WillWybrow.com

I am pretty sure if I proof-read everything I said online, be it entries here, instant messages or Facebook wall posts, I’d never actually get anything posted. Every time I read over something, there’s always something wrong with the wording or the tone, or it won’t flow right, or a bit won’t make sense, or I’ll realise I’ve tried (and failed) to be witty. I can’t possibly be trusted to self-moderate, because I either have to do none and live with thoughts as they pour out of my head, or everything gets moderated all to hell and I basically have to start over.

Probably nobody else gives it any thought. It’s just me, worrying excessively about how I sound in informal situations on the internet. But when, for example, I’m talking to someone I don’t know very well, or I am trying to get to know someone, I wonder about the formality of my tone, whether people will understand what I’m talking about (because when you hang around with the same people all the time, you can sometimes forget that not everyone will “get” turns of phrase that are idiosyncratic only to your group of friends), whether I am being too boring… I was seizing up with anxiety the first few times I @replied to Eleanor because I don’t know her that well. What if I’d said the wrong thing? Something accidentally offensive? Something that sounds stupid? Something condescending? Something arrogant? Why does everything I say sound so wrong all the time?!

Unfortunately, this is not a problem that’s limited to just online-land. When I am in a social situation where I’ll really want to make a good impression on someone, I start self-moderating my speech. It doesn’t happen so much with people I already know, or people who getting on with seems less important. The self-moderation-to-the-point-of-self-censorship happens usually at the point just before I open my mouth to speak to someone. I’ll realise — not that I’ve got nothing to say, but what I have to say is just a pile of worthless words that nobody would ever want to listen to. So at that point, I’ll have caught someone’s eye, maybe look like I have something to say, come up short and have to look away awkwardly, or I’ll just be gaping at the other person’s face not doing anything. Then I’ll get surging feelings of inadequacy and self-pity and stuff, and feel a load of regret for not just doing something.

I only barely got the hang of small-talk after working for two years through sixth form at a supermarket on a checkout. Even now, after commenting on the weather or the traffic with someone out in public just to stay polite, I’ll sometimes look back with horror at how foolish what I said sounded. Then my eyes will involutarily and painfully roll back in my head and I’ll give a little groan of agony whilst I’m walking away from a total stranger who probably had to wince a little at how ridiculous whatever-the-hell-I-said was.

My only in with people is laughing at their jokes or agreeing with their opinions on stuff. During that period, as long as I don’t come off like a guffawing retard with no sentience behind the ugly giggling, I might feel comfortable enough that the other person thinks I am ok, and then I can grab that tiny interpersonal crumple zone and plough into conversation, hoping the crash isn’t too bad. Otherwise I will be waiting for them to mention something that we have in common and build on that, but that limits the people I can get along with easily to the kind of person who talks a lot and about themselves.

I’m not going to proofread this entry because it’ll never get posted. If there are errors, read around them. But if anyone’s reading and thinks either “yeah, this happens to me,” or “this is made up, nobody really listens to each other anymore,” or even, “it’s ok, Will, we’ll wait for you to become friends with us in your own time,” by all means comment and tell me so!

There’s good news for the video game development industry. That good news is that you can all stop trying now, your lives of hard work are finally at an end and you can leave your devastatingly exhausting profession and take up something else.

What? I’ll tell you what — there’s no reason for anyone to makes games anymore. The perfect game has already been made! That’s it, the competition is done. Ever since the first microprocessor, man has strived to create the perfect set of instructions for delivering the most fun and most intense gaming experience, and we’ve hit the ceiling. The theoretical and practical maximum for best game that we can accomplish in the known universe has been realised.

It goes by the name of Pokémon. I shouldn’t have to tell you about the remake of the second generation Pokémon games, because you should already know. Well, it turns out that they are the basis for the perfect gaming experience. So, sorry, everyone… that’s it. Pack up, clock out, go home.

Well, well. It’s been quite an interesting few days for British politics. The British National Party have gained two seats on the European Parliament. It’s a bit upsetting, I suppose, but let’s put a bit of perspective on the horror now that we’ve had our day of screaming “NOOOO THE EVIL BNP!!” and realise that it is just two seats in Britain’s 72, so we’re not going to have any issues of being misrepresented in the European Parliament.

I want to talk to you about an idea I’ve been nursing for a while, a new take on “democracy.” Now, I agree that everyone is inherently equal to begin with, and everyone should have the right to vote. Nobody is disputing that point. I’m not disputing that point. But it sets my bullshit-radar off when I think that everyone’s vote counts for the same amount, no matter how well- or ill-informed it is. Now, don’t close your mind to the idea right away until you’ve read the whole of what I’m suggesting.

