that discrimination is still rampant. This led me to ask, do we as a world society really care enough about what happens outside the boarders of our own comfort zone to get off our lazy behinds to do something about it?
Sitting at home last night minding my own business desperately trying to clear my overflowing e-mail inbox I came across an e-mail from one of my Ugandan readers. In this e-mail I was told about a new Anti-Homosexuality bill that the Ugandan government proposes to pass in their parliament. My first reaction was to press delete, as I was just too tired to be bothered with the problems of this small African country. I tried to rationalize my initial disinterest by thinking “How is this my problem? I am only one person and even though I have empathy for my reader’s plight, what could I do about it?”
Against my selfish first instinct I decided not to delete the e-mail and proceeded to read it. I was horrified to discover that this Anti-Homosexuality bill would not only criminalize homosexuality but also the promotion thereof and whether any Ugandan who’s gay or supports or promotes homosexuality or gay rights, no matter where they are in the world, could be prosecuted. Furthermore, any person in authority who fails to report known violations of the law within 24 hours will also be subject to a significant fine and up to 3 years in prison - even when this means turning in their colleagues, family, or friends! This sickened me! This seemed quite similar to the witch hunts that occurred in the period of 1480 to 1700!
Being the little menacing faggot I am I decided not to let this go - something needed to be done about this pending injustice! Being all worked up and ready to put on my pink boxing cloves the little activist in me was sorely disappointed when I realized this was 9pm on a Friday night and no gay rights groups would pick up their office phones if I called. Even though we queers are well organized we do not have a 24 hour emergency call centre and I was not about to burden my already high phone bill by making international calls. Now being “all dressed up” but nowhere to go, so to speak, I had to think of a Plan B.

Like a lightning bolt it struck me, why not use the power of the internet. Surely I could get the message out by utilizing the numerous social networking pages I labor over and have been nurturing for so many years. Surely some of my friends and contacts will be as enraged by the Ugandan governments’ asinine new proposed bill. So I leaped into cyber action sending out messages to as many people as I could, spreading to word into cyberspace hoping it would fall on interested and willing ears.

Having put the message out there and trusting that the gay community will react in force I waited and waited for any inkling of queer life in the form of a response. Hours passed and nothing, not even a “Please stop harassing me with stupid action alerts while I am trying to have cyber sex on Facebook!” My plan B seemed to have failed and I was frustrated. As I shutdown my computer shortly after 11pm, I could not help but wonder if my Ugandan friend and reader would now unsubscribe from my blog and I felt like I let him down.
Waking up this morning, feeling like I failed I decided to peruse some of my social networking pages. To my delight I had several messages from concerned and angered friends wanting to know how they could help. There was queer life out there in cyberspace and they cared! A few didn’t even know that Uganda existed, some even thinking it was a state in the United States they haven’t heard off, but never the less they cared enough to do something! So we started an e-mail campaign writing to the Ugandan government and our own governments demanding action and having this perilous Anti-Homosexuality bill stopped.

Having had a good response my faith in us as a world society has been restored. We are not all selfish and self-centered creatures who only cares about how gorgeous our boyfriends and girlfriends are, whether our local gay club will up their entrance fees and if we will need to up our Botox treatments from every 6 months to 3. When the rights of our gay brothers and sisters are threatened some of us are willing to get off our lazy behinds and enthusiastically put in an effort to protect them. My only wish is that more people will do the same.

Till next time.

Homophobia

Dear Facebook why don't you love me no more?

Dear Facebook

It’s with great heart ache that I discovered last night in all your cyber wisdom you decided to disable my account. This is now the 3rd time you wanted to break up with me. The 3rd time you refuse to talk to me or explain why.

Why don’t you love me anymore? Did I not love you enough? Did I not spend enough time with you; introduce you to enough of my friends? Did I not link to you enough in my blog posts? WHY…. OH Why…. why…. why…

How am I supposed to maintain my elaborate Gay Terrorist Network without my Facebook profile? How am I supposed to mobilize the masses to convert the unsuspecting public into homosexual loving freaks? How am I supposed to go about my daily cyber life without your blue screen minimized on my electronic life portal? How am I supposed to know when my friends birthdays are, what events I am supposed to go to or check the weather forecast in the morning before I go to work? Facebook, how will I know what my friends are doing, see their embarrassing drunken photos or be notified of their relationship statuses? The cruelty of your break-up leaves me feeling sad & alone. My bandwidth empty…

Yes it’s true, I admit I have been poked by many people and I admit, sometimes I poked back and enjoyed it. This put aside, I have always been a loyal friend. I always accepted friend request only from people with real profile pictures up to the point of almost reaching your 5000 limit – a limit you say is there for my own protection. Is it my fault my superior brain and startling good looks attracts people I don’t even know to my profile. Facebook, please don’t discriminate against me or be angry because I am a Gorgeous Gay Genius. If my popularity is the problem and too many people comment on my status alerts or add me as a friend - I am sorry! Don’t hate me because I am popular!

Facebook without you I am lost; a ship without sails adrift in a vast ocean of unfamiliar social networking platforms some of which I have forgotten my password. The Internet seems dull without you as I surf the Net directionless with a morbid apathy. Facebook you are always in the back of my mind - you are still my homepage! As I wipe away the tears from my now colourless cheeks, and blow my regret into my drenched tissue the ache for your return overwhelms me.

