Post by pim on Nov 10, 2012 13:36:28 GMT 10
My advice? Never communicate anything to anyone
Sarina Rowell
www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4362634.html
Most of us live in a state of chronic anxiety about our communications getting us into trouble, writes Sarina Rowell. It wouldn't hurt famous people to do the same.
As we all know, if there is one overwhelming danger of modern times, it is that of how easy it is to make a massive dick of yourself in public. Yes, of course I think it abysmal that previous generations had actually to pluck a chicken if they wanted to cook and eat it, and repair their own clothes and spend a lot of money on hats, but at least they were not perennially about to destroy their careers, and probably their lives, with a few touches of a little keypad. This just goes to show, even more than does the average 'Whither the novel?' panel discussion at a writers festival, the degree to which literacy is not necessarily all that it is cracked up to be.
In the good old days, a public figure could be reasonably confident that their correspondence would not be published until after they were comfortably dead, and they also had the security of it being relatively difficult to send a communication to the wrong person or for it to fall into the wrong hands, even while the downside of this was that the art of letter writing was alive and well. Everyone is sentimental about this activity now that they don't have to do it, but, in truth, it was extremely boring to go overseas and then have to write in longhand on an aerogram and actually physically have to post it, not to mention deciphering someone else's spidery account of having bought a simply incredible piece of fabric that they were going to have made into a jacket, or of having had a conversation with an amazing old man in some village in which the twentieth century felt very far away. Now, however, as we seen from, to name merely two, the examples of Peter 'Sink the Slipper' Slipper's messages to James Ashby and the fulsome exchanges between David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks, every written communication can hang us, and do so extremely quickly.
One of the remarkable things about this phenomenon, however, is the tendency of famous people not to realise that their writings are potentially all tiny assassins. Obscure people, on the other hand, seem to be far more inclined to spend their lives in a state of obsessive-compulsiveness like that of Howard Hughes in his long-beard-hair-and-fingernails phase, re-reading their texts or emails to make sure they haven't somehow accidentally referred to the recipient as a c..t, and not joining Twitter because they know they will 'say something terrible', even though they, with almost zero followers, are the people who have nothing to lose.
It is celebrities who seem to be under the impression that Twitter is the place really to kick back and say any old thing, as though this social-media titan were the quarters of the priest from M*A*S*H. Aside from anything, I fail to see why famous people who get themselves into trouble thanks to their text messages are going to the trouble of sending text messages. Yes, I am, as much as, and probably more than, the next person, mad keen on sheltering behind technology as a means of passive-aggressively asking people to do things I don't wish to do myself (namely, everything) and also to, as I and other members of my family would describe it, 'avoid getting into a conversation'. However, because I don't understand how to use predictive text - and Slipper's use of 'botch' instead of 'bitch' indicates its dangers, even as it has the curious effect of making his message less conventionally unpleasant - it takes me about as long to compose a text message as it would take me to engrave the inscription on a marble tombstone.
My friends, on the other hand, shoot back replies to me so fast that it is as though I am Mel Gibson's character in What Women Want and have the ability to read their thoughts. So, whatever else one may say about Slipper's 'shell less Mussells' comments, I have to hand it to him simply for sending a text message of that length and complexity. The Cameron-Brooks texts - or at least those that have been made public so far - are, frankly, way less entertaining than Slipper's but are instructive in showing another horrid challenge of texting and that is its special language; personally, I would feel much more OK on RUOK? Day if they would but spell the question out. Thus, I am at one with David Cameron in having spent a lot of time misunderstanding the term 'LOL', and, on the upside for him, I now feel much more connected to this great big toff than I once did, and doubt I am alone in this.
Ultimately, as someone who spends her life worrying that she has somehow, and almost without her knowledge, inserted something abusive, highly offensive or generally defamatory into her written communications, I cannot understand why the Slippers and Camerons of this world think it's a terrific idea to commit to writing those statements that are actually controversial, when it would be easier and less risky simply to utter them. Most of us are living in a state of chronic anxiety about our communications causing us trouble, and all I can say is that these high-profile individuals needed to be suffering this anxiety at an earlier stage. Yes, I respect and admire Slipper's keenness to talk to a colleague about anything other than the task at hand, and his persistence with this even in the face of his colleague's desire to talk about the task at hand, but why not do as would almost any working stiff and do it in a less traceable manner? As Prince Charles has, if nothing else, taught us about the dangers of even just using the telephone, my advice is never to communicate any thought to anyone, except for verbally at one of those refitted chrome-nightmare Sydney pubs where no one can hear a word that anyone says anyway.
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The hell of it is that it's so easy these days. Think of that former ABC presenter Andy Muirhead. Currently a guest of Her Majesty in a Hobart prison for online child pornography. I'm not sympathising with the scumbag, He's in a very good place and long may he stay there. But what I am saying is: how easy and effortless was his fall from grace!! These days just a click on a mouse and you too can commit a criminal offence, or in the cases of Slippery Pete and David Cameron, do something very embarrassing and compromising that can ruin your career and wreck relationships. We sit in what we used to think was the privacy of our homes and turn on the computer ... and type on the social media. The whole world is now privy to what we're typing. Those who babble about intimate details of their lives should bear (as distinct from "bare"!) that in mind.
As a PS, Peter Slipper was spotted on the back bench in Parliament texting furiously on his mobile phone. It begged all sorts of questions of course!! What has Slippery Pete learned from his fall from grace???
