Facebook 2011 – State of the Union

Two years ago I wrote a little something about how much I hate Facebook and how it is evil and smells and hurts people and how I’ll keep using it anyways because, duh, it’s Facebook. As we all know, two years is equivalent to about fifty years in Internet time and so that blog entry now looks so embarrassingly outdated it may as well be wearing a smoking jacket and worrying about ‘the Negro problem’.

Nobody becomes fans of anything any more and nobody does those ‘how well do you know X’ quizzes any more. That’s objectively a good thing but their fall from grace as the popular thing to idly do on Facebook only leaves vacuums that equally banal things rush in to fill. There is one major difference after all these years though. Whereas in the good ol’ days of 2009 the idiocy was almost entirely user-generated, now it seems the online stupid infection and looped back on Facebook’s evil overlords themselves. Facebook seems to have taken up the challenge nobody threw down to create the worst and simultaneously most popular website on the Internet.

And you’re helping them. Sure you might complain when a new, intrusive feature appears on the site, you may even fancy yourself the most miserably low form of activist and start a group or petition against whatever change is ruffling your feathers, but eventually you’ll settle back down into a mindless stupor and use it habitually just like everyone else. You’re under zero obligation to use this free site (and yeah it is free no matter how many ‘Facebook will start charging 100% real you guys copy and paste in ur status!!!’ things you see) but of course you will because everybody else is. Where else are you going to go? MySpace? Google+? Those places almost have little animated tumbleweed balls rolling by.

Facebook can keep doing what they like to you forever and you’ll shut up, sit down and take it. They know this. That’s why they can get away with shit like this:

Highlighting everything
I’ll never understand why every website wants to recommend you stuff. They’re not good at it. As far as I’m aware I have never expressed an interest in owning a Frankie Boyle DVD or terrible mid-2000s Blink 182 albums but Amazon seems to think I would enjoy them. And to this day I can’t get my head around why Amazon once presented me with a recommendation for a book called Talking Cock, a book about dicks. It took a passing glance over my purchase history and thought ‘judging by this humanoid’s predilection for Spider-Man comics and Pulp CDs, I’m sure he would like a coffee table bumper book full of glossy, high-res pictures of various cocks and/or balls.’ I can only presume that’s what the book was about, you’ll forgive a lack of research on this one, I’m sure.

So why Facebook thinks it can accomplish the task no other website can manage is beyond me. They fail spectacularly. Ever since its last layout update it’s been highlighting everything in my news feed in a desperate attempt to gather information on me. I unclick every highlight and it promises not to highlight this sort of thing again… before highlighting everything the day after. I don’t even understand what sort of game it’s playing at this point.

Congratulations on reading the Guardian guys!
Everybody I know on Facebook, I feel like we know each other well enough now for me to say this to you without it being a big thing. I don’t give a shit what you’ve read on the Guardian. I have never, and will never, care one iota about what you read on a daily basis at all. What’s more, I think I can make the rather accurate guess that not one person in your friend list cares either. So why use a function that immediately posts to Facebook what ever you read in an online newspaper? Are we supposed to be impressed? Are we supposed to ooh and ahh at how intellectual you are by the selected article titles splashed across our news feed? It’s the equivalent of inviting someone round to your house and ‘accidentally’ leaving all your most impressive and deep looking books casually thrown around the sofa. ‘Oh I’m sorry, let me just move WAR AND PEACE out of the way so you can sit down. Ooh I’m so silly, underneath WAR AND PEACE is JAMES JOYCE’S ULLYSES. My bad, I am sorry. I’m just so engrossed I barely have time to clear away all these scholarly texts.’ Stop it. We all know the most well-thumbed book in your collection is some Jeremy Clarkson trash and more to the point, you know who can read the Guardian? Anyone. You belong to an elite little club called Anyone.

It’s everywhere!
In my original piece I claimed that given enough time Facebook would ‘insert itself into your every venture online’ and just call me Nostradamus because I seem to have predicted the future (and not just because I totally called that Steve Job death thing). There’s barely a website on the internet that doesn’t have Facebook’s blue pixilated hands all over it. Everywhere you look you’re encouraged to ‘like’ something as if you couldn’t possibly be enjoying a site in any real sense unless you register with Facebook that you’re enjoying it.

Where does this stop? You’re listening to a new album you just bought (yeah, sure, you still buy music, whatever man), you think to yourself ‘this is pretty good’. There’s a knock at the door. You open it to reveal a man in a blue and white suit with a briefcase and a Zuckerberg badge on his lapel. He hands you a scary, official looking form and informs you that you must officially register your liking of the music you were listening to. You have to sign on the dotted line or else no one will believe you when you say you’re into that band or that singer. ‘You can’t be, it wasn’t on Facebook’. So you sign the paper, the mysterious man flashes you a mandatory smile and leaves as quickly as he arrives. And suddenly the music doesn’t sound so good any more.

Alright, enough of the dramatics, I’m just saying no one could have predicted the levels of ridiculous bullshit Facebook pumps out in 2011, there’s no way to guess what happens in years to come. This isn’t even touching on the hundreds of decidedly iffy security issues the site is accused of on a regular basis. But of course I’m not going to bomb my profile. I’m going to post a link to this blog on Facebook as soon as it goes live, as I always have, as I always will do. Because no matter how many silly little annoying features they install Facebook has remained the same in one crucial way: it’s still the mafia crime family of the Internet. Well done to the guys who got out but they won’t be out for long. And even while they are, they’re out of the loop now. Isolated and alone. The rest of us are stuck in here with Don Zuckerberg but that’s the way we like it. We’re protected here, we’re sheltered and safe. As long as we pay our respects to the Facebook Family and don’t step out of line we’ll all be okay.

Huh, I guess I wasn’t done with the dramatics.

