I
Social media is eating my soul. I’ve decided to take a break. Well rather I’ve decided to disappear and see if anyone notices… thus far it seems no one has. Oh well.

II
I have an unfortunate tendency towards attaching myself to anyone who is nice and takes an interest in anything I do. I’m lonely, I confess. And it can be gratifying (and ego-building) when someone provides you with that much attention. But it also smacks of settling and desperation. There is a profound difference between finding comfort in whatever shows up and actively seeking out that which you desire. I just need a little more faith that I can achieve the latter.

III
I’ve been reading this great book lately by Les Edgerton, Finding Your Voice: How To Put Personality In Your Writing. It is refreshingly frank and I’ll probably write more about it on another site shortly. He writes about the importance of finding your voice rather than giving into the temptation to emulate other (more celebrated) authors. He talks about the inferiorty complex many unpublished authors have and the God-like status attributed to literary heroes by teachers and other authority figures. He writes about experts and rules; and this is the part that has captured my imagination. He suggests you try doing this or that – unless it isn’t you, then do your own thing. He tells you to “be yourself.” Though the thing people are always reluctant to admit is that nobody can tell you how to be yourself. Some things will work for you and some just won’t. As in all areas of life it all comes down to experimentation. Our ‘expert culture‘ has failed us again.

IV
I’ve never understood musical artists who play songs exactly as they sound on their albums. In my opinion a song is but a melody and a lyric. It can exist in infinite variations. Perhaps the best example of this notion is to take a look at jazz standards. Consider how differently the same song may be performed by an array of different artists. How differently Ella Fitzgerald’s Imagination is to Chet Baker’s. Or how little Dinah Washington’s Trouble In Mind resembles Nina Simone’s version. People criticise Madonna’s live performances, claiming that they barely recognise her classic pop tunes after they’ve been so wildly remixed and reinterpreted. But to me these new variations breathe new life into songs that have been bouncing around inside people’s heads for 20 years. That’s the power of the collaborative web too. People are going to see things in your work that you never saw, they’re going to superimpose and remix and juxtapose. There is a real art to this. Yet it is an art few people really understand just yet.

V
I’m updating my resume. And by “updating” I mean starting from scratch. I’ve never liked the formal nature of the resume and I’ve never really entertained it either. I want something that tells you something about me in a way that is refreshing and unique. If I send you this document I don’t want you to put it in the pile. I want you to take one look at it and go, “This is the guy!” Actually I don’t particularly care if I am “the guy” I just want to be memorable. I trust that you’ll know what you want in an applicant and be able to make that determination yourself. But I trust this document will showcase my talents and my genius.

Online book and music retailer Amazon has come under fire when it was revealed that its Gay and Lesbian themed titles had been reclassified as ‘adult’ content and thus deranked from its search results.

Titles like Giovanni’s Room, Brokeback Mountain, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Rubyfruit Jungle literally just disappeared from search results.

The Huffington Post’s Emma Ruby-Sachs notes:

None of these books have obscene or explicit content. In fact, many of these are the first books I read as a young adult that depicted characters with whom I could identify. Many of them are highly regarded pieces of fiction and some, like Giovanni’s Room have a long history of grappling with censorship.

Though in some ways the Amazon search’s inclusions seemed more ominous than its exclusions. Suddenly the top ranking result for “homosexuality” is a charming book titled, Parents Guide To Preventing Homosexuality. That offering was closely followed by similar themed tomes about the evils of homosexuality and the religious justification for homophobia. Whether Amazon’s intention or not, whether by policy or ‘glitch’, a clear homophobic narrative was revealed. Indeed one which people weren’t going to take to kindly.

A twitter hashtag #amazonfail was quickly established and twitter users expressed their disdain for this corporate behaviour. Discussions of boycotts and petitions emerged and the hashtag quickly became a top trending topic on Twitter.

There is a lot of conjecture about exactly what this means. Whether it was a change of policy for the organisation or a genuine technical glitch, and certainly it is easy to ascertain the position of anyone spouting the #glitchmyass hashtag. At any rate Amazon, Twitter users and the media have been made aware of the reaction and I imagine drastic changes are imminent. Good will takes time to build up but can evaporate within a weekend; Amazon will have to work hard to make inroads with disgruntled customers, many of whom are now former customers.

The whole thing reminds me of another homosexual-related technological mishap. Some of you might remember seeing this gem from MySpace personality Tom:

MySpace's Tom Doesn't Hate Homosexuals, Honest!

oh and some people have asked about the missing orientation option for “gay” on edit profile. that’s a bug that should be fixed later tonight… no, myspace does not hate gay people.. duh.

Though many won’t be as easily convinced that the same is true of Amazon.

