I have a crime to report but I don’t know who to report it to. The police are probably not bothered and Nick Ross has long since hung up his crime(watch) fighting cape. Yet this criminal behaviour is happening now, this very minute, somewhere. When I say somewhere, I mean Facebook.
Technically it isn’t a crime in the strictly legal sense of the word, although come the revolution when my followers rise up and crush the normal state of affairs then things will change. In Hayward’s Britain, alongside new and harsh penalties being dished out to individuals for the offences of noisy children inside pubs after 7pm, slow moving HGVs in the fast lane, and being in any way involved in the production, broadcasting or viewing of ‘Geordie Shore’, I will include a very important social media no-no.
The crime to which I’m referring to is that of ‘friends’ hinting at something in their Facebook status that they never intend to spill the beans on, or at the very least without other ‘friends’ having to go through the long and tedious charade of pretending to give a damn and having to ask them what it is that they are not making explicit and to check that, whatever minor catastrophe has befallen them, it has not left them harmed and/or bereft.
You know the type of thing I’m talking about. You see it all the time. If I were to do it I would put something like ‘Terry is angry’. Well, Terry probably is angry but that’s because he’s just spotted some friend or associate announce that they are ‘pissed off’, or ‘sad’ (accompanied by sad/teary faces).
I guarantee that when I post this blog on Facebook I will find that, within two or three posts either above or below, one of my friends will have unwittingly done this very thing. If it is you then you should hang your head in shame.
Not as annoying but still within the boundaries of criminal behaviour are those that announce they have had a good or bad day/news/trip to the shops, without explaining what it was that made any of these things good or bad.
In essence I’m referring to anything that involves another person having to ask the question “what’s up?”, or worse still “what’s up hun?”. The linguistic abomination that is “hun” should, all by itself, automatically become a criminal offence punishable by public flogging, but that’s a whole other matter.
However, for the main offenders of this heinous act of self-important attention seeking there will be a substantial prison sentence and a lifelong ban from using any kind of communication tools available to you, up to and including talking, sign language, grunting, and whimpering.
We are neither small children nor are we chimpanzees with only rudimentary abilities to indicate we‘d like a banana or that we’ve soiled ourselves. We are all intelligent, literate, right-minded adults who should be choosing to use this glittering social media forum to entertain, educate and inform our friends about the amazing, and wonderful, and terrible things that occur in our lives.
Feeling sad? Tell us why. Help us to empathise. Feeling happy? Share your joy and bonhomie. Nothing to say? Well, for the love of God, if you feel compelled to say something then at the very least try to make it funny.
I have to stress that this kind of behaviour doesn’t happen on Twitter, or at least very rarely, probably due to the overall design of the thing. If you post similar sentiments on Twitter you are likely to be met with a deafening silence which does no good for the soul of the individual seeking love or pity.
In that respect, it is in some ways more impersonal but it forces and encourages wit and imagination, more so than lazily tapping out a few self-regarding and humourless short words to a bunch of friends and family and school friends you haven’t clapped eyes on for 20 years on Facebook.
It’s not that the guilty parties are bad people. They are usually perfectly lovely people in the flesh but put them in front of Facebook and suddenly they are possessed by their inner demons and become immune to the norms of social behaviour. Quite rational individuals feel suddenly compelled to hide behind a status of incomprehensible hints and riddles.
So, as a plea, before my forces march across Westminster Bridge and surround Parliament, I urge you to stop and think before posting. Exercise your brain for a few seconds longer. The rest of us, well, if we spot this behaviour we need to resist the temptation to type out the usual bland and predictable responses and, instead, type the words (in capital letters) CRIME SCENE - DO NOT CROSS.
This simultaneously admonishes your friend for their crime and tells others to steer clear. That way I won’t have to come and burn your house down, so it’s for your own good really.