I’m David Hetherington and I’m fully prepared for this entry to look equally as dated in 2013 as the last one does now. Also I’m the guy who thought ‘likes’ were a dumb fad that wouldn’t stick so what the hell do I know. I also wrote this:

And then this:

And I’m thinking of writing a follow up to that one too.

DH.

Dear Me from mid-2010, You are stupid.

VS

This blog is like Jason Voorhees. Every time you think it’s dead it jumps out of a river or from behind a bush to cause you panic and consternation.

Man I’m rusty at this. Let me try again.

This blog is like a zombie. It should be dead but it keeps coming back to life to suck your brains. Or just suck.

Okay third time’s the charm.

This blog is like Mother Theresa’s vag[REDACTED]

Let’s just get into it shall we?

I would like to formally hide behind the ‘I’m too busy’ excuse for not posting as much as I should have done. Regardless of how many people read this I should be writing more and it makes me feel bad when I don’t. It makes it worse when there is plenty to write about as well but the sad fact is it was much, much easier to write these things when I was unhappy and craving half the things I have now. I’m happy and fine and doing pretty good all things considering but that isn’t entertaining or amusing. Comedy comes from pain. I can’t track that quote down to one person in particular because it has been espoused so much by some of the funniest people in the world that it has become impossible. If something horrendous were to happen to me I’m sure I could turn it into some pretty strong material given enough time to get over it. Trauma victims have all the luck.

As a young, white male with a happy family, a girlfriend and a job I enjoy I have only first world problems. They’re pretty good problems to have, if I only have to stress about university deadlines and the credit card bill I’ll consider myself very lucky. This passage will of course be a bitter pill to swallow if anything goes drastically wrong in the near future but it’s not like this blog has bitten me in the arse before right?

Having stuff to write about but nothing dramatic to spin into an epic yarn I decided to take a look back at some of the older entries to see what was occupying my mind so much back then. That’s how I came across this piece I forgot I’d written: The Plan. Now as blog updates go it isn’t one of my favourites. It’s naïve and a little smug and I’m not a fan of that last paragraph at all. But it addresses a lot of things that have actually come to pass in the last eighteen months since it was uploaded so I’d like to take the time to respond to some of Past David’s brainfarts. Past David here is represented by an appropriately stupid photo from around the same time and comes complete with glasses and multiple chins. Current me is a photo from a couple of weeks ago in typical ‘explaining things tiresomely’ pose. Not pictured are the two girls on either side of me who look bored to tears (seriously).

Right well done on getting a working visa, you and the other 10% of the population must be very proud. I’m not entirely sure why I thought it would be interesting to tell the world at large about the excitement of waiting lines at Immigration Tower. I was actually back there not long ago to renew said working visa. I read a book while I waited. Then I left again. Riveting stuff.

I’m sorry to have to tell you this mate but that ignorance thing doesn’t iron itself out straight away (still hasn’t). I did manage to get back to Macau properly in December of last year for a very pleasant weekend. I made a net loss of about $20 in the gaudy casinos and stayed at a fantastic couple of hotels. Not so long ago I referred to Macau as ‘a testament to vulgarity’ in conversation (ooh Oscar Wilde eat your heart out) and whereas I had a great time there I still think that’s pretty apt. Those casinos really do look disgusting.

Clearly my attempt at getting an ID card merited two separate mentions, the initial tale and the exciting conclusion! If only there had been a slight administrative error then we could finally have the world’s first truly great trilogy (with all due respect to the original Star Wars and with fervent hope that the Dark Knight Rises doesn’t disappoint).

These are just a fact of life out here so I’m not going to hold your hand on this one and say it will all be okay once you have your own place because not only was there one waiting for me at my desk at work last month but there was also one in this flat a little while ago. It disappeared under my shoes and I couldn’t find it so I decided to convince myself it was never there. I like to think we have an understanding, I’ll keep out of his business if he stays away from mine.

Oh also, about this Phase Two section, we need to talk. You manage to cram references to Huxley, Orwell and Star Trek as well as ‘casual-as-you-like’ remarks about sexual violence and the way short-tempered Chinese people speak into the same paragraph. And then to top it all off you drop in a namecheck of Hobbes’ Leviathan as if it’s some sort of cultural touchstone. Who were you trying to impress? Other people have taken entry-level philosophy classes as well you know. God, Past David, you’re the worst.

I’m happy to tell you you have your own flat now. At a good price too. In fact you get to live in no less than four different places within two years. Oh but hey, dipshit, the reason you couldn’t find any places in Causeway Bay or Wan Chai for the prices you wanted is because YOU WERE LOOKING IN CAUSEWAY BAY AND WAN CHAI! With typical stubbornness I was expecting to find the spacious flat of my dreams in some of the most heavily populated areas of Hong Kong island for very little money. Perhaps I was holding out for that one special place with the marble fountain in the middle of the reception room. Maybe I wanted an east wing for my vast library. I don’t know what I was thinking. What were you thinking Past David? I would probably have hated living in Causeway Bay with the sheer amount of humanity I would be sharing that space with and if I found a place in Wan Chai I’d be right next door to my office and would thus have to keep it a secret in case they ever found out and called me in on days off.

Except it isn’t where I work any more! That’s right after starting a blog because I didn’t have a job I neglected to write about me getting a brand new job. Even if you hate this thing and read it out of sheer masochism you would be entitled to know something like that. I have become one of those people who actually enjoys his job now. Weird I know. But that’s a whole new entry. One that deserves it’s own post not a tacked on bit at the end of whatever this is. One thing Past David and I have in common is that we both need to give ourselves some sort of motivation or we’ll never get anything done.

The major differences between us two are: I look more like Tintin than he does, I have a credit card, I need more sleep, Past David isn’t even at Hong Kong University part time mastering yet so he can shut up whinging.

