The point being: what I feel is not important. At least not to you. Even you with the exceedingly long nipples, well done, by the way, for making it out of the house – I’m proud of you. You could feed babies on the other side of the room. But, the Internet, and social media specifically are designed in such a way that your opinions, your pictures, your links, your everything are given centre stage. The paradox is that there are millions and millions of centre stages and the only member of the audience is a rather shiny mirror with a giant gold frame.

Some of you might have seen a documentary called Century of the Self, by Adam Curtis. This posits the theory that the idea of a self was not crystallised in human minds prior to the early twentieth century, where Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, used psychological techniques to further consumerism and influence people. For a very brief overview at Wikipedia, click this collection of linky letters. For a little more of an in-depth look, dive straight into this blue pool of linkage (The BBC’s page for Century of the Self). And, what with the wonders of free information, why not let your mouse hover over and chomp up these letters, which will allow you to download the entire documentary, for free. Don’t complain if you burn up your Internet.

Please bear in mind that my takeout from the documentary is almost as simplified as the plot to Twilight. So don’t kill me, or troll me, or start a flame war, or whatever it is that the Internet kids are doing now.

What we are seeing now, manifesting in the Internet is the evolution of this idea of the self. If or when you watch the documentary, you will see how the public had to be given this idea of the self. And then, they had to be taught that only by buying things, they could define who they were in relation to other people. The Century of the Self tells us that prior to this, humans only ever consumed what they needed. Am I guilty for owning 30 pairs of shoes. Yes. I am.

The Internet has evolved to meet this idea of the self and push it further than we could imagine. People celebrate themselves for no other reason than they are themselves. This doesn’t make sense to me. While one should certainly be happy with one’s self (I am happy with myself sometimes two, three times a day), I still don’t understand people’s need to blab so much. To literally cut themselves open and let it all pour out. I don’t like having your smelly, emo guts all over me, thank you very much. Perhaps because the Internet is so much more anonymous and there are less consequences than there are in real life, people are happier to air their dirty laundry without fear of recourse or someone looking at them funny with that slight sneer as if there’s a strange smell afoot.

Think of facebook status updates. I have seen more post-break-up wars of words than I care to count. And no one realises just how silly and childish they are. The same goes with overly emo status updates. No one cares that you’re upset, that you’re over it, that you quit or that you give up. Mentioning your dear Pep-pep that just died means nothing. Does your emotion only become validated when it is seen in a public forum? If there was no Internet would you have to run around in the streets with a sign around your neck (complete with an unhappy face, just to let people know for sure that you’re upset)? Or (and this is something that irritates me more than people trying to justify to me why Twilight has any merit whatsoever) are people just doing the old emotional fishing? This can take the form of fishing for compliments or fishing for sympathy. Either way it’s pretty lame. As soon as people fish for compliments or sympathy around me, I tend to ignore their pleas quick-smart.

I think it’s the assumption that your emotions, your insides, are worthy of public consumption that frightens me. I define myself (on the Intertubes and to a large extent in real life) by what I create, by what content I put forward. It doesn’t matter that I was the youngest person to reach the South Pole wearing only underpants and green nipple tassels, or that I entered the Winter Olympics for the antique pipe-smoking and typewriter abuse events and won gold at both (and had to get a really bad tattoo to let you all know that I was there). What matters is the content that I produce.

I define my value by what I can create. What I can bring into being from nothingness. My selfish hopes and dreams have nothing to do with any of you. You can ask me and if I feel like it, I might share some things with you, but I hope I will never overshare my personal life. It’s really not that interesting. And neither is yours. Even if you’re quirky and zany. And you know what? Even being kooky is not enough. What I’m interested in is your responses to things, big things, not the way your best friend’s ex-girlfriend totally likes you but you’re not sure if you should do her or not because bla bla bla bla, I’m sorry I couldn’t read any more of your self-serving blog because I was stabbing an oyster fork into my eyes.

I don’t even like oysters and I wear glasses. You can imagine the amount of effort needed to just undertake such an action.

Dear readers. There is a difference between blogging and writing. I am not a blogger. The democratisation of the Internet has been its biggest boon and its biggest bugbear. The idea that information and content can be created and shared by anyone is still one of the most exciting things I’ve ever come across. Just thinking about twitter makes my brain wet, when I consider what a thrilling, dynamic conversation it can be. It can also be a whole lot of emotional whining, or mind-vomit, don’t get me wrong. This democratisation has allowed anyone to start a blog, a place where they can share their talent with the world (if they have any). Or they can share pictures. If that’s their thing. I’m generally about as visual as Stevie Wonder. But please kids, stick to your talents. The piss-stained sepia look does not make your photos more arty, even if you’re pouting as best you can, sticking your neck out so that your double chin doesn’t show and standing with the biggest group of friends you can find, to prove how cool you are. Ditto black and white. Black and white photos should be left to the professionals. Or dogs.

