The Curse of Social Media

I am at this little fringe gathering - I think that they call it Greenbelt or something, surrounded by the finest looking bunch of Christians that I have ever seen, many augmented by a plethora of parish specific hoodies. I have been helping out with a Social Media Surgery - or in other words, helping those who feel so called to launch into this world in which I seem to inhabit.

But, dear readers, it is cursed.

I have written before about how we gather 'friends' and indeed 'followers' like some latter-day Jesus. It is part of the deal and to be honest, we actually don't know any of them in any temporal sense.

This is ok. We expect that. We know it to be the case.

Then some geezer strolls up and goes "Hello David, I am Jobby from Twitter". I had never seen this bloke before. Funny looking actually. The sad thing is that I sensed that they were thinking the same of me. Farv David? Surely not this loon! So, the dance of the Twitter Followers began. We exchanged pleasantries. Good'o!

The thing is, on Twitter, you rarely use your name (apart from the helpful author of this blog) and to compound this we rarely use a picture of ourselves (apart from the helpful author of this blog). So Jobby waddles up and is a complete stranger until the subject is finally broached ...

"Remind me where I know you from"

"I am @weirdlunaticaxekiller from Twitter. One of your friends"

Then all the pieces fall into place. In a world where we only know people increasingly by social-media nickname, we never get to really learn anyone's name. Still, we giggled about it for a whole .... moment.


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Location:Park St,Cheltenham,United Kingdom