Anti-social media – where everyone’s not welcome!

I got so excited by a new App this week, I almost forgot to scowl at people threateningly.

If you aren’t in possession of a Smartphone: a) It’s 2014! What’s wrong with you?! b) It’s probably time to put the wireless on to warm up, make a nice cuppa and grumble about ‘kids these days’.

The App, called Cloak, combines that well-know tactic of trying to avoid people you’d rather not see (exes, your boss, that newspaper columnist with unbearably loud shirts and receding hairline etc.) with cunning technology, and a very healthy dollop of good-old fashioned cynicism.

By utilising other Social Media applications used by those you’d rather avoid, it can figure out where they are and alert you to the fact that they’re getting perilously close, thus allowing you to hastily vacate the scene, before you get into a nasty round of having to smile at someone and pretend to be interested in their kids/hobby/near-death experience or love of TV ‘talent’ shows.

As someone who now has an office in a separate building to the rest of the organisation I work for, I heartily approve of such innovate, clever and downright twisted use of technology. I can comfortably spend an entire day without seeing another human, get tons of work done without interruption, plus I don’t have to listen to (and feign interest in) what everyone did at the weekend, politely agree with someone who I think is an idiot, or make anyone else’s coffee.

I think there’s definite scope for taking this further. For a while now I’ve thought Facebook’s ‘Like’ button should have a countering ‘Dislike’ option. In fact, why can’t this be expanded to everything on the internet? Or even into the real world?

Imagine how liberating it would be to listen to the first 10 seconds of someone on a Monday babbling “So, anyway, Mr Tibbles (that’s my cat’s name) had to go back to vets because he ate a spanner, and the bill came to £75! And it was only a small spanner too! I think...” before pressing ‘Dislike’ and getting on with the really important stuff – like feeling smugly superior and wondering why you’re being forced to work with these buffoons.

Another useful idea along the lines of Cloak is my concept for a notably irritable version of twitter. In this, doubtlessly hugely profitable, anti-social media world (which I’m calling ‘squawker”) tolerance and politeness are vanquished.

All ‘squawks’ must feature content devoted entirely to grumbling about things, pointing out inadequacies in the way the world is run and governed, deflating the egos of celebrities and sports stars through well-reasoned but cutting criticism, and pictures of kittens. The latter needs to be there, as I think that’s what powers the internet.

There will be no room for cheeriness, asking how people are, or general merriment. Conversation will be kept to a bare minimum, and then only used to agree with a fellow squawker how hideous everything is.

I’ve just described my twitter feed, haven’t I? Gah.

This post hopefully first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 28th of March 2014. I say 'hopefully', as it hasn't shown up on their website yet. A similar situation arose last week, with my MH370 story eventually turning up online on Monday, where it was remarkably still not out of date.

(Compilation CD? Of course! Another home-made one, with some ELO remix stuff, and some more splendid mashups by GoHomeProductions, including the fab Sixxmix.)

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