It seems I’ve joined the lofty heights of fellow twitterati Malcolm Turnbull and Rick Astley.

@johnlacey: Number Of The Beast

I presume this will require some sort of sacrifice.

This seems so conceited, but if you can’t do it on a personal blog… where can you do it?!

Twitter Love
I’ve been devoting a lot of time to twitter. I adore Twitter. In this past week I’ve been communicating with people all over the world, and a lot of people much closer to home that I never thought I’d get an audience with. Like Sydney based rapper Snobscrilla and Triple J Music guru Richard Kingsmill. (Yes, Kingsmill replied to me on twitter. Twice. I can die happy now.)

Some of my quips (especially about Kevin Rudd and the much referenced ‘clean feed’) were circulated and retweeted sometimes up to seven hours after I first made them. My observation about the Adtech Sydney Conference, a conference I wasn’t even in attendance of, introduced me to a whole bunch of new people.

I even had the dubious honour of finding myself on Joshua Winther’s “Who To Follow On Twitter” guide.

Better The Social Media Expert You Know…
I keep getting blamed for inspiring posts on Laurel Papworth’s blog.

What? You mean you don’t know Australia’s leading Social Media Expert? Where have you been?!

Exhibit A: Stephen Fry and Traditional Media
Exhibit B: Twitter Bots Gone Bad

I thought there was an Exhibit C, but I can’t find it right now. Where are the CSI people when you need them?

Author? Journalist? What exactly do you do anyway?!
That’s the million dollar question. Actually people keep referring to me as an author which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, though I am going to refran from using that term myself until such time as I publish a book. (Not that my humble ebook of poetry isn’t wonderful and stuff.) Laurel even included me in a list of Australian Journalists on Twitter. (I couldn’t understand why journalists just started following me en masse and then I checked my feed reader.)

BlogTV… You Know You Wanna!
After a lot of resistance, I have jumped on the BlogTV Bandwagon. You can follow me if you’re into that kinda thing. Either as John Lacey or JohnOfJordan. (I am anticipating having video creation related ‘sessions’ on the JOJ account, so if that’s your frame of reference make sure you add that one.) And here is me, being, as Snarkdetriomphe once put it, “Musical… to a point.”

A collection of backwards things inspired by LilyLauren’s tweet obsession.

Before They Were Touched Up!
Celebrities Before and After Photoshop
Via @alicam

We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat! Nobody Puts Sharky In The Corner
Via @NathanaelB

Various Tweets to a theme from @LilyLauren

• If you watch Friends backwards, Courtney Cox seems to get older somehow. I think it’s the hair.
  


• If you watch Neverending Story backwards it’s still only an hour and a half long.


• If you watch American History X backwards, you see Ed Norton turn from a successful productive member of society into a crazy streetperson.


• If you watch “Raiders of the Lost Ark” backwards, it’s about a professor who obtains a magical box from the government that creates Nazis.


• Watch Gremlins backwards & you learn that all you have to do is feed a monster after midnight and it’ll turn into acute, cuddly fur ball.


• If you watch clockwork orange backward, it’s a story of a boy getting owned all around, and then revenge.


• Supersize me backwards is about a guy who vomits hamburgers until he loses 20 kg and regains his health.


• My day backwards would be about a cat who throws up &meows until I open a can of tuna. Actually, it’s the same way forwards & backwards.


• Watch monty python backwards There’s a wonderful scene where Arthur puts a man’s arms & legs right back onto his body using only his sword!


• If you watch “Night of the Living Dead” backwards it’s about a whole race of zombies fighting not to become human.


• If you watch dave hughes backwards you seeing him gradually getting funnier and gaining followers


• If you watch Desperate housewives backward you’d realize they’re still so desperate.


• If you watch lord of the rings backwards this short guy gets a cool ring from a volcano and spends the rest of the three films walking home.


• If you watch Sound of Music backwards its about a woman who gets so tired of listening to children sing that she runs away to become a nun.


• If you watch The Karate Kid backwards it’s about this karate champ that just kinda slowly becomes a pussy and ends up moving back to Jersey.


• If you watch Jeopardy! backwards, it’s a show about rich people paying money for answers to stupid questions.


• Godzilla backwards yields the greatest fire & rescue character of all time.


• If you watch Rocky backwards, it’s a movie about a guy who gets beaten up so severely that he’s forced to marry the ugliest girl in town.


• ma I sa derob sa er’uoy ,sdrawkcab siht daer uoy fi


• If you watch Pimp My Ride backwards, Xzibit will take a car out of a car.


• If you watch Heroes backwards you realise that it’s been getting progressively better over time.


• If you watch benjamin button backwards, its Forest Gump.


