Wednesday 24 October 2018

Angstagram


It’s official.  Everyone else is better at everything else than I am.  I know this because I’ve just been looking at some random Pinterest and Instagram pages in the course of some research and all my fears were confirmed.  Everyone has beautiful homes, beautiful children, beautiful gardens, makes beautiful things, has beautiful pets, beautiful clothes, beautiful hobbies, bakes beautiful cakes and, although there’s no visual confirmation, I think we can safely say they probably have beautiful bowels capable of excreting the most perfectly formed faeces.  

It has become apparent that I’m just not up to scratch.  A snapshot of the desk I'm sitting at now would reveal an old birdfood catalogue tucked into a notebook, a scrunched up tissue, a blunt pencil and a chipped plastic ruler,  a random postcard from Madrid and a flash drive still in its torn cardboard packaging.  I am sitting here in my bobbly old jumper and slippers with worn-out soles, contemplating whether or not to defrost the freezer which has an ice monster growing in it so big that it could no doubt restore the melting polar ice caps single-handedly.  Only it’s full of crumbs too.  Beautiful pets?  Could you count my newly-acquired composting worms?  I’ve got some nicely rotting vegetable peelings to feed them in a moment.  Alternatively I could finally remove the last traces of blue polish from the tips of the nails on my big toes because it has been on them since… August? Or was it July? 

I was thinking of opening up one of those photo-sharing accounts to share some images of my beautifully imperfect life.  Would anyone like to see it?  I could show you the inside of my oven!

21 comments:

  1. Hahahah! Brilliant post, C - believe me, you're not alone. I can certainly identify with a few of your "revelations."

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    1. Thanks Marie, and nice to see you. We're the normal ones!

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  2. Oh C - It's all an illusion isn't it. You, me and Marie it seems all live in normal world where the shower has pesky bits of mould adorning the grout, the corners of the carpets haven't been hoovered for ages and our fridges are full of strange things a bit past their sell-by date.

    Do you also notice that when people are being interviewed on telly "in their own homes" it looks as if they are in a hotel or a show-home as the rooms always look as if they've never been lived in.

    Great post as ever.

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    1. Oh, how true, Alyson. Our smallish fridge has sometimes gotten so crowded that leftovers have occasionally been shoved to the back, only to be rediscovered after an embarrassing lapse of time. I'm usually too scared to open the now fuzzy containers, so Mr. Vintage Spins has to be cajoled into emptying them for me.

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    2. Yes it's a heavily edited world I'm sure. I know nobody would want to see photos of the forgotten contents of our fridges (- or would they? Perhaps that has potential?!) but it might be reassuring to know they're out there.
      I've nothing against beautiful things, quite the opposite, nor to being inspired by lovely images - it's just the glut of it, the normalisation and the smugness that gets to me. I'm sure that the act of putting out lots of 'perfect' images pften acts as a kind of salve for a less contented reality but, sadly, it just perpetuates the myth.

      Fuzzy containers! I think a lot of us can identify with that ;-)

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  3. Brilliant! I shared this with Mrs CC as it sums up the reason she came off Facebook

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    1. Thanks CC, and I'm with Mrs CC on that, one of the reasons I avoided joining FB too.

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  4. This speaks to me, C. Outside of my little blog, I never have and never will have any social media presence. Like most people who snap pics of their dinner and pump up their mundane lives, I'm just not that interesting. If I didn't have a child with special needs, I don't think I would even own a phone. I find myself railing against it all and becoming more and more analog with each passing year. You can't miss the simpler times if you continue to live simply.

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    1. Brian, I know you're definitely far more interesting than those who pump up their mundane lives and want to show you what they're just about to eat (what's that all about?)! But why does anyone feel the constant need to prove it? I like the principle of being able to find like-minded people we wouldn't otherwise get to know, and so the kind of blogging we do here works really well, I'm grateful for it not having much face-to-face human contact in my working life - so it's reassuring, enjoyable and stimulating. But social media in general is just too full of distortion, isn't it?

      I agree so much about the simpler times/life. I'm not cut out for any more digital intrusion.

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  5. Surely this would have been the perfect image
    https://bit.ly/2ArvaK8

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    1. Ewww! Erm, "thanks" for that, John.....

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    2. Argh... I so wish I hadn't opened that link!

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    3. Warts and all. It's not gonna catch on, is it? Sorry, it maybe should have come with a warning!

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    4. Thanks John, there goes my breakfast.

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    5. Unfortunately for us, what's been seen can never be unseen...

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  6. I think you should go to www.angstagram.com - someone has made a parody from a similar idea. I love that their suggestions for "angsty filters" include ex-factor, drama, brooding... and Morrissey.

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    1. D'ya know, I thought perhaps I ought to check if such a thing existed before I titled this post but I decided not to. Was also thinking of calling it Instacrap, but worried I might get served a lawsuit!
      Angstagram.com looks good (haha, Morrissey!) Just the antidote we need to all the self-congratulatory bragging on the other ones.

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  7. Stay as you are, in the real world where most people live. I have an Instagram account myself, where I share my happy photographic 'accidents'. It should go without saying, the narcissists are happiest left to themselves.

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    1. Yes, the real world - it's full of imperfections but is that really so bad? I'll take it any time.

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  8. You should see my desk. Except you can't, for all the crap that's piled up on it. At home and work.

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    1. The sign of a creative mind, I reckon. A neat and tidy desk just suggests there's nothing of interest going on.

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