It's Monday again, I hope you all had a great weekend.
This weekend was a fun and productive one. My bedroom mirror is up (thanks to Matthew), my canvas picture is up (thanks again to Matthew), we bought lots of shopping, ate loads of ice cream and we both enjoyed a trip to Waddesdon Manor in my car, Kiki. Thankfully I didn't crash into anything or mow anyone down! As Borat would say "SUCCESS!"
While my weekend was a success, I couldn't help noticing something on my Facebook that is becoming increasingly present and increasingly annoying especially with the UK Election looming, and that is the frequency of fake news and clickbait. I fully appreciate everyone has an opinion; social media and indeed elections themselves are the embodiment of that right of freedom of speech and opinion. However what I object to is having these opinions (especially one-sided opinions) shoved so vehemently in my face. Yes, ok I could scroll past but the thing is, when I do that I'm hit with another barrage of propaganda! It's never ending and it's about now, with the general election around the corner, that it's reaching an unbearable climax. I can sympathise with those who may be faced with this situation and end up going mad not knowing who to vote for. I am indeed one of these people. I'm still undecided and the amount of political posts I've seen shared over the past few weeks has just made the choice even more difficult by muddying already murky waters.
As I have said before, I don't want to get too bogged down with politics myself; who to vote for and why, but I want us all to take a step back for a second. Have we learned nothing from Brexit? Social media was a minefield pre-referendum and was a complete war zone post-referendum! Instead of everyone's views being respected as their own, people were being bashed for voting the "wrong" way! As if attitudes were not fuel enough for the hatred, the media added to it. Adam Hills hit the nail right on the head when he spoke about the imbalance between TV and the press; the press can seemingly print whatever they like- fabricating headlines to scare millions simultaneously, while TV channels must adhere to stricter impartiality regulations. The whole issue of impartiality is another one that is brought to light by social media. By nature we are more likely to befriend those- or at least be Facebook friends with those- who share our view and thus we are more likely to see just one side of a very complex story. Not exactly helpful come election time.
This election is fast turning into a scaremongering personality war with most concerned with politicians personal lives than looking through to the bigger picture of the actual policies themselves. How can anyone go to vote independently and express their own views in confidence when they're constantly being force-fed the "right" decision to make by agenda-plugging newspapers, and if they did dare make a their own vote, they face trial by social media! It's barbaric that we as a Nation claim to love being a democracy and shout it from the roof tops, but when it comes down to it, we all seem to delight in belittling eachothers right to exactly that. In my opinion, fake news and clickbait articles about such matters are dangerous. We risk losing the democracy we fought so hard for. 7 million people are yet to register to vote and I argue that it's not as black and white of an issue as laziness, it's confusion. There are so many article's out there swinging left and right; add that to the constant tirade of meme's, cartoons, outrageous "fact files" on each Party and whole paragraphs from Facebook friend's who have suddenly turned into the political brains of Britain spouting their political prophecies and it's enough to make anyone scream: "IS IT OVER YET?!"
However, despite all of this, your vote is very important regardless of who's side you're on. Go and get yourself registered. Take a step back from all the political noise and do your own research. Make the choice YOU want to make for YOU. Read up on each Party's manifesto and decide who's policies you agree with.
That's the last I'll say on the matter of the UK general election, so until June 8th that's enough politics from me.
That in fact brings us to the end of this Monday's edition of A Series of Unfortunate Irritations, Have a wonderful Tuesday and I will (hopefully) see you back here tomorrow where I will be flexing my reviewing muscles.
Byeeeeeeeeeeee!
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