On the radio this morning I was listening in to some callers from both the pro- and anti-BNP camps, calls from people who voted and those who didn’t and some of their reasons. Here are some paraphrased exerpts from the show:

I voted BNP as a protest against the MPs’ expenses scandal

I didn’t vote because I didn’t feel I knew enough about the parties to make an informed decision

These were actual thoughts expressed by people phoning in. Now, it’s obvious that neither of these people know enough about the political parties in this country to make informed decisions. The second guy openly admitted that, and he therefore didn’t vote. The first guy, how do I know he doesn’t know enough? Easy, first, he voted BNP as an anti-establishment move, a “rebellion” against the big party names (Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats) who have been tarred by the expenses scandal. Second, he’s picked the BNP without realising they’re a racist party. We know this because if he did know they were a racist and fascist party, he’d have voted Green or some other less offensive party, unless he is in fact a racist himself, in which case he wouldn’t have phoned in to national radio announcing it in a nation where it’s socially unacceptable to be a racist.

Neither of these people knew enough to make an informed vote. The second guy did what was responsible even if it can’t be condoned by the people who harp on with the same line “don’t complain if you didn’t vote,” etc. and will therefore be openly condemned. The first guy just went ahead and picked a name without fully realising the implications of what he was doing.

Our system doesn’t currently account for the differences between informed and uninformed voting, and I think that’s a massive oversight.

How do we go about correcting this? Well, it wouldn’t be an easy process. It would massively complicate the voting system which would undoubtedly affect voter turnout. But if people really want their say they will suffer the extra effort of the new voting system. What new voting system? My system.

Even the smallest checks at voting time would be a massive help. It could be a case of 1a.) tick the box of the party you’re voting for, 1b.) why? Maybe next to the BNP there could be a couple of options: I am voting for the BNP because I truly believe that the descendants of the ancient Anglo-Saxon and Nordic settlers from Europe truly have the right to be called “indigenous” British people and all others should recognise this and that this country belongs to those people so let’s close the borders to immigrants and secede from the EU or I am voting BNP because DERR EXPENSES LOL or I am voting BNP because I think Nick Griffin’s a really nice guy who’s going to look out for everyone in the country’s best interests, and your vote then gets multiplied by how sensible your answer was.

But this would require some kind of external party to come up with the responses and rate them and it would all be very prone to corruption and being challenged and there would be all sorts of problems with it.

So instead, maybe the ballot should be a booklet printed of the manifestos or perhaps just summarised mission statements made by the parties themselves. The test could just be simple reading comprehension with multiple choice questions. The value of a vote could go up in stages so those who read the page of and fill in every answer to every party score the same grade as those who do that for just, say, 70% (with penalties for wrong or missing answers on questions about the party voted for), and those who only answer questions about one party score the same no matter which party it is (because if you’ve only read up on one party you don’t know enough to have a valuable vote).

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for that people are equally and objectively exposed to all their choices before they are asked to make one. Clever wordplay door-to-door by deceitful BNP representatives can be countered by reading “the BNP stands for the rights of idigenous British” and answering the multiple choice question “whose rights do the BNP stand for?” a) everyone’s; b) people born in Britain’s; c) “indigenous British”; d) nobody’s.

I don’t know, it’s 2am and what started off sounding so clear and well-thought-out in my head has kind of fallen apart on paper because I haven’t been bothered to plan it and research stuff and lay it out properly or proof-read at all but I am tired and hungry so… forget it all. I’m not going to make a successful point so just disregard it all. Instead let’s just make me emperor of the world and I’ll just tell you that you have to follow my specific and unique views (like ID cards are not only ok but actually pretty cool yet copyright law sucks all kinds of hell) “just because.” And bomb North Korea, because even if Kim Jong Il is subject to my imperial global rule, who cares? Nobody cool lives there. Send Josef Fritzl there. That’s someone everyone’s forgotten about. Let’s talk about him for a bit.

Worthless.

Some people use the Facebook “like” function to indicate approval of “shared” content. That is surely its purpose. But as I’ve already stated, there’s no option for disliking things. Some people have suggested adding such a feature.

Sometimes there’s not really anything to “like” about an update, for example, if I said “the BNP sucks,” I think it’d be reasonable for someone pressing “like” to mean “agree.” Reflecting on this, I thought to myself, “why don’t they add a “dislike” and an “agree” and “disagree” button?

In fact, they could add a list of possible emotional responses to an update and their opposites. Users could choose the appropriate word to match their feelings on the subject.

Or, of course, Facebook could implement a space after each update for users to input their own feelings. That way users would have access to the full expression of opinion that their language(s) allow. In fact, the space could be extended to allow a full comment on a subject to express views more complex than single words. That would be some kind of amazing, let me tell you.

Such are the fevered dreams of technologically-inclined.

Sir Alan Sugar has been made an Enterprise Tsar, not “the” Enterprise Tsar. It’s not an already-established position, but it is already unchangeably decided on by the government now.

For your viewing pleasure: the Enterprise Tsar. The Soviet emblem and the red obviously not implied by the word “Tsar,” but MY COMEDIC PHOTOSHOPPING KNOWS NO LIMITS.

In the Labour reshuffle that is happening this morning, people are very concerned with the position of various Secretaries of things, but nobody seems to be calling anyone out on the appointment of Sir Alan Sugar as the vague “Enterprise Tsar.” It’s a term that’s never been seen before and I can’t yet find a concrete definition for. So, building on the arbitrariness of the appointment and title, I hereby name myself Internet Tsar.