You can become righteously indignant. Tell me I’m no better than you. That I’m a bastard for slapping the sunburn that is your personality. I’m just as boring as you are. I just recognise that I am. And anything I share in a public sphere I try to make interesting. Especially if it’s actually about me.

Yours (in parentheses),
Paul White

The modern era is all about differentiating factors. These can take many forms. Some of them may be physical (i.e. A skew eye, one leg shorter than the other, wearing your underpants outside your pants or a skin condition) some of them may be mental (i.e. Being incredibly stupid) and others still may have to do with your personality (i.e. Being an asshole, not being an asshole and the very subject of this piece: being funny). The thing is, we are all unique – just like everyone else and therefore people feel the neehd to “stand out” and “make a statement”. A great physical differentiating factor that I have is that I can click my knuckles, just by making a fist. I see it as “investing in my future”. Another differentiating factor I have is the ability to use the so-called, “inverted commas.” See, I just did it there.

But enough of this, “poppycock” and “lollygagging”, let us now open Door Number One and see what is behind it – “How to be funny in the modern era.”

There are many ways to be funny. For example: slapstick comedy. Slapstick comedy usually works well on the mentally ill and the young. It basically involves falling over and hurting yourself. Kind of like when your grandmother fell over, broke her hip and then whimpered about it until her leg went gangrenous and died and they had to amputate her face – except she wasn’t doing it to be funny, she was doing it because she had a weak character and terrible balance – ever since that incident with the blank CD and the roquefort. Should you want to make people laugh in a style of slapstick, HEADLINE payoff suggests that you fall over at random times, preferably when people are watching. With no laughs to assuage your pain, slapstick comedy can be a painful experience to say the least and a debilitating experience to say the most. Remember that you could be falling over into a campfire, or some spikes or even a vat full of acid, so always look before you attempt this manoeuvre. Other ways to engage in a bit of the old slapstick include: throwing pies at yourself (to do this, simply bake a boomerang into a pie), hitting people with things (like an octopus for example – slapstick to the max) or driving your car at 120km/h into a wall.

To segue into the next method, let me just say that slapstick comedy is basically a stick you use to slap someone in the face with – thereby gaining some laughs.

Yes, it’s time to pun my people. A pun is a play on words. Many people find puns to be funny (or is that punny?), I do myself – because I like words. Other than asshole, I have been called “Wordy William” before. Puns generally rely on a word having a double meaning. Permit me to demonstrate.

A young boy comes up to you with some paper wings stuck to his schoolbag. You tell him that, that just isn’t going to fly. He cries. You laugh. A pun.

A young boy comes up to you with some paper wings stuck to his schoolbag. You tell him that you have herpes. He gets confused. You cry. Not a pun.

Right, I hope that you’ve got that all cleared up. (To be punny at this point, consider making a joke linking “cleared up” to acne or linking “right” to write.)

Another way to be funny is the knock-knock joke. I am quite sure that the majority of you are au fait with such humour so instead, I will show you some knock-knock jokes that don’t work at all (one could argue also that jokes that aren’t funny are funny, but there are only so many people with such an intricate understanding of the spiky quagmire that is post modernism that will be able to appreciate such (anti?) humour.)

l  Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Your mother.

My mother who?

Your mother’s dead. She died of Tuberculosis of the foot.

l  Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Table.

Table who?

Table cloth that matches your serviettes.

l  Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Stephen.

Stephen who?

Gerald.

Now, let me carry on to a surefire yet simple method to be funny that I have come up with myself, after sucking up many minutes of humour into my lifehole, digesting it, assimilating it and forming my own opinions about it, after making minutes of all the humour I assimilated and emailing it to my email address I use for work related issues. This method will henceforth be known as my audaciously divine rule of 3. The method works thusly: list 3 things, make the first two very normal and make the final one something off the wall (no, not a painting, punballs). It is this contrast that makes the third thing mentioned so funny. It is this same principle that made you laugh so much when your little sister had an accident in church. On the priest.

So, without being any more prolix than I have to be (even though mentioning prolix, may itself be prolix – good Christhell I am off my tits on post modernism), let me get on to some examples of my audaciously divine rule of 3. NB: The third word often has a sexual connotation but it does not have to have one.

• Boiled eggs, lawnmowers and masturbating.
• Keyboards, microchips and Jesus’ beard.
• Running, stamp-collecting and frottage.
• Bench press, carpets and brain surgery.
• Blank CD’s, a fan with 3 variable speed settings and Michael Jackson.

