Friday, October 12, 2007

This is serious, mum.*

I hold in my hands [while I type, aren’t I clever?] my most recent reason for never ever voting for John Howard. I’m afraid [all politicians take note here] that there’s just no way that I could possibly vote for anyone who attaches their name, let alone their signature, to a document entitled Net Alert: Protecting Australian Families Online. It was all I could do to peel off the plastic [honestly, why is no-one interested in saving the old growth plastics these days?] and peer at the waste of tree inside.

Since my tax dollars and the trees that my unlikely-to-exist-children will now not see went into this I thought I’d better give it the time of night and attempt to read it. After all, the one about drugs proved quite useful [I do love a good catalogue but for the life of me I couldn’t find a listing for my nearest stockist. Fortunately, I have Guitar Boy downstairs.] and I thought this might be equally enlightening.

I’m quite fond of finding the silver lining to things [which, I suppose, means that I rather like a challenge so long as I don’t have to get off the couch to participate] but I’m not sure that one exists for this, er, document. Sure, it uses all the right words but it makes out that there are internet activities that are inappropriate. For those of you who have yet to receive your copy or who have cruelly thrown it in the [recycling] bin without first liberating it from its plastic coffin [where was I? oh yes] I have a point in mind with which to illustrate.

My thing [a phrase I’m inordinately fond of], my point thing even, is this – there is, allegedly, this thing called ‘cyber stalking’. Apparently, if you put yourself out there on the internet [there’s this thing called the internet too, did I mention it?] there is a chance that you’ll attract these people called ‘cyber stalkers’. This is when somebody follows somebody else around on the ‘net [I’m a-gettin’ the hang of this now] and, well, annoys them lots. As a habitué of all manner of internet type things I cry bollocks in the general direction of this idea.

I mean really, it’s not that I’m a victim blamer or anything but you get these young things out there in their tight little blogs and with their skimpy little facebooks and of course they’re going to attract some attention. Sure, some of it will be a little more than they can handle but, well, they’re doing the tight and skimpies and they have to grow up sometime. What’s more, they go out looking for the attention, begging for it by commenting randomly and poking people for fun. Fun! These youngsters! Wouldn’t know a good poke if it bit them.

So, the point is, stalking my arse - this is the public domain and you are whoring yourselves delightfully – please don’t stop because the government tells you too. I like it. I like it a lot. How about we meet up? Or you could come over and sit on my lap…or something…

*1. I know, I know, this needs some work. It's late, give a girl a break. 2. Humblest apologies to TISM. It seemed appropriate.

6 comments:

Martin Kingsley said...

What burns my balls about that campaign (y'know, besides the blatant fear-mongering) is the bus shelter ads. They're literally just one frame from one of the TV advertisements, duplicated twice so that they sit one above the other in order to fill up the vertical rectangle of the bus shelter poster holder.

Some bastard at an advertising consultancy got paid an awful lot in order to just tile a graphic, because they couldn't be bothered to do a specific poster.

TISM do a good live show, I have their DVD from the Hi-Fi Bar a few years back.

TimT said...

Yeah, it's a load of crap. They generally advertise those in tram shelters around Melbourne - on the other side being advertisements encouraging people to 'make the switch to wireless'. Not that stalkers would be interested in that...

Dan said...

I'm not from your part of the known universe. I do tend to stalk people on a daily basis on the internet though. And just to add to the uncomfortable nature of my stalking, I do so wearing only underpants, as I am doing now.

Shelley said...

mhe, I'm okay with underpants. Is everyne else okay with underpants?

Tim, one never knows what stalkers are interested in until one asks them.

Martin, take some deep calming breaths. Now take some more.
I'm guessing TISM would be more than a little manic live.

Martin Kingsley said...

I need some finger-chimes and a yoga mat.

And you would guess correctly! Now guess how you are going to get out of this Scrabulous match with your sanity intact.

Shelley said...

I'm not. I'm totally fucked.

I think I may need a little padded cell after this.