Essential Snobbery 101: In the class of contentment

On a borrowed height

One Sunday morning in the mid-1970s, I asked our houseboy, a man in all respects and a servant in our household, if I could wear his new platform shoes to church. I had feet big enough to fill the shoes, and I was only 9 years old. He obliged willingly.

That morning, we attended church. I looked quite fashionably attired in a suit and borrowed shoes, but my mother frowned on this presentation. In broad terms, we were not brought up to keep up with the Joneses, and definitely not to extend ourselves beyond our means; contentment mattered because it also moderated behaviour.

Grins within your means

Yet, it was a lesson that took a long while to learn, one that meant aspiration should not be inspired by covetousness. How others looked is how they have decided to look, and hopefully without extending themselves unreasonably to make that appearance.

As children, we were rarely attired in trendy things; we were neat and presentable enough, and that was just enough to help us beyond needing to compare ourselves with others. The legacy of that for me is that I have my own style, the way I choose to look, rarely acquisitive or ostentatious, but well turned out.

Effortless class is affordable

More importantly, I am not instructed to change anything by reason of what others do; the material is acquired as needed. If one can stretch a bit more for quality and durability, it could also pass for effortless class without unnecessary vulgarity. For instance, wearing a good suit to work ends up being more affordable than casual clothes, and it appears sophisticated too.

I accessorise with a day cravat, a hat is just chic, my walking cane is a tad expensive and very well made, the shoes should also meet the mark of clean, polished, sturdy, maybe fashionable, but not loud and showy. You make an impression without having to make the tabloids. I guess I have learnt not to be embarrassed or ashamed about being different, it takes being quite comfortable in your own skin and the choices you have made to feel that way.

Malevolent Twitter Rumours Trending Dangerously

Rotten trends on blatant lies

The usefulness of social networking or news propagation forums that allow for the free expression of thought, sometimes hopes there would be responsible usage in terms of what is shared and maybe some consideration or concern for community or personality when information is given out.

I opened up my Twitter home page this afternoon and had one glimpse of the trending topics, what came up first was RIP Kanye West [1], I was both surprised and shocked. I am not that much a Kanye West fan, I cannot say I know any of his music but some of his antics sometimes makes me hope he finds a low profile coordination consultant that could keep him out of the news.

Not too long ago, he lost his mother to an unfortunate cosmetic surgery incident, in a split second; thousands of thoughts had rushed through my mind, many already of sadness or grief.

Between relaying and confirmation

I was also busy chatting to a friend on Skype and as one would naturally do, mentioned this trend to her. Thankfully, she, just as I did not automatically take that as truth, we quickly checked on news sites to determine if there was any truth to this news before we became part of the herd.

Apparently, it was a hoax [2], some malevolent and rotten person had started a Tweet that Kanye West had died in a car accident and instead of readers of the Tweet checking first if there was any truth to that story, they propagated the rumour with their RIP messages or ReTweeted the messages of others trying to affirm that an untruth in its entirety from conception was fact.

The shame of it all is that there are some many lazy people in the herd, crowd and bandwagon movement who could have within 30 seconds checked and confirmed the lies but they would rather be part of a trend and rather not let the truth, the just, the fair get in the way of an atrociously machinated nasty rumour.

Praise for trends

In the process this became the top trending topic on Twitter and it does much damage to he credibility of Twitter just as false postings have benighted Wikipedia.

The more incredible thing to me is that I have not seen any clear condemnation of this malicious and hurtful rumour, rather I have noticed people commending the genius of a person who has been able to get their lie to the top of Twitter trends, no matter whose ox was gored.

This is a dangerous development, where scandal, controversy or blatant untruths can capture the unimaginative minds of the easily lead and lazy crowds who propagate the selfsame thing to create a major democratic truth of a lie, the pressure of numbers then gives some legitimacy to the lie which then becomes news – this is not good.

Generally, I do not trust Twitter, I always follow the links to and interesting Tweet that comes up and try to corroborate that with other sources before I respond or ReTweet.

Seeking originality

To be honest, I must say that I am not particular enamoured with people who cannot combine the news topic with the URL and a basic opinion in 140 characters. I will never Tweet on an issue if I could not add an opinion, it is like relaying the news verbatim in a blog. In fact, it is the height of arrogance to think you are the original source of a story in the news on Twitter, it only matters for me when you can also add a soundbite, a quip, an opinion, a comment, something that gives the story a perspective.