Perhaps what makes this method so funny is that there is an inherent narrative between the three things mentioned. Imagine the story that revolves around boiled eggs, lawnmowers and masturbating. Definitely a story I would like to read. This method can be used in response to questions as well. Take a look under this antique armoire here and see what I’m talking about:

Q: So, what did you eat for breakfast today?

A: Eggs, bacon and a G-Strap I got from my dog’s bed.

Q: So what’s wrong with you, why weren’t you at work yesterday?

A: I had: emphysema, asthma and a large hotdog.

Right, well my squidsausages – if that’s not enough for you to be funny, you could always just send people our way – sometimes just knowing what’s funny can count as a sense of humour – and as far as we’re concerned – we’re pretty funny. If you’re still battling with the idea of differentiating factors in the modern era, I am sure I can rustle up a piece explaining that for you.

Enjoy the meat, potatoes and salad tossing,

Paul

However, this post isn’t about the past. This is about the future. So I spent some time considering the vile leaders of the past and present who will in some way become apart of the next generation’s lives:

Kroks

In an effort to relaunch the brand, Croc will aim their famous product at their largest market, the Afrikaaner. The Groot Krokodil range will be a best seller, ensuring every boer has the comfort of plastic beneath his feet.

I can like to be comfortable

Vodka Stalin

With communist-chic currently en vogue, one smart marketing executive will see the true meaning behind Stalin’s Purges:

Pass me the bucket, peasant.

Osama Bed Linen

That’s just his name isn’t it?

Rest in Peace!

My point to all this: Do some critical thinking before you just wear whatever others are, or whatever is considered in this season. You may just save yourself from being considered an ignorant douche-bag.

Figure 1: Future President Julius Malema

Everyone living in South Africa, and quite a few besides, has a strong opinion on this guy. My knee-jerk reaction is to pity and fear him for the overstuffed, rabid dog he could quite possibly be.  However, I have also heard Gareth Cliff claim that he went to see him speak, and he said that the guy actually came across as politically-savvy, forward thinking and well-informed.

Now, I usually take what The Cliff says with a pinch of salt.  However, he was formerly one of the Nation’s biggest Malema-bashers, so I am now prepared to hold my judgment until I have met the guy and heard him speak in person.

Again however, his character is not under my scrutiny.  I am referring to the article published by IOL on 02 November, 2009 in which it was alleged that Malema was pulled over for speeding, and then began to swing political dong to get out of it. He allegedly (and I’m being very careful to use that word a lot) yelled ‘Are you not aware that I am Julius, the president of the Youth League?‘ and then proceeded to call the MEC of transport to get him to come down and ‘discipline’ the unruly police officers who had pulled him over.

Since then a slew of articles have come out about it, in yet another Malema press frenzy.  He does something like this every week, guys, and every time, the same thing happens.  White people get angry, some black people get angry at the white people, and they all piss and moan on the comment threads for a few days. He doesn’t actually get into trouble.

We don’t like to admit it, but we know why.  Incredibly enough, I have yet to get to my point.  It’s not just that this kind of thing happens all the time in this country, and in the rest of Africa.  My point revolves around the reaction to, and acceptance of, this kind of ‘above-the-law’ behaviour.  For the rest of this article I’ll mostly drop the humour, and cite heavily from Dr George B. Aytitty’s article ‘The Concept of Wealth in Traditional Africa‘, and sources he mentions.

Most people can’t understand it when someone posts a comment like this on the IOL article mentioned above:

“There is nothing wrong with what Malema has done, he is a high ranking member of the ANC and the future president – he is therefore above the law (sic).”

This kind of thing frightens white people, and makes us want to move to New Zealand. We are tempted to dismiss the speaker as ignorant, stupid and brain-washed by ANC propaganda.  And we might be right.

But according to the good Dr. Aytitty, wealth in traditional Africa was a virtue – but only if it was earned with hot sweat.  In Western society this was more or less the case as well – both societies had some ideal of a meritocracy (being awesome is rewarded) in the foundation of their modern (post-feudal) structure. Though this is of course perverted in the West, most people still pretend it is true, and things function properly.  If someone abuses status or power, people get upset, and they get slapped on the wrist, just like a real meritocracy.

In Africa, it seems, this is not the way our ideal of a meritocracy got bent. According to CNN, merit leads to money, political power and status.  In South Africa of late, it seems to be that status confers merit.  Simply by being in a position of political power makes you worthy of that position in the public eye.  I am generalizing horribly, and I know that a lot of people in government fully deserve to be there, and have worked hard for their posts. For example, I wasn’t too bummed when Trevor Manuel bought himself some shiny new wheels – I figure he’s earned it by now.