I’m David Hetherington and I’m apparently schizophrenic… and wearing the same clothes in both those photos.

DH.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Review)

This is about to go live on MouthLondon but you get a first look at the full, unedited version. Oh lucky, lucky you.

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During the Summer Marvel Comics made an announcement that captured the comic-reading world’s imagination like no other announcement they’d ever made. Where it says imagination you should probably read bile and fury however as the revelation of an all-new bi-racial Spider-Man filled column inches and caused many a nerd eye to squint in suspicion and anger. There was so much righteous indignation about this move that a lot of us could use a reminder that this is a) an alternate reality Spider-Man and therefore not in the main Marvel canon and b) he isn’t real.

A lot of the derision hammered into laptop keyboards late at night has some worth of course. Recreating a main character, an iconic one in the truest sense of the world, to be of both black and Hispanic descent screams ‘look, we’re inclusive! Look how diverse we are!’ With Marvel’s counterpart DC making every second female protagonist gay and introducing a new gay AND Mexican super hero you could be forgiven for expecting next month to bring us the brand new wheelchair-bound, half-Inuit, Islamic, lesbian Supergirl.

In amongst the commotion you might even be forgiven for not even remembering there was an actual new Spider-Man comic coming out and so this month with the release of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Issue 1 we ask the only question that should have mattered in the first place: Is it any good?

And the answer is yes. Yes it is.

Our writer here, Brian Michael Bendis, ties the new tale directly to the last by opening up with long-time Spider-Man mortal enemy Norman Osborn seeing to his nefarious affairs in a lab with genetically engineered spiders in much the same way he opened Ultimate Spider-Man over a decade ago. This is also a good example of why a lot of people can’t stand Bendis. His dialogue, so intent of capturing the cadence of actual, real-life conversation, (pauses, repetitions and all) grates. It always has done. But where it falls flat in big super-hero action sequences, it bounces along well in the early scenes here and it is mercifully reigned in for the rest of the issue. After the intro we then jump eleven months to the present. The lab lies in ruins and the Ultimate universe’s version of little-known character the Prowler accidentally smuggles out a modified spider during a heist (the spider is marked number 42 thus growing the nerd cult of that number even further!)

The doubts a lot of fans may have had about how a new character could possibly replace the unwavering morality and dedication of Peter Parker are eased by a masterful couple of pages. Our introduction to the new Spider-Man, Miles Morales sees his parents take him to a literal lottery for a place in a prestigious academy. It’s just two pages of people waiting for a name to be called but it’s probably one of the most tense comic moments in months. His number is called of course (guess what number it is. Go on, guess!) and in one quick set of panels we see the faces of disappointed children and Miles himself not able to feel happy in front of them, if anything he feels guilt. This is quality character introduction.

Those expecting the debut of the new costume and high-flying, criminal punching splash pages will be disappointed. We’re going for the slow burn here. More social issues are introduced as Miles visits his shifty uncle who his father does not want him seeing. It quickly becomes apparent that the uncle is the Prowler which sets us up for the spider bite which induces a much more violent reaction than Parker’s 60s transformation.

Bendis leaves us dangling as Miles’ father runs out into the street to find him only to run straight by as Miles’ first power begins to manifest: invisibility. Wait, what? Clearly there are some more tricks up this title’s sleeves.

I’ve gone all this way without mentioning the art! Pichelli’s thick lines keep everything fun and cartoonish but there is real emotion etched into those faces. It’s the kind of blend between realism and fantasy that really works for a comic like this.

It’s incredibly easy to be cynical about Marvel’s diversity-friendly choices here but to avoid this wonderful first issue because of that would be denying yourself. It’s a great set-up, an intriguing new take on an old premise and it’s fun most importantly. With these sort of new debuts coinciding with the total relaunch of all of DC’s major titles there has never been a better time to get into super-hero comics. Do yourself a favour and geek out a little. Just remember to check your cynicism at the door.

DH.

Steve Jobs is ‘dead’. Long live Steve Jobs.

Good night sweet prince. The corporate gods have deigned you too beautiful for this ugly world and so it is with a heavy heart, that we say goodbye to Our Steve, who art in Apple, Jobs be thy name.

We may ask ourselves questions. What shall we do now? Where shall we go, what shall we buy to prove our superiority without his peaceful, bearded countenance to guide us towards the next rounded black rectangle that will surely be the pinnacle of human achievement? What just creator would take this man, nay, this demi-god, away from us so cruelly? Ask not these questions, they will not bring you peace. And if Our Steve could be here today he would not want us to dwell on such depressing matters.

Rather we should look forward, as he would do himself, and think of all the ways we can honour him. I propose a new app wherein a winged, glowing image of Our Steve is depicted ascending into the clouds. The user will blow gently into the microphone and help him on his way, effectively becoming the wind beneath his wings, guiding him to technical genius nirvana. Or perhaps an app that displays only his gentle, smiling face and the user could press their lips against his cheek, eyes closed and mouth a silent ‘thank you’ as a single tear escapes. Another way to go would be to temporarily replace all those sleek, oh-so-cool, glowing Apple symbols on Apple’s various products with Our Steve’s face. The warm throb of light would remind us of the rising and setting sun, eternal as we once thought he was.

But these are grand gestures the common-or-garden variety Jobs worshipper cannot partake in. There are myriad ways in which we humble folk can give tribute in our daily lives. All this week we will increase the volume to maximum capacity on our iPods so the world can hear us as we listen to Candle in the Wind (the new version Elton John will surely release) in quiet dignity and reverence. Don’t worry about the people standing around you on the bus or the train into work, they will hear every note and they will understand. No doubt they will simply nod at you or perhaps lay a hand on your shoulder. We’re all in this together guys, any way you can help your fellow man in this solemn time is an act of almost Jobsian altruism. With that said, perhaps one of us could set up that much talked-about helpline for those of us who are having a hard time adjusting to this seismic shift in the computing landscape. There are people out there desperately in need of our help, even now their tears are falling on their iPads like rain and the touch screen interface is so intuitive that even those light little splashes are opening up their downloaded app that makes you sound like T-Pain. Alas, you cannot autotune the pain away.

