It’s the morning after Halloween, and my six-year-old has just gone off to school after eating lollies for breakfast. When I offered her normal food she said she wasn’t hungry, and then I noticed a ring of chocolate around her lips and a trail of Fantail wrappers leading from her bedroom to the kitchen.
Too much of the hard stuff, babe? I asked. She smiled, yawned, and went to throw a ball at the dog. Right now she’s probably dozing on the carpet in the middle of her classroom.
I’m not entirely convinced she wasn’t feeding half of her booty to the dog, because he’s farting up a storm. Has anyone actually heard a dog let off? It’s bizarre, a sound not at all like the kind of air-expulsion noises you hear from humans, it’s much more tuneful, like their behind is singing for Eurovision. Plus, he looks embarrassed about it, which is understandable given his bum sounds like a tweety-bird.
How much is too much for a dog? When its bottom starts to sing, I’d say.
And all this while I’m checking Facebook, and again thinking about that question. Indeed, how much is too much on social media? Some like to share three or four times a day and really stupid stuff, the most annoying being affirmations in Helvetica about the meaning of life and what a good friend they are unless you cross them, and press “like” if you like them, which of course you have to do because you don’t want to cross them.
If you’re over 40 and still use Facebook to remind yourself how popular you are, or to get attention, I think you need to get off. I can excuse occasional bursts of narcissistic posting, but only if your kids have a birthday or you’re on an awesome holiday, but I draw the line at photos of the cake you’ve made for the office and announcing when you’re coming down with a cold.
In a perfect world, a Facebook newsfeed should be limited to valuable insights on geopolitical issues and top 10 compilations, preferably weird family pictures and goats that sound like humans. Leave the everyday minutiae and photo collages of drunken nights out to the high-school kids.
Like Ja’mie, who I actually really do think is too much. I get that that’s the whole point, and Chris Lilley is a genius, of course, but his muse is creeping me out. She’s so deluded and vain I’m worried real kids will start to copy her, or worse, she is actually a parody of real kids. What will become of all of us if either is true?
Mine may be able to get away with eating lollies for breakfast, but they’re not allowed to watch this show. Ja’mie bites her dad to get what she wants, for heaven’s sake.
I think we’ve all had enough of her kind, including Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and the Kardashians, who really are just silly television constructs posing as people. My friend was just telling me how shocked she was to see all these 12-year-olds walking the streets like sexy little vamps for Halloween, and it’s not hard to work out who their role models are.
Call me old fashioned, but is it impossible for female artists to make a video clip in anything other than their undies any more? Even Beyonce did it in a Brunswick backstreet no less, and she’s a mother, and it’s Melbourne. It’s cold.
Sometimes too little is actually too much. Or did you just forget your slacks, Bey?