ALL HAIL THE INTERNET TSAR.

Please, I’m begging you all, rescue me from the sea of stupidity that I’m drowning in. What am I talking about? Certain phrases or exchanges that I hear all the time that people use without realising they’re using them incorrectly. It’s not even the case that the phrases are complicated enough so that their meaning is obscured. If people just shut up and thought about what they were going to say for once, they’d hopefully come to terms with their own idiocy and take a little step further towards being self-aware.

“I could care less…”

I read this one more than I hear it. It’s an obvious bastardisation of the phrase “couldn’t care less,” meaning you think something is so worthless that there is no way you could possibly care any less about it, implying you care nothing at all. Somewhere along the lines, though, the negation has been dropped, and people exclaim “YEAH I COULD CARE LESS LOL,” intending to show their lack of concern over a subject, but actually giving us very little in the way of new information about their views. Saying you “could care less” means you care some amount about something. The only thing not covered by that statement is the thing you are trying to convey — you don’t give a shit and you’re trying to make that plain to us, but all you are saying is that you give something between a bit and a lot of a shit. It’s not even that you’re saying the opposite to us, it’s saying your answer could be anywhere in the range of “thought about it once briefly” and “the only thing that matters to me” which makes it even more vague than not saying anything at all (because, chances are the phrase is only being used to support other discussion on the subject, from which your opinion could be reasonably inferred).

“Would you mind if…?” “Yeah, go right ahead.”

Another tricky double negative that catches out fools both on the internet and in real life conversations — the old “would you mind if I…?” question, where “mind” means “have a problem with.”

This confuses a lot of people. I guess everyone expects a permission request to take the form of “may I…?” or they want to give a positive answer whenever they feel they are doing a nice thing. People are really stumped by the concept of “no” meaning “yes” that they skip the whole mental inquiry into why that might be and just say whatever they want as the answer to the request, filling in their own meaning of the question while they are at it. If I ask you if you mind sucking my dick and you scream “NO WAY!!!” then you better drop to your knees and pay the penalty for your linguistic ignorance. Serves you right, maybe take a few seconds to reflect on what you’re being asked before you let your thoughts out through your voice box.

“Proper” as an adverb

While I’d like to believe that “proper” used as an adverb instead of “properly” devolved from some kind of misinterpretation of the postpositive use of it to mean “in the strict sense of,” I can’t help but wonder whether it’s just kids being lazy. I’m not actually a fan of that postpositive use of it, but that’s fine because I don’t have to use it (although I did once try it to see what all the fuss was about).

Anyway, the dictionary says it’s acceptable informally, but I say go to hell. Keep it out of my books and out of my ears.

“Your”

It’s been done before and it’ll be done again by people far more eloquent than I, BUT there has been a surge in peer-crafted quizzes being posted all over the world’s* favourite social networking site and being force-fed news that “Freddy McDouchebag has taken the quiz how your going to die! and Freddy will die by getting HIV from a diseased crack-whore. Take the quiz and find out what you’re death will be!!!!” makes me want to hurl up my guts and collapse dead over the keyboard. My face mashing the keys as the blood of my internal organs leaks out of my mouth will type gibberish on the screen that is still more coherent than 90% of the stuff on the internet.

“Cereals”

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Cereal, as in “breakfast cereal,” is an uncountable noun with no plural form. It’s like “water,” people. Every time I hear the word “cereals” used incorrectly, I seriously consider the idea of ramming a spike down my ear canal and deafening myself. People live with deafness all the time, in fact — it must be nice, never having to hear a council estate single mother, overweight from terrible eating and reeking from poor hygeine and cigarette smoke (which, by the way, she puffs over her three- and four-year-old kids) telling her kids to “wait by the fucking trolley” while she goes and picks up “some cereals.” True story. The worst part about this one is that it’s catching on in shops. Aisle labels in some supermarkets proclaim “cereals” in ten-inch-tall letters on boards hanging from the ceiling. Good work, you fucking traitors, just like you label the “pastas” aisle. Oh wait, no you don’t, because these people don’t eat pasta when there are Pot Noodle instant snacks or frozen processed Bird’s Eye faux-meat and frozen oven chips to have instead. Anybody who misuses “cereals” or allows or encourages others to misuse it? Bunch of cunts is what they are, and they should be culled or at least neutered and put on the sex offenders register for good measure.

*except China

I’m fucking sick of Gordon Brown outstaying his welcome. What does he hope to achieve? His ridiculously waning popularity should have been the hint to cut and run ages ago, so what can his intention possibly be? Hold on to office and try and regain some stature? I don’t know. I don’t know anything about politics really, so that’s why I’m naïvely suggesting that we just revolt and spend a few years in anarchy to blow off some steam. Then we’ll all calm down when we’re bored of lawlessness and let ourselves be subdued by the next batch of incompetent leaders. But it will have been a few years of fun at least.