Steve Jobs we hardly knew ye and this missive is nowhere near the tribute you deserve but I hope in your infinite understanding, you can appreciate the effort. Whoever follows you has some mighty big shoes to fill and we all hope you watch down on him with kindness and forgiveness for the numerous cock-ups and missteps that will surely come without you at the helm.

Keep smiling everybody, keep ostentiously using photoshop on a picture of all your numerous friends in coffee shops across the world, making sure everyone can see your glowing Apple logo (or Steve face if anyone important is reading this), keep tapping away at your iPad in crowded bars after removing it from its protective Apple sheath, keep loudly talking on your expensive iPhone about how the battery life is EVEN BETTER than the last model released two months ago. These gestures are small but this is all we can do in the face of such a sad time.

Our affection and our humbleness will bring us closer to Jobsliness.

Thank you.

DH.

The Upside of Living on Your Own

It’s Sunday. I thought about having a shower at about one in the afternoon. I live on my own, and it’s great.

I went down to the super market to buy ice cream and thought ‘hey those bananas would probably be awesome in this here ice cream’. So I bought them also. Because I live on my own, it’s great. The vaguely disgusted, bitter faces of the other shoppers only proved that I was absolutely right to do this.

At about 4pm I was having a glass of wine and watching a movie on my laptop. Hey it’s my day off and I live on my own (which is great), what else should I have been doing?

I could go on… so I will! When I’m done writing this I might just play Xbox and call my parents for a chat. Oh and eat that ice cream with those bananas. On account of living alone. And that being great.

Some might be depressed on a Sunday on their own with nothing to do. Some people can’t stand their own company but that’s not something I ever really had an issue with. If I had nothing to do for the rest of life that would be kind of okay. I mean I might get a little cabin fever after, oh say, the third month? Something like that. You’ve got to have a goal right? Well that’s what I’m working towards, the point where I can legitimately do nothing and not feel guilty about it. Until then, Sundays can be my preview.

My family are across the world from me which means I have very few commitments when work ends. There’s always that little niggling voice right now that says I have no right to do nothing and I guess that won’t go away properly until I retire but I can suppress the voice pretty easily by doing whatever the hell I want. Months ago I wrote how I was drinking chocolate milk on my sofa while I typed simply because I damn well could. I have to stop and realise that back when I dreamed of being an adult and doing whatever I wanted this is what I saw. People don’t recognise golden ages when they live in them so I’m actively trying to do just that. My Sundays fly by because I enjoy them so much. I look around my flat with the half-vaccuumed carpet and the washing in the sink and I’m content, because really, who’s going to come round and scold me for it? No one. Because I live on my own and as I have mentioned above, that is great.

Living on you own means a certain freedom that doesn’t get as much coverage as the depressing parts of living alone. Those bits get played up on TV and in movies for comedy value constantly. So much so that we associate dicking around the house doing next to sweet FA with failure. Because our lives aren’t a perfect replica of something like The OC (or, god help us, Entourage) we feel we messed up when not all our moments are filled with the most exciting sounding things possible. Go to Facebook and tell me how many of your friends are posting things about how ‘awesome’ or ‘lovely’ their weekends have been so far. (If you’re really unlucky the phrase ‘good times’ or anything ‘times’ will outnumber the amount of properly constructed sentences but that’s a different rant.) You won’t read many posts reveling in the fact that their day started at about five in the afternoon for no apparent reason and then after that they didn’t feel like eating so they maybe brewed up some suspect smelling bachelor chow and never left the house. That would not be ‘good times’ whatever the fuck that might mean this week (sorry, I said different rant).

If you’re familiar with the BBC’s Miranda you might recognise this living on your own trope. Even the most glowing reviews of her show talk about how she’s a failure. A happy failure but they are careful to point that out. For her part the (always funny) segments of her amusing herself in her flat are moments of loneliness mined for humour. Do we laugh because we want to distance ourselves from how weird Miranda is for those moments? Or do we laugh because they are goofy, quirkily written pieces of physical comedy? For me it’s certainly the latter because I see nothing wrong with it. Some are quick to stroke their beards over the more-more-than-semi-biographical content but personally I see those scenes where she conducts an orchestra made of fruit as some of the funniest parts of the show. Here some best bits with a little of what I was banging on about in there somewhere.

We should all be so lucky to enjoy our own company like that. Don’t go out this weekend, stay in and watch a crappy movie and eat too much and go to bed fat and happy. Don’t worry about how your time off should look to all your friends. You don’t have to be having ‘experiences’ every second of the day and desperately thrusting the pictures in everyone’s faces to prove it. It’s totally okay to sit in your pants and do what you like for a day. If you don’t live on your own but plan on doing so one day you will be able to do all this whenever you chose to. If you do live on your own and you aren’t taking advantage of this time by eating ice cream and drinking chocolate milk because you can, I can confirm you are doing it wrong.

I wrote a blog about being lazy and loving it. Because I live on my own and it’s great.

DH.

The Rise of the Super-Hero

This piece was published today by Mouth London. I don’t know where they get their pictures from!

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You may have noticed but summer these days guarantees the emergence of one thing other than festivals and outrageously-priced iced goods and that’s the blockbuster comic book movie. Whether it’s a long-awaited silver screen debut, someone you’ve never heard of before or a gritty reboot, the super hero is big, big money right now. Not always critical darlings, but big budget super hero spectaculars are nearly always guaranteed to make stupid money at cinemas (sorry, Green Lantern, I did say ‘nearly always’).