After a while of not seeing original stuff from a Twitter friend, that friend gets pruned from my list, I believe in 140 characters you can create a unique personality with good opinions rather than be a relaying robot and a conduit for trash and the brash.

Can it be policed?

I suppose we can put this down to human nature that there would always been a misuse of social networking facilities but there has to be some mechanism in place to prevent falsehoods, lies and issues inimical to community building from trending dangerously with the affirmation of numbers.

This cannot be by peer review but some logic that notes the trend, verifies its purpose and sometimes removes it completely from the public timeline with a comment on the matter whilst the purveyor of the falsehood gets a sanction.

Always check before relaying

Inevitably, you can trust nothing but only by review and diligent research from authoritative and respected sources, it takes time and a bit of work of information management, but that better than joining the stampede for trends like swine running to destruction over a sheer cliff into the sea.

For all who contributed to this rumour, you should be sorely ashamed of yourselves, you have really let yourselves down, I do hope there would be a greater sense of awareness when next something like this happens again, just don’t give it oxygen if you have not confirmed from reliable sources that you have received in a Tweet.

Source

[1] Twitter Search from trending topic

[2] Kanye West Is Not Dead, Just Victim Of Latest Internet Hoax - News Story | MTV News:

Trends come and go

I am not trendy by half

Sometimes we find ourselves in places where we are observers of people, times, events and trends. One could not help but notice when a group of people probably in their late teens or early twenties got on the bus I was on in Barcelona.

They were all wearing sunglasses, well sunglasses with huge frames that more or less gave the raccoon effect. It was quite amusing as well as interesting.

I would not call myself trendy, in fact, I have never had opportunity to be trendy and probably that is a thankful situation and less of a burden on my psyche of trying to keep up with what is IN or discarding of what is OUT.

Wearing out of fashion

I remember in times past when my father sometimes complained of that fact, somehow, I always appeared in his office in traditional apparel of no significant fashion value.

My mother who always did the shopping on my behalf to the extent that there were times she bought my shoes because we had the same size when I was 11 did get some good stuff but that meant I was wearing what was probably 2 years out-of-fashion.

You will have to excuse the pun that I never really cottoned on and anytime I tried to follow the trends I just felt frustrated by the exercise that I gave up.

This is even more evident in the fact that you cannot get a decent pair of wearable jeans – I admit – everyone who wears what is in vogue seems to like what they have.

Royalty

Princess Anne once had the indignity of having worn something for an occasion so many years before and then having worn it again, the fashionistas had a field day. It is an impossible world that if you are famous you can only wear clothes like a wedding dress, once for the event and then passing it on.

Basically, the expensive dress would self-destruct after one outing.

Dancing the night away

The biggest social event when I was in secondary school was the Literary Day; there was nothing literary about the day apart from the expectation of attending the one-off disco, very much like the much-popularised American proms.

That meant we were allowed to dress up in clothes other than the regimental school or hostel uniform. As my trendless evening would transpire, I has a pair of trousers handed down from daddy which would have put me squarely on a golf course and a shirt probably four times my size.

My prankster colleagues then concealed my well-pressed clothes that I only got access to them with hardly any time to spare for the event.

Well, my oversized shirt and trousers had me dressed up to the nines with the help if some cord to keep the trousers up.

Bellies or backsides

Nowadays, I cannot really say what I find most irksome to the sight, the exposed bellies of unlady-like girls who have done no gym work looking a healthy 6 months pregnant from wearing cropped tops in the summer or the exposed backsides of underwear of young men wearing trousers very much like the cut of my daddy’s hand-me-downs.

That is fashion, they say, the trend of today. Young men walking down the street unable to keep their trousers up even though they have belts bigger than Mohamed Ali’s title belts.

The walk of big balls

More so, the trousers so affect that gait in that the full extent of stride cannot be realised with trousers so far down the legs everyone moves with a swagger almost like having to cope with genital goitre.

It is a sad state of affairs that the quest to belong is a madness of conformity that makes every foolish trend look like the best thing around and any smart observer of these trends who does no participate is almost always square and an outsider.

Hey! I’ll rather be outside this folly before I find myself growing up ever so disgracefully. I guess I am just old-fashioned.