Area man can’t be in London, say social media analysts

An Area man’s alleged move to London has come under intense scrutiny this morning, after social media analyists exposed a dire lack of posts and uploads proving that it actually happened.

The 25-year-old editor of a popular satire website, who would fire us if we exposed his name, has apparently uploaded very little evidence of his move abroad, doing little to back up claims that he has been in the shiny and amazing city of London since September of last year.

“It’s disquieting and crazy, but the man has yet to upload more than one perfunctory selfie of himself in front of the Tower of London, or outside a classic red telephone box, or even a mere picture of his University,” said one social media analyst, Luke Sattweets.

“We all know I had a coffee this morning, because it got thirteen likes on Instagram," he said. "We all know I went to the Coldplay concert last October, because I posted about it every day and took those fifteen blurry videos from seat 798 in row Y. I just can’t say the same for this guy. Come on, ONE status about watching the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Get the fuck out of here.”

Pull the other one, dipshit.

And he’s not the only one.

“There are no pins. No check-ins. No cheesy tourist snaps outside the Tate Modern, no poses with waxen celebrities at Madame Toussauds, no clever angles making it look like he’s holding Big Ben in between his pinched fingertips,” said another analyst, Lycan Pohsts. “How can anyone believe you’ve have an incredibly life-changing experience if there are no photos of it, no track record on social media?”

He continued.

“How can I believe he is gallivanting around London if he hasn’t uploaded a grinning, thumbs-up selfie with a pint of lager and a packet of crisps in a traditional pub? How can we really trust that he has gone over without endless selfies of him struggling to sleep in the Boeing 757, arriving at the airport in a daze and flurry of activity? How can anyone prove he has undertaken this massive challenge without pictures of him at all the tourist hotspots Nelson’s Memorial to the National Gallery and buildings of parliament? He hasn’t even posted a picture of himself posing next to the Royal Guard making fun of their Beefeaters.”

And the public is furious.

“People lie on social media all the time; why wouldn’t he?” asked one man. “It’s highly, highly suspicious: photos like these would get DOZENS of likes and comments. It’s crazy: why would you pass up such an opportunity for digital validation?”

“No, I demand that he uploads proof of this fantastic, life-changing trip,” he stated bluntly. “Until I push air out my nose, click ‘like’, and then keep scrolling down an endless wall of memes and vapid listicles, I refuse to believe that he is actually having the time of his life in London.”

Instagrammer comes to blindly obvious conclusion, quits Instagram

Gut-wrenching feelings of shock and betrayal persist today, after 18-year-old Instagrammer Tay Kasselfey came to the self-evident conclusion that Instagram is “contrived perfection made to get attention” and deleted her account.

Kasselfey, who had to this sudden and utterly self-apparently epiphany this weekend, has slammed Instagram, saying that despite the social media platform's devilishly misleading realism, the service is actually built on “carefully constructed lies that didn’t eat that morning and also had to suck in their belly”.

“Instagram might look totally real. If you scroll down it and see all the glossy, filtered and yet also hyperrealistic photos of coffee and stunningly attractive, thin woman dressed and made up to perfection, you could be easily tricked into thinking, ‘yeah, this is a totally realistic and accurate representation of the daily lived experience of every human being currently alive’,” she said. “But – brace yourself – it isn’t.”

She explained at length.

“Look at this photo of myself. Now, from this photo alone and no other information, you might easily think that I study in a skimpy bikini in the sun with books of different subjects all opened at the same time and strategically placed and turned to random pages while I pose in a super-uncomfortable yet sexy angle that accentuates my butt, flat, toned stomach and boobs,” she said. “But what if I told you that it was totally posed and took several dozen shots and careful post-editing to capture? It’s shocking and incredible to hear, I know, but that’s the truth.”

“And looking at any of the millions of photos on Instagram, you might think that every woman currently alive is a smokingly gorgeous perfect 10 with abs and boobs – but that just isn’t true. I mean, how is anyone supposed to figure that out on their own?”

And the disappointment doesn’t stop there.

“All those hashtags that we all think are there to accurately label and classify the images into neat categories that allow users to easily find content that suits their tastes and search criteria?” she asked. “Well, I hate to be the one to break this awful news, but actually they are just abused and piled up to try and get as many views and as much reach as possible, and often don’t even describe in any logical way at all what is in the photo.”

“I mean, I once used #goals #life #future #books #intellect #nerdy #dreams #workhard and #college on a selfie of me wearing glasses and holding a science textbook. How could anyone possibly have known that none of those tags actually meant anything?”

Kasselfey – who in real life is an overweight 42-year-old man who works in IT - has now sworn off the “narcissistic, self-obsessed, egotistical” Instagram, and has started a new campaign to try and create a more meaningful world that cares about other people.

“My new campaign features hundreds of photos of me in sexy poses that expose how shallow the whole thing is,” he explained. “We should care about things that truly matter, and not try to force the world to obsess about themselves or flood their spheres with endless pictures of themselves.

But despite this selfless awareness drive, public reaction has been mixed.

