No Make Up, No Awareness, No Hope For The Human Race

I posted this today after I'd woken up from very little sleep with a banging head 11 days into my IVs and was then confronted by hordes of ego boosting selfies on Facebook . None of them had any info on Cancer, or how to donate, or how to do anything apart from nominate a mate to show solidarity. I think something's been lost in the message and as my old friend Marshall McLuhan said 'The medium is the message'. Oh dear.

 

Anyways, it pissed me off so I wrote this and set it as a status:

 

 

I'm going to have another *long* rant about this whole no make up crusade by narcissistic bell warriors who insist on raising awareness of awareness by posting selfies without any kind of detailed medical information regarding cancer or links to donate money, you know, the two actual things that will make a difference to fighting The Big C along with giving up their time and volunteering for a can...cer charity too (I guess that's three things then). You want to know why it rags me off that social media trends like this pollute my timeline? It's because most people doing it do fuckall else the rest of the year but as soon as some trend hits Facebook and Twitter they're Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale all rolled up into one because 'lol' it gets them attention from their equally derpy friends too and they can give themselves an ego boosting pat on the back, thinking they're actually doing something without actually DOING something. You know, just like that time when they stopped Joseph Kony, stopped child abuse by changing their profile pictures and such like - all hail the power of the internet and Facebook likes! Charities have spoken out about how it is damaging to proactively helping and there's even a name for it now: slacktivism. I'll be honest too, most of you will willingly join an internet crusade but when it comes to anything to do with CF you give zero fucks. I constantly post links to information, fundraising opportunities and stories about how the CF Trust receives very little at all and you all stay silent. Your silence damns you. You're all quite happy for me to entertain you and to laugh at my offensive outlook on life but when I post anything serious about CF - there's nothing, no response, no crusading, zilch. Now, I know that I'm a massively opinionated knobhead and not the easiest person to understand in most people's eyes but of course, what will happen is you'll wait until I'm critical and desperately in need of new lungs to live, or worst case scenario you'll wait until I die and THEN you'll all become charitable crusaders on my behalf, tribute nights, fundraising, organ donation sign ups, swathes of comments on my Facebook wall about how much I meant to you and how much you miss me - all in honour of your good friend Andy. I mean after all, you're all constantly entertained by my give no fucks attitude to life and straight talking demeanour you lap that shit up but, oh look, when I discuss the very real possibility of my death being that now I'm at end stage you're all passive and apathetic to helping the cause which has kept me alive this long which does absolutely fantastic work with very little trendy media campaigns, celebrity support and Facebook/Twitter bandwagons. It just doesn't sit well with me, case in point that it's usually only people with CF or their families who donate on the links that I do share and that's just wrong in my eyes. You all know mine and my friends situation and you should all be doing more if you genuinely care about me. Any of you could have a child with CF at any time, or you could be a carrier of the CF gene so CF could very likely affect any of you or someone you love at any time but of course THEN you'll care won't you? As I said this is aimed at those of you who do NOTHING most of the time, my own father and aunt are both currently undergoing treatment for cancer so before anyone accuses me of being insensitive to the disease I'd like to circumvent that with a big fat fuck you. I just haven't felt the need to bleat on about it via Facebook ok? If you're offended by the truths in this status then, well, I'm not bothered to be quite honest as everything I've said IS true and I've been wanting to say this for some time indeed. To those of you who have survived cancer or who do actually fundraise at other times and not just when the internet deems it cool to do so then well done. Peace out.

Redux

Well, it's been an age since I posted anything on here. 16 months in fact. November 2012 was my last post and in all honesty there's no real reason as to why I haven't kept up with blogging. I guess I just got bored of it.

I see a lot of blogs, bloggers and blogging in general via Twitter and most of it just leaves me feeling a bit 'meh' really. I find it really hard to be stimulated by the blogs which are just a poor excuse for the writer not having kept a diary when they were a teenager. The same goes for fashion blogs = yawn, celebrity blogs = yawn and so on.

Some of this boredom undoubtedly stems from the fact that a lot of the time I feel disconnected from society and the culture that the masses promote via the collective consciousness. I just don't find the stereotypical things that interesting which most people do and which most people fill their lives with on a daily basis.

New shoes? Nobody gives a fuck about the essay you wrote about them. Went out and got laid? Nobody gives a fuck about 10 paragraphs about that either. Writing about your favourite celebrities and how much you bum them? Go ahead, end yourself and save us all the inanity of reading your bile praising the talentless turds you worship because you have no ability to construct a meaningful identity of your own.

Don't get me wrong, there are some actual decent blogs out there in some dusty areas of the t'internet, and some great writers too. The next time I come across some I'll drop their links off for anyone interested in reading something different for once.

This isn't me proclaiming that my blog is some revolutionary new discourse that you all must read and praise either. Truth be told, I'm not bothered if anyone reads what I write, I'm not doing it for any other reason other than when I can be arsed, sometimes I like to write.

I do think I should at least 'try' to make more of an effort though. As I've said before if my blog can help one young person who is growing up with Cystic Fibrosis to realise that you can live a good and fulfilling life with the condition then I suppose that's a good enough reason as any to write.

I think I'll also focus on my personal interests a lot more too and explore some of the things that I like to do and fill my time with as I'm not just an opinionated culture bashing tosser all of the time for the most part.

So beware, I'm back bitches!

A.