My hangup, my issue, my bug-bear, my thorn in the backside is this; why does nobody make an effort to be appropriate any more? Why does everybody seem utterly incapable of studying a situation, assessing it, and then deciding: Ok, on this occasion I should behave/dress/speak like this?
Maybe the problem is the self-indulgent, narcissistic, self-absorbed ethos that society seems to be promulgating at the moment - the "Love me for who I am, Because I'm Brilliant!" mantra. While there was nothing essentially wrong with the original reasoning behind this mentality, devised to prevent bullying and suicides essentially, it has now been adapted and mutated to an unhealthy degree, both sociologically and physically.
"Why should I lose weight, I'm fat and proud!" bellow obese young women on chat shows, to hysterical cheering from the (equally porky) audience. Er...because your lifestyle is eventually going to kill you?
"Snobby boss made me take out my piercings!!" bawls the headline, above a picture of what looks like a deeply wronged robot in eyeliner. Of course she did; that wasn't the image she wanted to promote for her health-food shop. And who can blame her?
"I will never let society constrain me!" declares the man who insists on walking everywhere naked. "Fine," reply the weary constabulary, "We really don't care. Just please, for the love of god, stop walking around in places where there are children?"
Last week a card circulated at work for everyone to sign, for a man who was retiring abroad. By the time it reached our department, in the corner was scrawled in purple ink "Enjoy the sun you c**t." I'm not a prude, but really, in what universe is that an appropriate thing to write in someone's leaving card???
Maybe, though, it has more to do with parenting, or lack of. Maybe the problem is Mum and Dad's refusal to do anything that would yank little Josh and Tia screaming out of their comfort zone. The result being that they only ever associate with people who are exactly like them, and have therefore no concept of adapting to different situations or audiences.
Today's rant was actually inspired by the Daily Mail - again - and their insistence on printing social media reactions to tragedies. This in itself is irritation enough, but I've started to notice that each quote is repeatedly punctuated by the word (sic), as though each contributor was suffering from a particularly nasty bout of norovirus.
"Darlin (sic) i cant (sic) believe this has happened to you you was such a brite (sic) star an always there 4 me when i was down miss you 4ever babe."
"I never though I would loose (sic) u this way the people who did this have taken the hapiness (sic) from my life rip."
For goodness sake. You are writing about a tragic, solemn event and you can't even be bothered to use spell check? What, did you quickly type this between downloading an album and writing LOL on a friend's facebook status? It's no wonder our young people are having trouble finding jobs, if, as I suspect, they write their CVs and cover letters this way.
Please, you noisily vocal martyrs, just listen to me; society is not trammeling you, people are not infringing your civil liberties or denying your right to freedom of expression. They are simply questioning your utterly mental decision to behave in a completely inappropriate way in a certain situation.
I am all for originality, freedom of expression and individuality. But the key word here is context. You don't wear a boob tube to the office or red shoes to a funeral, you don't swear at your grandmother or take your toddler to a nightclub, and if you are writing what is effectively a eulogy for someone close to you then please, please use a dictionary.
What you see as buckling under is actually consideration for other people; something which is vanishing faster than birthday cake in a office. Speaking of which, must dash!
No comments:
Post a Comment