We have been through so much together. Facebook, do you remember all the good times we had? The late nights playing scrabble, all the laughs we had watching funny videos, you tagging me in albums and all the witty banter on my Blog Fan Page. Do you remember that time just after I started my first group how excited we were when we reached our first 1000 member mile stone? Good times… Happier times…

Facebook I don’t know what went wrong and please don’t come with that “It’s not you it’s my Terms of Service” crap. If you have found some other user more APPEALING, then…ah… (...this is hard...) JUST TELL ME! I probably will not understand but I will reply cordially with an annoyed toned e-mail.

Facebook, I hope we can work things out. I would hate for us to part ways like this. So many unresolved issues, so much heart aches. Are we really going to through our 2 year relationship away like yesterday's trash!?! Did I mean nothing to you? Dare I ask... am I yesterday's trash??? I guess I was but 1 of 200 million, a number, an e-mail, a password to you...

I miss you Facebook and I know you will miss me too, please take me back.

With all my Love!

Pierre

Facebook Manners And You

Cyber Fidelity

The Internet has become an important part of most people’s lives, but apart from being a useful tool it also could have a dark side that could threaten relationships. With social networking sites, pornography and chat sites a thin and blurred line has been drawn between what is considered to be faithful behavior in relationships and what is not. Recent conversations and some shared experiences on the Internet by my friends and I, and debating the issue of fidelity with reference to the Internet it repeatedly raised the question - Is cyber flirtation and cybersex or browsing pornography cheating?
Like so many people, I spend a good couple of hours everyday on social networking sites chatting to my friends, reading my message and participating in discussions. Every now and again the inevitable message from a stranger pops up asking “ASL”. Being blond I needed a friend to explain to me “ASL” stands for “Age Sex Location”. Usually my first though is “Haven’t you read my profile?” Usually I responded and the next question that follows is “Are you gay & single?” Which brought me back to my previous question combined with wondering whether this person is illiterate, retarded or just lazy? A number of times I fell into the trap of pursuing these kinds of chats and most times they always ended up with some kind of proposition for cybersex, reference to penis size and/or other forms of cyber sexual behavior –it annoys me especially when I am actually in the middle of doing something important! So now I just snub these kinds of messages.
I have never quite understood cybersex or what people get from it - even having a lively imagination myself! I just don’t comprehend how sexually charged discourse typed on a cold keyboard between 2 strangers can culminate in an orgasm. Besides, on the Internet people can create a whole new persona for themselves, and you never can really be sure whether you are chatting to a hot young sex god or whether it’s a vile sex crazed predator. A psychopathic killer who in the basement of his house has a pit, a bucket, some lotion and a white poodle and once he has lured and trapped you there utters the ominous words “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again” – the lambs will never not stop screaming for neither Clarice nor you!
In my opinion a distinction should be made between cybersex and cyber flirting. To me flirting, like in real live, can be an innocent act of being friendly in a sexy way without crossing the line. However, once flirting advances into action it can be considered cheating. My foolproof rule relating to both are when in doubt just ask yourself 1 simple question “How would I feel if my partner were doing this and I found out?” The other good way at preventing being solicited into cyber flirting or coerced into cybersex is not accepting chats or friend requests from people whose profile pictures are of their genitals – duh?! That too I learned the hard way and have since either deleted them from my friend list or blocked them! As all of them tend to favor the cybersex.

When it comes to pornography, the issue becomes a thorny one. Different people have different views on the issue. My personal view of porn is that I am more concerned about the people that star in them: I always wonder whether they grew up wanting to be porn stars, whether their parents know and if they are proud of their careers… But I digress… Some heterosexual women I have known are fervently opposed to having their partners even having pornography in their homes, and would not allow their partners to watch or read it. Many of my gay friends who are in new relationships also indicated that catching their partners watching or surfing porn on the Internet behind their backs troubles them. Is this due to insecurity or is it a form of cheating?
One of my old lecturers (a Prof of Criminology) did a research study on pornography and the exploitation of woman. She was in her early 60’s, married and had to watch a lot of porn as part of her research. We always joked behind her back that her husband probably couldn’t wait for her to bring her work home and we were all perturbed at imagining their sex life. I remembered asking her this question years ago and her answer was fascinating. She said that men and women who are bothered by their partners watching porn may feel that way due to insecurity, as they feel they have to live up to expectations created by the images in the pornographic material, it provokes self-image issues and it challenges their inhibitions. Especially women ends up feeling inferior as they perceive themselves as not being sexually arousing and sexually not being good enough for their partners; they could also feel insulted that the partners have to watch porn to get aroused. I think many gay people may feel the same way – it’s a human thing!

When it comes to pornography, in my opinion, it will depend on the 2 individuals in the relationship to make up their own minds on the issue. If your partner watching or wanting to watch porn makes you feel insecure, or uncomfortable the best advice would be to talk about it. Many couple use porn to spice up their sex life which can be healthy and good for their relationship. When one person in a relationship has to do it in secret and actively hides it, then it could be construed as cheating and damaging to the relationship.

The Internet is a great resource that we all have come to rely on. We have access to a magnitude of information; it’s made the world seem smaller and made our life more convenient. With the good also comes the bad. The Internet can also complicate relationships as new ways of interacting with people can now also compromise your relationship as a whole new spectrum of infidelity has been born from it. One can now have a passionate affair with some sitting on another continent and have passionate sex with that person without uttering a single moan or breaking a sweat. Whether this will have or has caused many relationships to break up, I don’t know, but as technology and we as a society evolve we have to adapt to all the challenges and opportunities. So is having a cyber flirtation and cybersex or browsing pornography cheating? This was my opinion, what is yours?

Till next time!

Meet my Gay Boys by Julia Stretch