But why now? There is an argument to be made that the geek dollar is strong; with every childhood cartoon or video game being optioned for the big screen, the interests of the common-or-garden variety nerd are being catered for more than ever and that obviously covers super heroes. But it can’t just be that. Otherwise Thundercats would have gone Hollywood super-nova and picked up nods in Oscar categories instead of the Dark Knight. There has to be something bigger, something we connect to on a deeper level. But what?

How about this? Global turmoil, economic crisis, the USA’s place in the world is uncertain. Is that describing the 1930s, today, or both? It isn’t hard to imagine that the reasons caped, colourful characters that captured the public’s imagination in the first place are the same reasons for their renaissance.

In 1938 and 1939, Superman and The Bat-Man made their indelible mark on pop culture. More than 70 years later two of the most discussed movies are the up-coming Man of Steel reboot and the Dark Knight Rises. There is something about an invincible man with ridiculous powers doing his best to save the world repeatedly that speaks to the optimist in all of us. Even at times when glorifying that image seems perverse, it is never wise to underestimate the power of escapism.

And then there’s the every man aspect (and no, Every-man isn’t another super-hero. What would his abilities be? The power to go to work and pay bills on time?) Stan Lee famously wrote the X-Men as a rather transparent allegory for racism, Spider-man was an ode to puberty, Thor was… er, well Thor was a god who hit things with a magic hammer but that’s not the point. Tales of normal young people turning into something extraordinary when it came to crunch time struck a chord that still resonates. We like to think we could behave so courageously with or without irradiated spider bites but we doubt we would and hope we never have to find out.

So we live vicariously through these spandex-wearing do-gooders who fly out windows and punch bad things in the face until they are no longer a worry. Not only is that something comic book readers all wish they could do (metaphorically and literally I daresay), it also offers a simplified world-view, an unwavering moral compass designed to guide the young and unsure.

But let’s not get too carried away with ourselves here. Despite everything, the birthplace of the super hero, the comic book, is about as accepted as the lonely teenager.

Currently, super hero comics are struggling to be as relevant as possible and to a large degree, they don’t have to bother. Do we really care if Spider-man defeats the bad guy of the week with the help of an iPhone? Or if he tweets about it immediately afterwards? Why this cloying need to have pop culture icons conform to modernity?

For me, a lot of the joy in comics comes from their timeless quality. But now, super heroes have to walk this constant tightrope of staying relevant and relatable while at the same time zipping across the galaxy to punch some Lovecraftian horror in one of its many faces. It isn’t a formula that makes for massive commercial success.

Maybe that’s all just too confusing. Maybe it’s the medium, not the message. The films and the TV shows are adored when wrapped up in manageable, glossy chunks with attractive, talented actors but if you try to tell much more satisfying, challenging stories in comic format, the attention you’ll get will lie somewhere between shy man at a party and nutter in McDonalds at 10pm whispering into his burger. Yes, super heroes have achieved a higher degree of mainstream acceptability than ever before but their medium of origin has a long way to go.

But if anyone can do it, super heroes can. I mean, Captain America punched out Hitler! You don’t see that on Glee do you?

Where’s my Jetpack?

On July 6th, just over 2 years since I started writing this blog, I got published. I’m going to be contributing pieces regularly to Mouth London. This first one is shorter than the usual fare that crops up here and may include a few themes I have touched upon before, but as it is the first piece somebody else has wanted, I think it’s earned a spot here. You can read it on the Mouth London site here.

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‘Where’s my Jetpack?’

It is time to stop complaining and embrace the future. And by that I mean the present.

In the distant past of 1984, the Prophet James Cameron and his disciple and messenger Arnold Schwarzenegger predicted the end of the world. They would subsequently go on to predict the end of the world a couple more times just to make sure but you knew all this because you’ve already experienced it. It’s the middle of 2011 so whether it was the 1997, the 2004 or the 2011 prediction that got us, it got us. Computers became self-aware and the world was annihilated in a fiery ball of nuclear regret.

I know what you’re thinking, ‘Except it didn’t did it?’ Nor did a bunch of scientists get stationed on the moon and blown off into space by accident in 1999. We didn’t send anyone to Jupiter on mining missions in 2001 and as far as we’re aware no giant asteroids, necessitating the immediate attention of Bruce Willis and a ragtag bunch of misfits, have been spotted yet. They never really specified the date but the creators of the Jetsons were probably imaging that all the moving walkways, robot maids and flying cars they were dreaming up would be passé in the far off future of 2011. And yet here we sit like idiots with absolutely no cut-price jetpacks of which to speak. What have we been wasting our time on all these years?

Oh sure, we have moving walkways but they’re only in airports and we may have made the first few steps towards robotic butlers but only those little rounds things and they can’t even make cups of tea or snarky one-liners. Also if you own one it’s still sort of weird. We even have fingerprint scanners, the very pinnacle of shady security-laden facilities in old movies but they do not impress us. We won’t accept we live in the future until we have the affordable method of instant teleportation we know we deserve.

But here’s the thing: We do live in the future. The future we anticipated anyhow. You probably have a Star Trek communicator in your pocket. You probably have at least two ways to make a video call right now. The military has robots that think for themselves and shoot on their own volition. Come to think of it, maybe James Cameron had everything right except the dates. We exist in a world of marvels ripped straight from our early 90s imaginations but we don’t cotton on to this fact. We don’t consider it the miraculous thing it is. We’re too busy complaining about it.

Think about that the next time you moan that the world-spanning information uplink all citizens are plugged into is running a little slow. The internet was something barely conceivable to some of the craziest sci-fi writers of the past century and we have that now; information beamed into small rectangles in our pockets whenever we want it, no matter the topic. The internet is a sci-fi writer from the 1950’s wet dream which is fitting seeing as its chief function these days is to be a more efficient method of delivery for pornography.

