Friday 22 August 2014

Rise Of The Planet Of Emotions


Emotions are nasty things.  People who express their emotions in a public fashion always make me feel rather uncomfortable.  There’s something disturbing about that lack of self-awareness that leads someone to scream and cry in a public place.  Why would you leave yourself open and exposed in such a fashion and invite complete strangers to judge you as such?  It’s something I’ll just never understand.

It seems that I am in the minority.  Through my casual observations, it seems that the planet is descending into an emotional quagmire where everyone believes that their opinions and feelings are the only ones that matter.  Just turn on the TV and you’ll see people crying their eyes out on X Factor, getting teary eyed while being interviewed about petrol prices on the news, or even shedding a tear of joy when winning £200 on Catchphrase.  Seriously, I saw an episode of Catchphrase where the contestant screamed and started flapping her hands near her eyes like she was battling a swarm of killer bees, all because she got one question right.  Roy Walker wouldn’t have stood for that shit.

It’s not just on TV that people are getting emotional.  Facebook arguments are becoming battles of life-changing significance.  These tend to spill over to the real world.  It is far from uncommon to hear people discussing Facebook comments as though they are nuclear proliferation agreements, and how many feelings have been hurt.  Sometimes a front is put up with the prefix "I'm not bothered, but...", which then descends into a long diatribe which betrays them and reveals that they are in fact, incredibly bothered.  This is the problem with written communication.  It's difficult to discern sarcasm or tone, and quite often a harmless joke can seem hurtful to the easily offended.  That's why arguments over social media explode over seemingly trivial matters, such as my "threats" to "mercilessly slaughter" people who post Keep Calm images.

In real life, it is becoming increasingly common to see couples having bitter breakups in the street.  Arguments with shop assistants and doctor’s receptionists seem to be a normal part of everyday life.  Our hospitals and public transport systems are full of posters asking people not to attack their staff.  So why are we so emotionally charged these days?

X Factor:  The world's most emotional karaoke jam

Some would say that our fat, greedy lifestyle of entitlement and throwaway consumerism is a big part of the problem.  They’re probably right.  In a world of convenience, smaller things begin to matter a whole lot more.  You wouldn’t have cared about the smack talk that Sally posted on Facebook if you had to churn butter for 18 hours a day in order to eke out an existence.  Perhaps this is the trade-off that human society has had to make.  We’ve swapped sabre-toothed tigers for iPhones.

However, I still can’t stand this overflow of emotion that we’re currently seeing.  I’m sure we can all agree that it’s vulgar and disgusting, and that makes me angry!  You see?  The emotions are spreading all over me and making feel things!  It’s just not proper.

That’s why I’m proposing a fast.  Similar to Ramadan, how about we have 1 month a year where everyone has to give up being emotional in public?  If people want to speak in a robotic voice while doing so, or perhaps even dress up like robots, then that’s fine with me.  Why not make it a whole month where we pretend to be robots?  Our metallic cousins have got the right idea and we should strive to be more like them.  Beep boop. Communication terminated.

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In other news, I have landed a regular writing gig over at Power Up Gaming!  This week my Review of Fez has been posted, along with a retro review of Revolution X.  So if you have any interest in that sort of thing, I'd encourage you to read it. If you have a Disqus account (I know a lot of you do), feel free to leave a comment at the bottom.  Support the site too.  It's a fantastic up and coming site with a great team of writers and interesting opinion pieces.  Thanks for reading.

10 comments:

  1. I have a lot of important feelings to convey about this post of yours.

    I will to relate them all to you.

    I'm kidding. I'm not one of these emo pansies. I have only cried twice in the past ten years (that's actually true). I am so out of touch with my emotions that I'm probably a ticking time bomb.

    I could go a month without emotions with one arm tied behind my back. Not only no emotions, but no sex, no friends, no life prospects, no discernible talents, and... OH GOD WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't worry. Just submit to your robotic overlords and they will take care of your thoughts and emotions. You'll also be able to calculate Pi to an infinitesimally small number, which I understand is an amazing party trick that everyone will love.

      Delete
  2. Good thing I've deadened every emotion I have through the copious consumption of alcohol so that I can join you effortlessly in this emotional Ramadan. What a beautiful idea -sniff- to join humanity under one umbrella of -sniff sniff- collective emotional denial. Uh oh, you just made me cry with the beauty of that sentiment. Dammit. I failed already.

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    Replies
    1. I will happily remove your tear ducts, comrade. It might leave you blind in some capacity, but I think that's a small price to pay.

      Delete
  3. Congratulations on getting a regular writing job elsewhere. I've not had much luck when it comes to proper article writing. I agree that the world seems to be a lot more emotional. As a Brit, where about 93% of what I say is sarcasm, it's a pain in the ass to see people so sensitive to what was only intended as a light hearted joke.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, people can't bear to be the brunt of a joke nowadays. It often gets misconstrued as bullying.

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  4. Well done on the writing elsewhere, of course thats your cover blown and GCHQ will be at your door as I speak. . . . . Just remember as you are waterboarded into admitting you are in fact a robot intent on turning us humans in robots, it is best to remain emotionless and repeat . . .DOES NOT COMPUTE a lot adding the occasional BLEEP.....

    Sorry I'm a bit late but according to the local newspaper we have Aliens. . . . . YEAH WELL COOL.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I'm to be waterboarded, surely it would be better if I wasn't a robot. If movies have taught me anything, it's that robots cannot stand to have a drop of water on them as it causes them to short circuit.

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  5. I'm going to give this a shot today. I'm going to walk up to a homeless person and, in a robotic voice, say, "There are no words to describe how abundantly apathetic I am toward your plight, but seeing as the money in my pocket only serves as a vessel to spur my emotions, here is one American dollar. May you have an unexceptional day, human."

    Also, congrats on the stable writing gig! I checked out the site and it looks awesome!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excellent! I'm glad- I mean, I am indifferent to see you getting into the spirit of things.

      Delete

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