THE VIRAL BEATITUDES

Since when did we learn right from wrong via smug internet videos? Since when were our rabbis and priests webcam teenagers with editing software, gel & a GCSE in R.E? The politically vibrant student body of the 1980s has been replaced by a significantly better equipped generation vastly less fussed by anything that isn’t trending on Twitter; shaped not by electricity shortages, racial tension and Thatcher but by The Kardashians, XFactor and Apple products.

One week it’s a woman filming herself walking down the street as hard-working men on their breaks — obviously reacting to the camera — violently oppress her with cheeky non-threatening compliments, the absolute BASTARDS. She only walked around town ALL DAY in specifically chosen hotspots so you know it’s a reliable piece of data. More of these types of video are appearing all the time though — for example videos of homeless men being more generous than those incredible busy people who simply haven’t the time to involve themselves in your internet project because they’ve a family to provide for and genuinely have places to be. Scum of the earth the lot of them. But who made these cheesy ‘film makers’ the moral arbiters of anything? The next thing you know it’ll be crying divorced men with go-pros strapped to their heads shedding light on what it’s REALLY like being a middle-aged man trying to date in the greater Hull region and how we should take a hard look at ourselves in the mirror because we’ve never considered it as a lifestyle, shame and damnation on us all.

There’s honestly a point I get to with these things where I stop caring and even begin to subconsciously resent the cause which is absolutely the fault of the idiots that make this crap, many deaths be upon them. They take serious issues that should be discussed intelligently and instead package them as Glee promo vids. I’d give at least 5 minutes of my attention to most campaigns if only they communicated themselves in a less cringe worthy manner. Fingers crossed a Syrian YouTube video will soon surface insisting that clothes should be one size only so as not to discriminate against midgets, lanky kids and fatsos. At least then I can blame this for why I know absolutely nothing about the place and once, when invited to point to the country on a world map, couldn’t.

Remember KONY 2012? Remember how the world was fascinated for about 35 minutes? How we cried a little at all that injustice then ordered four boxes of t-shirts? Then, if you recall, we all woke up in the morning and in the sober light of day remembered we didn’t really care that much and anyway it would be fine as we seriously doubt anybody else is as apathetic as we are. Of course they were and within about a week the fella who made it was running naked through the streets, clawing at his own back, fiddling with himself and crying. The general message of these internet idiots is fine but problems won’t be solved because you’ve managed to ban wolf-whistling or communicated the issue of child slave soldiers to the world as if it were the sob story segment on The XFactor.

The next one of these videos I watch seems to assume a similar function to that of art in the medieval age as a provider of moral instruction to the general masses. Annoyingly the general masses (i.e. anyone with a gripe) are also the very people making these videos — they/we are the beating heart that sustains the merry-go-round of idiocy that we call the internet. Idiots are teaching sentimental Disney morality to each other. No longer do we go to the genius, the artist, or the philosopher for council but rather we bow down at the Temple of Vlog and worship the goddess Selfie. Clever gag Gray.

In the video I begrudgingly watched, young boys were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up bla-bla-bla and their answers were innocent and sweet but then a pretty girl was presented to them and they obliged the request to say what they liked about her and, weirdly, to stroke her hair. Yet upon instruction to slap the girl ACROSS THE FACE by a now far-too-creepy-sounding director, they all freeze, stunned by the mere suggestion of violence. ‘See!’ we’re to think, ‘humanity in its purest form finds violence against women abhorrent’. Look at the horror in their sweet little faces, is the message. This was you once — pure, innocent and wide-eyed. You wish you were like that again don’t you? Wish you could take back all those mistakes you’ve made? All those things you once said in anger that still keep you up at night? Identify with these children and stop nutting ya misses, is the message. Problem is I know the mind of 8 year old boys (not in a weird way) and can see right through their lies. Pretending they’d never hit a girl, not even if she’d nicked their sweets, pff! As if. Obviously they won’t admit it in front of a camera or on the instruction of some creepily keen adult but if that girl stole you or your pal’s packed lunch at age 8 you’d chin ‘em. Fact. The only time I ever have or ever will hit a girl — and the only time I would suggest it is, at the least, forgivable — was AS a child. I have no specific memory of any event but I must have done. I certainly remember the kid with Asperger’s repeatedly thwacking Lucy Richardson over the head with his lunchbox for calling him a mong. That one stands out though cos of the sheer justice of it — honestly I was so proud of him that day. The whole class clapped and I remember it felt a bit like the victory was somehow also ours. I forget his name now but that moment will last. Even the teacher told him off in the perfunctory manner I imagine Nigel Farage probably does every time another one of his MPs is photographed angrily hurling foreign sand back into the ocean or whatever it is they do: with very little conviction and the hint of a wink is my point.

The final viral beatitude I consumed came in the form of a campaign video for gay marriage that put a bunch of 8 year old girls in princess dresses then forced them to read party propaganda to camera in a sort of Disney version of one of those hostage videos. These innocent little girls then made wild demands of western society such as banning urinals & facial hair or whatever malevolent nonsense it was. The genuinely spoilt sounding brats constantly used the F-bomb throughout, asking ‘is this more offensive than telling a women who and what she can be?’ before shaking a ‘nuhuh’ finger at us in the sassy style of Beyonce. I instinctively resented that the answer wasn’t ‘Yes it is. Absolutely. In every single way’. Two stern looking women then came into screen, all angry and proud. The sort of people that use the term women to mean ‘me’ and who demand equality with men but then when told they look like they secretly eat donor kebabs in their car at midnight brand me a sexist even though I’ve said it about Paul Lambert, Steve Bruce, Eamonn Holmes, Michael Buble and my pal George Carter’s step-Dad. You know, of all the non-religious groups, I think the first to take up arms will be the militant feminists. Writing this now I realise that’s not a major shout seeing as they’re already referred to as militant but grant me this one please. Compare these bitter people’s campaign to kill men for leaving the toilet seat up or whatever it is with those women fighting against ISIS or even those quietly working away for charities that fight against sex slavery or deal with domestic abuse victims or whatever it might be. I know nothing of their world, their quite resolve or their thoughts on such videos. But I do know that the group that made the swearing princess one would most likely enforce oestrogen on me if in power and that annoys me. It’s always the idiots who shout the loudest (he screams from the top of his lungs).

And as awful as it all is over in Syria right now it is pretty funny in a dark sort of way how all these women are fighting ISIS and the only thing preventing these lovely fellas from their 72 virgins is if a woman kills them. 72 women? Does that mean if you live a good Muslim life as a woman you die then spend eternity in the harem of some mass murderer with 71 other women you’ve been randomly grouped with and very probably immediately dislike? Where’s the incentive? Even for the man? A life time of hating women so that you can spent an eternity with 72 of them? It doesn’t make sense. Does the quality of woman go up the worse the atrocity? If you don’t quite nail jihad but you tried your best and managed to graze an infidel’s knee or something do you get just a few wives maybe? And are these women now allowed to show their faces? Can they group together and play netball against other harems? When the honeymoon period ends the mammoth task of managing this ludicrously large household will begin to dawn and the harsh realities of living with so many people will set in — all 72 of them demanding your constant attention, probably by this point already having splintered into multiple cliques. You’re gonna need a massive house pal.

Thomas J Gray