Figure 2: Trevor’s New Beamer

All that aside, I’d like to ask how this happened to Africa.  As the good Doctor’s article says of traditional Africa: “Wealth in indigenous Africa had a physical presence… [but] Royalty was in name and not in fact, as the Igbo recognized achievement rather than hereditary-bestowed greatness (Olaniyan, 1985:24)”.  What this means was that wealth and power often happened together in African society, and the overt display of this wealth is highly valued, especially by those that do not possess it.  To really hammer the point:

“The pursuit of wealth was a cultural occupation! Prestige, status, honor and influence were all attached to wealth in indigenous systems. The wealthy were “important people” with influence in governmental affairs. It was no accident that political figures in traditional African societies were also wealthy.” (LeVine, 1962).

In short, a rich chief enriches the tribe. Having powerful, charismatic and influential leaders who are above reproach made a traditional society stronger, happier and more cohesive.  These values are not very different from the West, but the idea of the goodness inherent in a just distribution of wealth does not apply across the board in Africa – only to those who work for a living.

What this means (to me) is that African society might be more predisposed to accepting the transgressions of its leaders, because it sits well that they should have these privileges.  The people value their leader’s wealth.  For the Gikuyu (Please bear with me and forgive the inevitable cow example):

“Cows give the owner a prestige in the community…The owner of a large number of cattle was sentimentally satisfied by praise names conferred upon him by the community in their songs and dances” (Kenyatta, 1938:62)

Figure 3: Songs and Dances

During the run-up to the election, I spoke to two fervent ANC supporters, both of whom were low-income earners, and neither of whom finished high school.  Still, I considered these people to be level-headed, intelligent individuals.  When I asked why they were voting for Zuma, they both responded the same way.  They said they weren’t voting for Zuma, so much as they were voting for Mandela’s party.

What does this mean?  It means that the ANC is good at making voters out of people who don’t have the time or energy to find out better for themselves.  Both of these people worked hard to support families, and didn’t read political blogs in their spare time.  They got their news from friends or the SABC, and their political education from rallies and fliers, so it’s hard to blame them for not considering all the alternatives. If the ANC tells them to support Julius Malema, then that’s what they’ll do.  They might share Gareth Cliff’s opinion of him, or they might not, but their opinions didn’t factor into it.  What’s important is that Mandela’s party put him there, and so he must deserve to be there.  In the old days they used to call it the ‘Divine Right of Kings’, now in African Democracy flavour.

I’m not here to talk about what this means, or whether any of it is even remotely accurate.  I know I’m missing a link between traditional African conceptions of wealth, and the seemingly widespread acceptance of government corruption, arrogance and overspending as somehow ‘right’.  Because make no mistake: a moral weight has been attached.

Maybe someone can help me fill that in. I welcome your comments.

Your Host

Norman Conquest

References Cited:

Aytittey, George B. (2008) ‘The Concept of Wealth in Traditional Africa‘. published online at The Cheetah Index.

Kenyatta, Jomo. (1938) ‘Facing Mount Kenya‘. London: Secker and Warburg

LeVine, R.A. (1962) ‘Wealth and Power in Gusiiland‘ in Bohannan and Dalton, eds.

And some anonymous coward on IOL.

No I do not want to join your farmville. I hope you get mad cow disease.

Holy fuck.

Farmville invite, after Farmville invite, after Farmville invite.

You’d think they were queuing up to me like I was the war rations provisioner. And even if I was I’d say, “Get fucked and die you drain on our society’s gene pool.”

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I loathe Farmville.

Try stopping a mutant rat, then let's talk, faggot.

Farming is boring enough in real life. I do not need this on my Facebook. I do not need to know about Sonny the horse and how he died. I do not need to know about your sheep. I do not care if you are my neighbour, I would burn your farm down and eat your sheep. I don’t care!

What we need is a Mutant Rat Ville. Or a Man-Eating Alligator Ville. Or a Ninja Assissination Ville. OR we could combine all three, and you could drive your little ninja around fucking assisinating badass mutant rats (think Splinter from Mutant Turtles but evil and man eating: “I eat pussy …literally! rrraggghhh”) while avoiding getting chomped by a run-away alligator (just after he eats your fucking sheep.)

We don’t need this in our world

The crisis in the Middle East is being exacerbated by these mentally masturbating Farmvillers. While they should be out striking agreements and not invading countries for oil, they’d rather sit in their cubicles polishing the bishop and watching their sheep, while the world goes to shit.

Don’t even get me started on the economy. All I want to say is, “Take away Farmville, and that stupid vampire-werewolf whatever-it-is and we’ll be back to growth. Bankers are all wanking away your money into Farmville and Second Life spending frenzies while you’re being defrauded and once again our world is going to shit.”

Just stop it, ok?