“I simply don’t believe it,” said one man. “You’re telling me that the vast majority of women aren’t oversaturated-colour-tinted models constantly wearing clothes that leave little to the imagination, and that all those photos weren’t taken in one spontaneous, off-the-cuff snap and hence don’t give a realistic depiction of real life? PSHT. Pull the other one.”

“I think it’s fantastic,” said a woman. “I’m not a size-zero supermodel, and so when I say that Instagram is fake and constructed, people just think I’m being a jealous, insecure hater bitch. I’m just glad that there’s someone much thinner and more beautiful than myself and thousands of other women who people will actually listen to about how women don’t look like that.”

But not all of the public is positive.

“She’s obviously lying,” said one angry commenter. “I mean, there’s no way it’s fake. Why would thousands of people spend hours on hair and make-up and positioning their Pina Colada very carefully on the edge of the table to get a perfect snap of the sunset, and dozens of minutes choosing the perfect filter to best exaggerate your image’s qualities? So that they can assuage their insecurity? So that they can garner more followers and possibly get asked to shoot a sponsored post that earns them thousands of dollars just to drink a cup of tea?”

“No ways – how gullible do you think I am? Next thing she’ll try to tell us that Wrestling is fake.”

Woman’s profile pic not fooling anyone

A woman was declared “obviously not attractive” today, after the internet came to a general consensus that her profile picture isn’t fooling anyone.

The black-and-white airbrushed image, which was carefully framed, lit and chosen out of four dozen other photos taken at around the same time, was uploaded yesterday evening to 26-year-old Megan Jenners’s Facebook profile – and all her friends agree that “this shit isn’t fooling anyone”.

“Yes, it’s a pretty photo. Yes, to the untrained eye that hasn’t seen her in real life, you might be fooled into thinking she’s attractive and then swiping right,” said the guy who follows her every update but hasn’t spoken to her in four years, Vuyo Rystic. “But let’s just admit the facts here: it’s a top-down, filter-heavy selfie that has clearly been put through the Instagram-photoshop wringer.”

Friends and followers of Jenners– even those on Twitter – have agreed.

“For me, my suspicions were raised when I saw the angle. I mean, it’s top-down and is filled with her face,” said one friend Jake Henderson shortly before liking it and commenting ‘omg so pretty u stuning babe’. “Why else would you want a full picture of your face as your profile picture unless you had a disgusting, corpulent and revoltingly grosteque mass underneath it that you wanted to hide no matter what?”

Others agree.

“No amount of BW correction and careful balancing of exposure and saturation can hide how much of a soulless, blackhearted skank Megan is,” said another friend, Erin Blakey, before hitting ‘like’. “I’ve read her statuses. She’s vapid and completely irritating and full of herself. Maybe I should post a passive-aggressive status about her?”

She followed this by adding “no, on second thoughts I shouldn’t” and “the two-faced bitch might realise who I was talking about.”

According to online researchers, much of the anger stems from its inherent insincere dishonesty.

“When it comes to Social Media, I think we can all agree that the most important, central tenet is honesty and truth,” said media analyst Eric Henderson. “So when she posted these quasi-blurry, pseudo-artistic selfies of herself and tried to pretend she was someone she wasn’t, she broke the cardinal rule of the internet: never lie to people.”

“In their eyes, this publication of a falsehood is a deep and hurtful mockery of the thought-provoking articles, provocative philosophical debates, and cat pictures they share,” he explained. “To the untrained eye, it might seem like all these people commenting on the picture think she is, quote, ‘gorjuz’ and ‘totes hawt girl’, but we all tacitly know what they’re really saying.”

However, not everyone agrees.

“Oh, I dunno, bro,” said one man. “I mean, I would still definitely bang her.”

New App revolutionises how we remember Huge Life Events

Life-changing experiences will never be the same again, thanks to a new App that is making huge waves in social media circles.

Insta-Mem, which has been downloaded 6 million times since it hit the App Store this weekend, automatically takes your boring, unspecial photos and diary entries from incredible experiences and journeys and converts them into a more representative and social-media friendly format.

“Times have changed, and with ever-ubiquitous modern technologies in our increasingly digitalised world, it’s about time we updated and modernised the way we remember the special moments in our life,” said creator of the application, Ian Staygram. “Let’s say I went to Naples and lay on the warm white shores of the Mediterranean, gently out my slowly-bronzing legs out on the beautiful soft sands just meters from the warm waters and taking in the simple pleasures of life in a moment that hope will stay with me until I die - how am I supposed to remember that without multiple selfies, social media check-in posts and filter-heavy shots of the local cuisine?”

Thousands have agreed.

“What, really, is the holiday of a lifetime if it isn’t posted online for your friends to like and comment on? And if you do take photos of the mountains or scenery, how am I supposed to know that I, or anyone who was apparently there, was *actually* there?” asked internet user and fervent Mem-er Jake Henderson. “I think we can all agree that, whether you’re diving in the Pacific Ocean with Whalesharks and Sunfish, or sitting on Mount Everest watching the sun rise over the distant smoky hills like a magnificent orb made from burning gold, the most important thing is that everyone you know knows that you – you, with your face, maybe your mouth curled into a cheesy grin with an accompanying peace sign or thumbs-up – were there. Everything else is meaningless.”

