www.digitaltrends.comThe Internet – where it’s considered acceptable to loudly trumpet your achievements to an audience of strangers, proudly display your night’s out arseholery to an uninterested public via Instagram, and secretly ogle the holiday photos of old school friends.
Real life – where it’s not acceptable to do any of those things and would be sort of weird and illegal if you actually did.
Please, do not do any of these things in the real world…
Go On Impromptu Political Rants
APIn the age of social media it seems that everyone in your friend list, from the pot-smoking leftie Green Party member to the immigrant-hating closet Ukipper, feels the need to get on their soapbox and grandstand their political beliefs at the drop of a hat.
Actually, they don’t even need a hat, all they need is some faux outrage.
If any of the future EDL members in my friend list were to go on the kind of anti-Muslim rants in real life that they regularly spout on Facebook, they’d either be brought up on inciting hatred or join Donald Trump’s campaign team.
Poking Strangers
NBCPoking people on Facebook is weird enough to be honest, it’s sort of like a hyperactive child demanding attention from a parent trying to have a moment’s peace, except carried out by two adults, one of whom is too scared to just come out and say “I fancy you”.
Randomly poking strangers in real life is the sort of thing which would probably get you arrested, or more likely in the YouTube age, be mistaken for some kind of misguided social experiment designed to expose gender roles or something.
Following People
www.complex.comIt’s happened to all of us on Twitter – we come across a couple of funny tweets and think “That person’s hilarious, I’ll now follow them”.
In the world of social media, this is perfectly normal behaviour and will offer you an insight into vital information like what a person had for breakfast or how far they’re into Making A Murderer, but if you were to just randomly catch a snippet of someone’s amusing conversation on the street and proceeded to follow them, then you’d quickly be arrested for stalking.
Get Into Arguments With Strangers
www.nicholasmirzoeff.comAlthough jumping into the middle of arguments, calling people dickheads and generally behaving like a petulant child might be acceptable in YouTube comments – in fact it’s practically encouraged – if you were to try do that online you’d quickly end up the star of one of those clips of gritty, grey-washed CCTV footage in which a fat bald man in an England shirt punches a good Samaritan for having the audacity to try and stop him drunkenly slapping his girlfriend.
Tell Everyone Your Relationship Status
www.lovebucketblog.comIf we all walked around loudly declaring our relationship status in real life, like we do online, then it’d soon transform our entire world into a kind of Dystopian speed dating night in which everyone is required to pin a brightly coloured sign, emblazoned with either ‘Single’, ‘In A Relationship’ or ‘It’s Complicated’, to their chests.
Single people would be looked down upon and be required to shuffle about nervously, pint in hand, talking to complete strangers merely because they’re also wearing the sign that says ‘Single’ and, if you don’t shack up with someone quick, then you can’t self-servingly post gag-inducing status updates about how much you love your bae like everyone else in a relationship on Facebook does.