For every time you think ‘Where’s my jetpack?’ answer yourself ‘Here is my HDTV’. Hover car? Internet. Robot house-maid? Smartphones. Teleportation? Actually teleportation would be really awesome. Why can’t we teleport? This future is rubbish…

Bringing back the Gentleman

Readers. Friends. You followers of pointlessness, you toleraters of nonsense you. I ask you today, or tonight, whenever you’re reading this, to join me on less of a revolution, more a devolution. There is a way you can make the world a better place, a gentler, more proud, more decent place. Every man, woman and child can- sorry, did I say woman and child? That was a mistake, this is just for the men.

Have they left? Cool.

Gentlemen. Isn’t it time we started being gentlemen again?

I was going to put the word ‘chap’ instead of ‘gentleman’ there but I didn’t want to get too closely associated with Chap Magazine who, although generally a fine bunch of fellows, do silly things like climb up a sculpture at the Tate Modern and advocate smoking all the time, everywhere. Rather, I will take the best of their leanings and add a few of my own. Not to create something new but to bring back something old and refine it.

There will be no more boorish manchildren. There will be no more feckless ‘blokes’ whose idea of culture is singing Wonderwall at the top of their voices as the pub closes. Only the gent. The courteous, well-groomed men of the past with none of the unpleasantness that went with it like that misogyny or racism business. A new ideal.

How can we do this? We could do worse, in my humble opinion, than following these steps.

LOOK THE PART

Start dressing like a man

No wearing anything with ‘skinny’ in the title. No massive scarves unless your name is Tom Baker which it probably isn’t. No necklines plummeting dangerously towards the navel. No flip-flops for god’s sake. And if you’re the kind of person who wears a scarf and flip-flops at the same time then get off my website. I don’t want you as a reader, begone!

Look, if you want to dress androgynously because that’s what you’re into and all hey, that’s totally cool, no-one can judge you, do your thing, whatever. But if you follow fashions to the point of make-up and handbags whilst still ostensibly being a man then you might not be a gentleman. Oh sure, you may act like one, there might be no one on the face of the earth more polite than you but you won’t be the whole package. You’ll just look like a kid. We’re not aiming for gentleboys here. Which brings us on to:

Suits! Suits as often as possible

Now I’m a big fan of suit-wearing. As a suit-wearer I feel there are few things that can make you feel more confident and on top of things than a good suit. And ladies (if you’re still here and if you are why? I said get out!) I think you’ll agree that there isn’t a man alive who doesn’t look better in a well-fitted suit.

I study part time which means I often have to run off to classes straight after work. This has made people refer to me as ‘the guy who always wears a suit’. This is a good thing. What they don’t know is that I don’t actually wear a suit to work. I go and get changed for their benefit. Shh!

On the rare occasions where a suit isn’t appropriate you can still be smart. You don’t have to rock up in a vest that would make John McClane be all like ‘damn’ and jeans that look like they’ve served two tours in Iraq. A shirt and a pair of decent trousers go a long way. As a general rule, remember, it is easier to remove a tie than to magic a tie out of thin air.

Seriously, is there anything classier than a suit? Even casually worn with an open top button (which I will grudgingly accept but only if it has been a long day and not because you’re trying to look cool. You know like a ‘ooh I didn’t make an effort but I clearly did’ sort of thing) you’re going to look better than at least 25% of the men in any given situation. I mean look at the fellas of Mad Men.

Damn, look at them.

Apart from Christina Hendricks’ ludicrous body, the fine, fine suits are the best part of Mad Men and that’s a show stuffed to bursting with things you could easily call fantastic. Some parts of that show are like soft porn for tailors. Any time Hendricks is on screen it is officially classified as soft porn. No matter what she’s doing.

Yes, even this.

Which leads us nicely to…

Bring back the hat

That’s the other part of the Mad Men ensemble. The absence of which prevents us from looking like true, sharp gentlemen. The trilby, the fedora, the pork-pie. The top hat is probably too much. Even without a suit the noble flat cap can signify a gentleman because it’s all about their true purpose – doffing it at ladies. Men, you know you want to do this. It’s in your blood and you suppress the urges because you think it will make you look stupid or something. Let it go, let’s all be gentlemen and doff our hats at ladies (WARNING: This is no way a euphemism. I cannot stress this enough.) Now get out there and doff those ladies like they’ve never been doffed before.

I want to live in an age where gentlemen wear trilbys with their suits. A world of raincoats, umbrellas and a rolled up copy of the Times under your arm. There’s just something indefinably classy about the whole notion don’t you think? It certainly can’t be any old hat. None of those wooly ski-cap jobs or ones with earflaps or something or-

…good god. Whatever the shit that is, it has no place in the NGO (New Gent Order).

Oh and no wearing your trilby ‘ironically’ with something casual. If you see a scarf/trilby/flip-flop/natty jeans combo it is your duty to bust some lips.

ACTING THE PART

Chivalry can be resurrected

One part of the Chap Manifesto that is totally right is that, as a chap, you never have a seat to yourself on public transport, you’re just warming it for the next lady who can’t find one. We could easily say that men and women are not and never will be equal despite how hard we try but this is one inequality (and correct me if I’m wrong ladies… who shouldn’t be reading this!) the ladies don’t want to lose. Even if they don’t say it out loud, you find me one girl who doesn’t like to have a door held open for her, a jacket lent to her or a chair pulled out for her and I will show you one shocked face. Like this:

Only, you know, more shocked.

Try standing up slightly when a lady has to leave the room for whatever reason (periods and bras and the like). Even if you feel funny doing it I guarantee someone will comment about how gentlemanly it was. That’s how rare it is these days, it makes you stand out and if you want to be crass about it you could be one step closer to doffing like rabbits… Rabbits wear hats right?

