The (sad) pursuit of e-popularity

Oh, social media, you never fail to surprise me.
In my e-lifetime to date I've experienced numerous annoying viral social media born campaigns.

Share this status if you want to get rid of AIDS! 
Like this photo of my ticket and I'll give you £1,000,000 if I win the lottery!  
Urban legends which urge you to re-post this status in the next 4 minutes, or else 28 kittens will get hit by a truck. (The emotive ones always work a treat.)

Just when we thought we'd seen it all... Welcome the 'If I get 1 million likes' phenomenon. 

It's like anything, at first it's quite comical - some shy boy who eats his feelings (and everything else) wants to sleep with the hottie, and she only agreed to it because she never in a million years assumed it'd go viral, and so we click that electronically generated blue thumbs up. Like. We laugh. We laugh at how hysterically excited he will be when he shows her the "evidence". We laugh at the thought of her face when she realises she's sold herself online, both visually and physically. We perhaps share said photo.  
And then what? Unless they actually somehow manage to inform us fellow million likees that they have actually achieved their goal, what do we gain from this situation? Absolutely bugger all. Did he get to travel to England from Japan to buy fish and chips? Did she sleep with him? Did she actually run around the city naked? No idea. And, to be honest, after you've supported them in their quests, do you even remember liking it? Again, probably not.

So what is the deal with this unending desire to be approved of by strangers online? People will do anything online for their taste of fifteen minutes. The wilder, the better. Whether it's seeking re-tweets, likes, LOLs or shares, the world has become obsessed with strangers making their decisions for them. 
And this makes me sad. It's such thoughtless validation, and at some point it's going to end in tears. I can't help but feel that it leaves you with an unsettling thought of a new digital era in which nothing can define us more in life than our extravagant pursuit for internet fame.

Royal Respect

I have been reading numerous stories about Kate Middleton lately, and being wary of magazines, I haven’t fully believed what they publish about her. But every story, no matter how exaggerated it becomes has a starting point.

First of all, put yourself in her position. She met Prince William at University and, luckily for them, due to press restrictions they had a very private university experience. They met and fell in love. It’s a fairytale story.

So now I ask why it is that people want to break her down. Not only is she continuously slandered as dressing “too safe” and dull, she is now facing a royal correspondent releasing a tell-all book which referred to her as having to work extra hard to do well in her studies at university in comparison to her peers. She was quite literally brought to fame, if you might call it that, overnight. A sudden transformation of being the girl next door to being on the front covers of every magazine with everyone feeling they own the right to scrutinise her every move. She’s our future queen and I find it quite uncomfortable to read how disrespectful some are of our royal family. Just because we have social media outlets nowadays isn’t an excuse to anonymously attack her online.

I equally find it difficult to establish what it is about Kate’s dress sense that people, notably designers, seem to dislike so much. She’s the epitome of dressing as a lady. A frequent comment is that she wears too many high street labels. Is that seriously the biggest problem we face? I think it’s refreshing that she is wearing clothes people can imitate and afford to buy, it keeps her down to earth and in touch with the nation. I actually envy the clothes she wears; she always manages to look elegant and beautiful whilst being appropriate for every event she attends. If my outfits resemble anything like hers when I’m her age, then I know I’ll be most content.