The Secret Diary of a Blogger #003
Tuesday 18th
I did it. I went back to Twitter. I only had a months worth of a sabbatical. Sort of checked my mentions a couple of times and blind tweeted. I'm back swimming in the swamp, reading my time-line and slapping my face as the decrepit familiarity starts to fester into my every day thinking.
"Why?"
It's reminiscent to how stand-up comedians work on an hours worth of comedy, touring and taking risks as they change delivery and content until it's perfect. Then they release a special on say Netflix and promote it. Once it's been streamed, they start working on new content. Building up slowly by doing 10-15 minute slots until they've got enough material to start touring again and wallop...another hour or so of a new special is birthed. You'll find some comedians are prolific and produce two hours of new comedy per year, sometimes more. But one hour is the norm. It isn't an easy task to undertake. You have to be fresh and original. You need to know what to focus on to pull the funny out of it. So the onus is on you to find those humorous hot-takes.
Twitter is not stand up comedy, not for the great unwashed that dust the dirt off their back into the eyes of those around them, triggering sounds of annoyance. See, in a comedy club you've got a comedian up on the stage and an audience watching. On Twitter, everyone is a comedian and everyone is the audience. The heckling loud mouthed audience. There's bombing pretty much all of the time, jokes dropping heavier than a Micheal Dawson tackle. Everyone shouts over everyone, selective with what they choose to listen to. There's plagiarism and steady drip drip drips of style theft all over the place. Now occasionally, gold is struck and the retweets go into the thousands. But for the most part it's the same joke repeated over and over again. I pretty much react to it over and over again.
The joke is, for the most part, confirmation bias. It's usually a single person that makes a statement (say 'I hate X Spurs player' or 'can't believe everyone has signed a player but we haven't') knowing that their audience will respond to it with complete straight laced exchanges because it allows all involved to circle-jerk and slag off anyone that has a differing opinion. It's simply done for attention. It's faux passive aggressive bullying. It's quintessentially the no-combat indirect. It's when you want to gang up on an ideology you don't share and make it about the hatred you have for those people on the other side of the fence.
The indirects can also be direct. Very direct. There's this agreeable equilibrium that both sides embrace as a call to arms. See, it's okay to criticise the other side because you believe you're honourable with your perspective. So abusing them rallies the troops and everyone feels validated as they laugh/slate the opposing lot. Of course, there are two extremes, the overly critical and the ones that never criticise (never). Neither are healthy for the soul. You'll understand this if you're in-amongst it. There's a dissertation waiting to be written on the psychology in play.
Yes, referring to all this (again) means I'm part of the repetition (again). It's also in part an indirect too, but I'm at the point now where I firmly believe they (the ones that simply want to be constantly, relentlessly critical because it's the loudest currency on social media) have jumped the shark. I took a month off. I've done this many times in the past. Every time I come back it's literally akin to blinking - I've missed nothing. The same avatars posting the exact same teasing rhetoric. The pattern is undeniable. At least some agree with me and display their contempt with style. @BardiTFC and this thread here pretty much sums up the ideology that is begging for love rather than disdain. Those that don't, persist with the same whistled tune.
Whilst our fanbase bemoans lack of transfer activity and ambition, we've done pretty much everything right on the pitch in the past 2/3 seasons. We've gone against expectancy and it's been outstanding. It's been bloody beautiful. I can remember moments during the last campaign when everyone across the fanbase was positively beaming with pride and identity. Alas, like a good pill, the come down seems to be the majority preference and the high is soon forgotten like it was meaningless. Although, caveat klaxon, I did hope we would do business quickly during the pre-season. But I guess unlike other clubs, we don't need to bring in first team 'superstars' when we already have a strong eleven full of them. So perhaps we're treading carefully knowing we have to be on point (and not desperate) with our acquisitions. I feel like I'm rationalising here. I don't want to appear accepting of the non-activity but I'm hardly about to cut myself over it.
"Why u mad Twitter?"
There's a difference between self-deprecation and self-loathing. Even after our progression and our ambition (proven by the attitude and perseverance of this team under Pochettino), I find it staggering that so many of us still struggle with it. Once again, social media (any given platform) is a tool of deflection for the user rather than it being truly about the content they're sharing.
Everyone is free to have their own opinion. It would ultimately be a bore if we all agreed. Hell, I need the idiocy to be able to compare something to my logic and pragmatism, if anything, to test if they do in some twisted way have a point that's valid and worth debating. Echo chambers are non-productive and serve only the insecure. The hive that dominates on Twitter is built by those that refuse to listen to anything other than their own voice. Of course, let's not pretend that a fair chunk of it isn't solely designed for reaction and a platform to direct abuse onto others. The ironic kick to the balls is that everyone - pretty much everyone - is on a wind up. After-all, Twitter is just a gloried game of abusive text messages.
It's still pre-season and I can already smell the stench of in-fighting. Rejoice. It's going to be a long old season. I might just focus on the football this time. In regards to new signings, we could do with bolstering the sides dynamic. We've lost Walker, we need an injection of pace. 'We need more than the slow walking steps Levy and Poch are displaying at the moment'.
AMIRITE?
Hello?
Hello?
Is this thing on?