Social-media users no longer need to fear forgetting these magical moments, says Staygram.

“The app is so simple to use, that even a Twitter user wouldn’t struggle. All you do is take a photo of yourself, and our Smartscan technology will do the rest. All those yawn-provoking shots of the scenery and panoramic views of the island snoozefest you were staying in will now be updated to have you in them, even if you didn’t take any selfies on the trip,” he said. “Hell, if you didn’t even take pics at the place, the app just searches Google for sunsets and snaps in that area and edits those into your album. It’s not like anyone will be able to tell the difference between sunsets or check that you actually took the pictures.”

The app also automatically adds a relevant filter and hashtags.

“When I visit memorable locations, I don’t want to have have the stress of taking periodic selfies that reaffirm that I do actually exist and am actually in Paris,” said another user Mary Marie. “I don’t want to bother with the profound hassle of picking between ten slightly different pre-set image filters, or the philosophical wrestling match of coming up with seventeen hashtags that adequately sum up the profound, life-altering trip I’ve taken. With Insta-Mem , never again will I forget that I travelled and visited the Top Ten places in Paris that I read about in a listicle."

Already, many thousands are wishing they had had this app when they travelled the globe to broaden their understanding of the myriad different cultures and peoples of our beautiful, rich planet.

“Nowadays I just sit in my chair trying to work out what I did between the years of 1968 and 2010,” said senior citizen Jerry Attrick. “We didn’t have Twitter or Facebook back then, so how were we supposed to remember those moments that changed us deeply and profoundly for the rest of our lives?”

Staygram now says they have their eyes set on video format technologies.

“Let’s say you go to a concert and forgot to record the entire thing from eighty-seven seats back in the cheap section on your 2.8 megapixel cameraphone. Well, with the app we’re developing, we’ll just take DVD-quality official footage and convert it to be smaller, blurrier, and filled with uncompressed, low-quality sound complete with barely audible songs being drowned out by the cheering and screaming. Imagine you’re bobbing for apples in a tub of Vaseline after corneal damage.”

Photos: Everest by Luca Galuzzi; Great Wall of China by Severin.stalder. Both Creative Commons.

SRC prepares real-life facebook replacement

 

Following the horrifying news that Facebook will be temporarily down for upgrades to its  major servers, forcing you to talk to real people, the Student Representative Council of Rhodes University has swung into swift action with a huge contingency plan aimed at helping students deal with the upcoming trauma.

"We know that you can't go a single day without liking or commenting on stuff, and so we have stepped in to make this terrible day all the more bearable," said SRC President Betha Thaan-Nhobadhi. "As such, we will have contingencies deployed all around campus."

Plans to ease the students' fragile frames of mind are extensive, ranging from impromptu walls to makeshift Instagram services.

"We will be handing out packs of 'LIKE' cards with the normal thumbs-up sign, and blank comment box stickers for students to pin up on whatever they want," said SRC Facebook Contingency Councillor Lyka Khomment. "This way, students will be able to leave their mark on the things that don't matter in their lives,"  

He went on to add that the university staff had approved a request to turn every wall on campus into a 'wall'. "Now there will be ample space to tell people about stuff that no one wants to hear."

The SRC has also secured plans to have a guy with a megaphone at the major locations around campus, so as to announce your presence every time you 'check in' to a different location.

"We want to keep your 754 friends, acquaintances, old highschool friends that you never even talk to, and that guy who always creeps your profile and invites you to events all the time constantly updated with your changing social life," Khomment said. According to the SRC, this megaphone wielder will also act as an impromptu newsfeed, informing you of the most pertinent events in the Rhodes social sphere, for example  'zOMG Lara was tagged in 212 photos: thirty people like this'.

"We know that your life cannot be lived to its fullest without being notified every time one of Lara's friends post about how 'zOMG babez u so gorjus luv u xxxxox'," he said.

However, a real-life facebook would be nothing without crappy artistic photos - but the SRC has students covered.

Thanks to the SRC, the world will still be able to know about it every time you eat or drink something.

"A team of highly-trained instagram reproducers will walk around with polaroid cameras, taking pictures of your breakfast and of you pouting and pretending that the photograph wasn't totally preplanned and carefully posed," said fourth-year photography student Haza Ritchdhad.

"These professionals will try as best they can to give you, our Rhodes Students, the best real-life instagram experience possible," she said. She also added that these photographers will even soak the polaroid in tea to make it all blurry and sepia-toned. 

Students have reacted to the news with fervent excitement, including first-year journalism student Stacey Blake.

"I can barely wait, smiley face, smiley face, thumbs-up, winking smiley, party hat emoticon!" she said.

Readers looking to get their Muse and Abuse fix will sadly have to go cold turkey. I don't get paid for this, and I am not running for an SRC Portfolio do not have unlimited printing credit for a print edition.

Thanks to the SRC, the world will still be able to know about it every time you eat or drink something.