'Nah it's mainly just bowties.'

No one is chivalrous and it counts for a lot when you are. Enjoy being unique while it lasts, I plan for every man in the world to be doing this as a matter of course like it’s the 1920s or something.

Pay for more stuff

Nothing is more ungentlemanly than being miserly and I should know, I’m a Yorkshireman. I know your account will take a hit what with the suit and your hat fund having to be set up and all but don’t panic, I’m not talking about paying for everyone’s everything. Going out for lunch no matter who your guest is: the bill can be settled without them ever seeing it. Not only is it gentlemanly, it’s straight up manly. But it isn’t about flashing your cash in ways that make people feel uncomfortable or intimidated. Do that and you’ve crossed the line from Gent to Twat. A line that is hard to uncross. It’s as easy as getting a round in or taking care of the designated driver. And if we tread back into Ladyville for a moment (man, how great would it be if there was a place called Ladyville…) no girl wants to go out on a first date and have to pay for it. Another slice of inequality they’re probably happy about. It isn’t a sexism issue that though, far from it. Girls have it a lot easier when it comes to pulling/dating I think most of us will agree. If you think of it as her graciously allowing you the pleasure of your company not only will you be correct but you will behave as a gent would. Unless she’s a bitch. In which case bail through the toilet window. Just don’t catch your new suit on the latch or something.

-
You don’t have to start smoking a pipe or wearing nought but tweed (though neither of those things would hurt for a head start) you just have to not be a twat and dress a little smarter. This is my plan for a gentleman devolution and it is rough around the edges in a way that my suit will not be. Am I just woefully out of touch here? Or do guys need to act a little less like kids and girls and more like men who wear hats and take action? I don’t do half these things I’ve written so we’re all in this together men. At the end of it all, would you rather have Don Draper as your role model or Liam Gallagher?

The choice, my friends, is clear.

I’m David Hetherington and I’m going to wear my weskit far more often.

DH.

6 Reasons why Technology is Bullshit

This post is absolutely not related at all to the fact that I managed to drop my phone in a toilet today. Alright? We’re good? Okay then. Here is the top 6 reasons why technology is bullshit.

1) It doesn’t fucking work
Oh yeah it looks pretty and the nice, little swooshing noises it makes as you trace your finger over the screen thrill and delight but then you notice that little thing isn’t working. You know that bit. It’s not important really but it should be… you know, why isn’t it just showing the… god damn you work, why won’t you work? Suddenly it’s the only thing you can think about. Just about everything works like a dream so why doesn’t it display that one picture/play that particular tune at that particular time/load that video. It’s not enough that you have 50 different all-singing, all-dancing, whistling, tea-making, sexual favour-dispensing wondertraptions, as soon as it fails one function it’s an unholy machine of pure torment that was designed only to give you and you alone a heart attack. You know this because everyone else’s works fine.

2) When it does work it breaks outright
With every technological advance we increase the likelihood of technology not working any more. By adding all these other bells and whistles we only increase the amount of things that can go wrong. But don’t worry! There is a whole industry of shysters just waiting to take you for all you’re worth for a promise to fix it again (yes I’m talking about Wan Chai again). Whole industries now exist based solely on the expectation of your little status devices failing. That’s encouraging isn’t it? ‘You broke the warranty? Why would you do that? Dick.’ Well I wasn’t trying to. What’s that? That’ll be another one million dollars? Yeah alright would you like me to bend over and hold my ankles as well? Personally when I bought this thing and signed up for the monthly plan the only thing I could think was I wasn’t paying enough. What I would love is if it could break down now and then and cause me to pay extra. Is there any kind of lube or… oh you’re just going straight for it, cool, okay.

3) No-one is any fucking help
So it broke. Go ahead, take it to the internet. That shining font of endless knowledge (what the hell kind of analogy was that? Urgh) can surely help you out. It’s limitless, there’s bound to be tons of pages with the exact information you need. I don’t know how many times you have gone to Google with a question and got exactly what you were after but I know exactly how many. Seven. Seven times. I know that exact number because it was so rare I kept count. Oh but that’s only if the thing that broke isn’t something that usually connects to the internet. Most devices are far too cutting edge to have anything as crude as a physical paper instruction manual. No, no it’s all online. But you can’t go online. Screw you. But my all time favourite source of advice is the company site that suggests you call for information on why you can’t work your phone. Once again, call to see why you can’t use your phone. This electronics company seems to fancy itself the next Joseph Heller and it currently constructing the next great absurdist satire.

4) Everyone is better at technology-ing than you
Even the 14 year old girl over there seems to be enjoying fifty or so different conversations on her black rectangle while I – I mean you struggle to get Facebook to load properly. And how did half your friends on there manage to do X on their profiles? You can’t do X on your profile. What does that mean? How does Twitter work? My god how does Twitter work? What do all these meaningless symbols and sentences without spaces mean? Even Ashton Kutcher has mastered this, why can’t I. I mean you.

5) As soon as you buy it it’s obso-fucking-lete
Alright this isn’t new but you have something like ten minutes now to properly enjoy your little nerdgasm-inducer before some privileged prick in a turtle neck decides you’re a masochist with a public humiliation thing so he unleashes nerdgasm-inducer 1.2 just to fuck with you. It amazes me how cynical Apple can be. Watching people dutifully line up to empty the contents of their bank account at stores while their perfectly manicured fingers hover over the execute button for the update’s marketing campaign. And no-one ever complains! They just post videos of how cool it’s going to be when they shell out all over again. The next time you buy yourself the brand new thing you should set off its stopwatch (it’s bound to have one) and time how long it takes for your showing off to not mean a thing any more. It will get to the point where there will be a designated bragging/showing off point located to the left of the counter where you picked up your black rectangle and once you’ve spent your ten minutes in there a harsh buzzer goes off and you’re directed to the back of the queue to line up for the update. And you’d do it wouldn’t you? You’d do it with a big stupid grin on your face and a little line of fanboy drool escaping the corner of your wet mouth.