• If you listen to Rick Astley backwards, he will: * Run around and desert you * Let you down * Give you up


• If you watch the credit crisis backwards, you’ll notice that the banks eventually tell people they need good credit to mortgage a home.


• If you watch Rocky backwards, it’s a movie about a guy who gets beaten up so severely that he’s forced to marry the ugliest girl in town.


• If you play country music backwards, the singer gets his truck, wife, and dog back and gives up drinking.


• If you watch Fight Club backwards, you see Ed Norton turn from a crazy streetperson into a successful productive member of society.


• If you watch porn backwards Its about a husband vacuuming semen off his wife’s face before putting on his plumbing jumpsuit & going to work.


• If you watch The Exorcist backwards it’s about a girl who’s very sick until she eats some pea soup and finally gets better


• If you watch the movie `Jaws’ backwards, it’s a movie about a shark that keeps throwing up people until they have to open a beach. [See video above]

And finally some comments pertaining to the Twitter Backwardness.

From @snarkosaurus:

If you read @Lilylauren’s tweets backwards, it’s a descent into madness.

From @richokinetic:

@Lilylauren if you watch synchronized swimming backwards it’s still not a sport

Isn’t Twitter such a happy time-waster? Follow me.

I quite like Twitter. I tweet relentlessly. (9,079 updates at the time of writing.) When I was gone recently for a whole two days, it felt like eons of time away from my beloved Twitterverse.

Therefore I have to wonder why I continue to perpetuate Twitter conspiracy theories upon this world.

You might remember when Australia Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) joined Twitter.

At the time I found it amusing that he had 666 followers.

Turns out that Rick Astley is never going to give Twitter up either.

His account (@RealRickAstley) is following… wait for it… how many?

What does it all mean?!

Leave a comment and let me know. Or, hell, follow me on twitter (if you’re into that kind of thing.)

Well the techno-savvy son of God would get himself a Twitter account, of course!

At first I assumed this was a spam account, but it would appear there is someone updating it and not providing malicious links.

It is worth noting, though, at the time of posting JesusSaveth has only 12 Followers. Apostles, perhaps?

On Wednesday morning I woke up at 5:30am after having some strange (but inoffensive) dreams. I woke up to a twitter message that bothered me incredibly. Actually before I tell you about what I came across let’s pause momentarily and dwell on something I had read the week before…

Laurel Papworth wrote a fascinating article on social storytelling via Twitter. Amongst her musings on twitter as a device for storytelling was this little gem:

Erlene was involved in a car crash moments after tweeting this, and passed away at the scene. One of her friends drove past and saw erlene’s car. I find her last words oddly moving: at 3:06pm on May 24th “cats do not like elephant hats on their heads”.

I’ve known people who have been a lively part of the quote-unquote “YouTube Community” who have died; most notably Roger aka TheBoringDispatcher aka TheFailedVlogger. Call me naive if you must, but I generally take things at face value.

So with my previous experiences and reading material in mind, I woke up to this little gem from the twitter account @RandomProdInc:

The RandomProdInc Channel on YouTube is run by three people – Tom, Sam and (if we are to believe what we are told) the ill-fated Dan.

In the midst of my horror and concern, I wrote a blog post reproducing the image above. I figured nobody reads my blog anyway and since this was important and newsworthy, I would make a short (30 second) video so that those on YouTube could be informed.

Now apparently British humour is much more cutting edge than Australian humour. Apparently telling people your friend has been hit by a vehicle of some description and has died is the height of hilarity. It really is the cutting edge comedic device of the moment, apparently. (Did I use the word apparently in this paragraph enough?)

So in this time I’ve worked up a lot of people – including myself – into a real frenzy. One of my subscribers decides that the 30 second video is opportunistic and designed only to promote my blog. An ‘exchange’ takes place*. In this time I’ve tried every avenue of contacting the RPI camp to see if they can either confirm or deny the original twitter remark.

I privatised the video and the blog post (although the blog post still appeared in the RSS feed for some people). I turned off my laptop and I refused to turn it on until today; three days later.

Anyway I am happy to confirm that Dan is not dead. A message I received from RandomProdInc on YouTube reads:

Aaaaaaahhh

Sorryy

No

A group of us are faking out some drama thing thats following us. I was messaging most people who replied to me last night on twitter explaining, but i kinda started editing that proper epic movie thing and forgot

“Some drama thing thats following us.” The mind boggles. But I have had more than my fair share of drama this week. Dear Readers, if you are thinking about faking your friends’ death on Twitter – please don’t. No, really. My fragile mental state can’t deal with it. Okay? Thanks.

* I would like to talk more about this ‘exchange’ and YouTube in general, however this will have to wait for another blog post.