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.”

Government begins campaign to improve graffiti

Bad graffiti and the defacement of public property has long been a stain on our society, but finally the Department of Education is striking back. Today, the Minister of Education has announced a much-needed injection of almost 3 billion Rand into South African schools, aimed at improving students’ grammar and punctuation so that, “at the very least, our schools will be vandalised and defaced in an educated and correctly-spelled manner.”

“Have you seen some of our students’ tags and ‘art’?” asked the Minister at a press conference in Pretoria. “I mean, Jake waz heer? Blu Klan Gang 4 lyf? Have we so failed our children that they can’t even deface public property in a respectable, grammatically sound way? They say ‘fuk da police’, but why? We hope that this new boost will enable our children to at least have an empirically-based and nuanced critique of our problematic police force and why, exactly, we should ‘fuk’ them.”

The cash boost follows on the heels of a damning study commissioned by the Institute of Public Art, which recently found that a “made-up but very high” percentage of gang-affiliated graffiti contained innumerable spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.

“While this widespread creativity and love of art is a sign of promise in the next generation,” said the sixty-page report, “their inability to differentiate between ‘to’, ‘too’ and ‘two’, or ‘your’ and ‘you’re’, or even ‘were’, ‘we’re’ and ‘where’, is something that needs to be immediately addressed.”

This isn't the first time South African education has been drastically altered to suit contemporary trends, and despite government officials remaining obstinate that "a Matric isn't easy", teachers have embraced the new introductions.

“The system of basic education is failing many thousands of little obnoxious shits I’m legally obliged to call ‘students’,” said a High School maths teacher in Kwazulu-Natal. “If we don’t do something now, we’ll forever be doomed to see ‘fuck’ spelt without the ‘c’ on our trains, buildings and public spaces.”

The new educational fund is also aimed at improving students’ limited or incorrect knowledge of human anatomy as depicted in erroneous and crude tags.

“Most graffiti pictures of genitalia are not anatomically correct,” said one biology teacher. “For example, most crudely sprayed penises on industrial buildings disregard the usual kinks, bends and demographically relevant size proportions of the average male; the same can be said for roughly painted breasts or hastily tagged vaginas. They are just in no way indicative of real breasts, and don’t convey even half the complexity or sophisticated anatomical structures of the female reproductive organs.”

Government opinion remains divided on the matter, with some claiming that "education is not in a crisis in South Africa" and others admitting that education in South Africa would be "a terrible idea", but at the end of the day, the decision has excited great number of school kids.

“I’ve already been working on a new series of tags,” said a grade-ten learner. “I think it’s gonna blow people away.”

Artists depiction: before education program.

Artist's depiction: after education program.

Pics: Grafitti, Matthew de Klerk. Wall (both edits): Creative Commons.