Sarina Rowell
www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4362634.html
Most of us live in a state of chronic anxiety about our communications getting us into trouble, writes Sarina Rowell. It wouldn't hurt famous people to do the same.
As we all know, if there is one overwhelming danger of modern times, it is that of how easy it is to make a massive dick of yourself in public. Yes, of course I think it abysmal that previous generations had actually to pluck a chicken if they wanted to cook and eat it, and repair their own clothes and spend a lot of money on hats, but at least they were not perennially about to destroy their careers, and probably their lives, with a few touches of a little keypad. This just goes to show, even more than does the average 'Whither the novel?' panel discussion at a writers festival, the degree to which literacy is not necessarily all that it is cracked up to be.
In the good old days, a public figure could be reasonably confident that their correspondence would not be published until after they were comfortably dead, and they also had the security of it being relatively difficult to send a communication to the wrong person or for it to fall into the wrong hands, even while the downside of this was that the art of letter writing was alive and well. Everyone is sentimental about this activity now that they don't have to do it, but, in truth, it was extremely boring to go overseas and then have to write in longhand on an aerogram and actually physically have to post it, not to mention deciphering someone else's spidery account of having bought a simply incredible piece of fabric that they were going to have made into a jacket, or of having had a conversation with an amazing old man in some village in which the twentieth century felt very far away. Now, however, as we seen from, to name merely two, the examples of Peter 'Sink the Slipper' Slipper's messages to James Ashby and the fulsome exchanges between David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks, every written communication can hang us, and do so extremely quickly.
One of the remarkable things about this phenomenon, however, is the tendency of famous people not to realise that their writings are potentially all tiny assassins. Obscure people, on the other hand, seem to be far more inclined to spend their lives in a state of obsessive-compulsiveness like that of Howard Hughes in his long-beard-hair-and-fingernails phase, re-reading their texts or emails to make sure they haven't somehow accidentally referred to the recipient as a c..t, and not joining Twitter because they know they will 'say something terrible', even though they, with almost zero followers, are the people who have nothing to lose.
It is celebrities who seem to be under the impression that Twitter is the place really to kick back and say any old thing, as though this social-media titan were the quarters of the priest from M*A*S*H. Aside from anything, I fail to see why famous people who get themselves into trouble thanks to their text messages are going to the trouble of sending text messages. Yes, I am, as much as, and probably more than, the next person, mad keen on sheltering behind technology as a means of passive-aggressively asking people to do things I don't wish to do myself (namely, everything) and also to, as I and other members of my family would describe it, 'avoid getting into a conversation'. However, because I don't understand how to use predictive text - and Slipper's use of 'botch' instead of 'bitch' indicates its dangers, even as it has the curious effect of making his message less conventionally unpleasant - it takes me about as long to compose a text message as it would take me to engrave the inscription on a marble tombstone.
My friends, on the other hand, shoot back replies to me so fast that it is as though I am Mel Gibson's character in What Women Want and have the ability to read their thoughts. So, whatever else one may say about Slipper's 'shell less Mussells' comments, I have to hand it to him simply for sending a text message of that length and complexity. The Cameron-Brooks texts - or at least those that have been made public so far - are, frankly, way less entertaining than Slipper's but are instructive in showing another horrid challenge of texting and that is its special language; personally, I would feel much more OK on RUOK? Day if they would but spell the question out. Thus, I am at one with David Cameron in having spent a lot of time misunderstanding the term 'LOL', and, on the upside for him, I now feel much more connected to this great big toff than I once did, and doubt I am alone in this.
Ultimately, as someone who spends her life worrying that she has somehow, and almost without her knowledge, inserted something abusive, highly offensive or generally defamatory into her written communications, I cannot understand why the Slippers and Camerons of this world think it's a terrific idea to commit to writing those statements that are actually controversial, when it would be easier and less risky simply to utter them. Most of us are living in a state of chronic anxiety about our communications causing us trouble, and all I can say is that these high-profile individuals needed to be suffering this anxiety at an earlier stage. Yes, I respect and admire Slipper's keenness to talk to a colleague about anything other than the task at hand, and his persistence with this even in the face of his colleague's desire to talk about the task at hand, but why not do as would almost any working stiff and do it in a less traceable manner? As Prince Charles has, if nothing else, taught us about the dangers of even just using the telephone, my advice is never to communicate any thought to anyone, except for verbally at one of those refitted chrome-nightmare Sydney pubs where no one can hear a word that anyone says anyway.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------
The hell of it is that it's so easy these days. Think of that former ABC presenter Andy Muirhead. Currently a guest of Her Majesty in a Hobart prison for online child pornography. I'm not sympathising with the scumbag, He's in a very good place and long may he stay there. But what I am saying is: how easy and effortless was his fall from grace!! These days just a click on a mouse and you too can commit a criminal offence, or in the cases of Slippery Pete and David Cameron, do something very embarrassing and compromising that can ruin your career and wreck relationships. We sit in what we used to think was the privacy of our homes and turn on the computer ... and type on the social media. The whole world is now privy to what we're typing. Those who babble about intimate details of their lives should bear (as distinct from "bare"!) that in mind.
As a PS, Peter Slipper was spotted on the back bench in Parliament texting furiously on his mobile phone. It begged all sorts of questions of course!! What has Slippery Pete learned from his fall from grace???