6) You don’t need it
What ever it is, you don’t. Yes, yes technically you don’t need anything other than bread and water but remember a time when you couldn’t compulsively check your e-mails at any time, anywhere? It wasn’t that long ago. Now we start to panic when not connected to the internet for any tiny amount of time. SMBC made a great comic strip about it (but it doesn’t escape the wave of scorn seeing as this was a blip on the radar of a webcomic that has by and large disappeared up its own arsehole). For more, see here #blatantselfpromotion. Oh boy a Twitter reference! Urgh.

And that’s why I had to drown my phone.

DH.

The news thinks you’re a genius. Shame everyone else thinks you’re an idiot.

Hey, been a while. What’s been in the news recently? Not much really. Oh, there was that one thing. Someone died? No, killed, that was it, someone got killed. Some guy, I want to say somebody famous…

That's the guy.

The news trickled through nearly a week ago now, slowly snaking its way down the usual mediums and in this day and age the usual mediums means Twitter. While the rest of the world and its news organisations sat dumbly on their hands social networking sites were beginning to buzz with actual news for once. Doing the one thing that doesn’t make you want to hate Twitter, real news was being broken in real time without the delays for spin and colourful euphemistic language to be added. It was a very modern piece of breaking news and garnered a very modern reaction.

The Rock knew about it before anyone (obviously), it has spawned a meme and facts and evidence were being demanded before anchors had time to stop their wigs from spinning. The speed at which we receive breaking news is scary. The amount of time between an event actually occurring and the general populace knowing about it has never been smaller. It’s probably understandable then, what with demands made for analysis before anyone can properly comprehend it all, that the reactions tend to be… well stupid. Understandable but not excusable.

The outpouring of genuine, unfettered elation at the demise of Osama Bin Laden was to some extent disturbing. Far beyond the expected chants of USA! and the like, people across the world thought it appropriate to react to this world-changing news by taking to the internet and acting like wooping gibbons. JUSTICE was roared about, ROT IN HELL was electronically shouted (a sentiment shared by at least one newspaper), Facebook groups were set up and joined in record time to let the world know that you question Bin Laden’s intimacy with a certain orifice belonging to a camel, that he had been inexplicably wearing a towel or a rag this whole time, that he was worse than Satan himself. The world needed to know, in sickening detail, exactly what you personally hoped had happened to him in his final hours and the afterlife. In short, for roughly the 2000th time even this year, the world had gone mad, lost its ability to self-censor and collectively made us look like ignorant inbreds to any sentient life forms that may be watching from far off in space with one green finger hovering over the exterminate button presumably.

For once the violent death of a man was universally held as fantastic news. The internet descended into bloodlust like modern-day bear baiting (an accusation also leveled at Jeremy Kyle, perhaps the only man to reviled as widely as Bin Laden) and nobody thought this was troubling or at least a little weird.

And now for the disclaimers: If any man deserved to die Bin Laden would most likely top anybody’s list, and that comes from a bleeding-heart liberal pussy. You don’t get to be that high up on the list of America’s Most Wanted for no good reason and it’s a good thing he was finally found and put down. I, personally, just don’t think we need to act quite so pleased with ourselves for doing it. If I was to get on my high horse I would repeat those now famous words about not celebrating another man’s death, ‘not even my enemy’ but we’re beyond that.

The problem isn’t that we’re all idiots. Really that’s not it. Rather the problem seems to come from the media constantly demanding we ‘have our say’. Here is an extremely complex problem that has been in the news today; tell us what you think, go online, text this number, call in, do it now! Now! Actually don’t. How can anyone form an opinion worth discussing in the 2-3 minutes a news piece takes to broadcast? Nobody ever put together an argument for a debate inside 3 minutes and no matter how quickly they come out all the editorials and columns you read on the same subject have gone through editors but before that the writer actually thought about what they wanted to say. By demanding the audience lets us all know what they think the media encourages the kind of knee-jerk, unrefined thinking that is poison to a worthy debate. And the only people who ever do respond immediately are reactionary morons on the far ends of the political scales, perpetuating the idea that the opinions that flow forth like so much effluent from a broken septic tank are normal.

But the news has made it easy for you to ‘have your say’ by simply boiling down the stories of the day to simple good vs evil fairytales. The handsome Prince got married to a nice normal multi-millionaire and the big bad guy was killed off. Hurray! This isn’t only irritating, it’s dangerous and irresponsible. The world does not exist in certainties, it is not black and white. It’s more a murky shade of grey or probably beige. Every major crisis that has an impact on our world has to be stewed over for ages by very smart people before any sort of conclusion or comprehension can be formed. They can’t be deciphered by the man in the street for a nice, succinct voxpop seconds after having a microphone thrust into his face, it can’t be summarised perfectly in under 140 characters on Twitter and it certainly won’t benefit from you having your fucking say on the six ‘o’ clock news.

We are not experts, we do not have all the answers, we will never know everything. It isn’t a weakness to admit it, it’s just the facts. The fast as hell dissemination of facts and news is only a good thing if we give ourselves enough time to contemplate them before we fire up Facebook and shout our uninformed opinions into cyberspace. This pace can’t be good for us, maybe we all just need to slow down. Failure to do so just makes our reactions the equivalent of endless Rebecca Black parody videos, a plague of so much cruelty and bloody-mindedness I could have written a whole blog entry on that alone. Except that even the day after that song was released it would have been too late to write about it.

Speed kills. So does idiocy. We need to slow down and smarten up.

DH.