Tag Archives: Twitter

Internet Radio Gon’ Get You, Whether You ‘Like’ It or Not

Monday nights can get pretty lonely when you’re simultaneously sans girlfriend and have isolated anyone else who wanted to have sex with you, but I like to keep occupied. So in a brief jog through the internet, I stumble across this little ditty; a clip of former Jacaranda DJ Darren Scott calling up 32-year-old Shaun Dewberry, a self-described “IT Specialist”, from Scott’s new job as a DJ on Ballz Radio. Yes, you read that last part right. It’s a station I was blissfully unaware existed until tonight, largely because any station that thinks adding the letter “Z” to the end of words to indicate something’s “cool” is clearly not targeting me (or anyone born before 1985).

The point of contention between the two parties here is a report by Dewberry (published here) which suggests that NetDynamix, the company responsible for hosting various South African online radio stations at the moment, may be doctoring the listenership figures they provide to these stations. Honestly, I don’t care whether or not NetDynamix is lying to Ballz. I don’t like liars, sure, but what do I know about IP addresses and Facebook pages? I still can’t tell which way the flashdrive goes into this cockamamey thing!

What I do know about, however, is bullying. And man, I ain’t never seen bullying like the time the guy who called a black man “kaffer” in post-apartheid South Africa (2011!!) went after the guy who wrote a report on his blog.

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The Christowitz Report: ‘Taken 2′ and Your Complete Mediocrity

by Nicholas Christowitz

Hello again. Don’t mind me, I’m just losing my fucking mind over here.

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DA Spokesperson Moves to End Racism Using Models, Mansions

Photo from ewn.co.za

In an effort to, I guess, heal our fractured nation by confronting the racist beast head-on, Democratic Alliance spokesperson Mmusi Maimane held a meeting yesterday between two young women who occasionally use Twitter to go on 140-character-long racist rants. FHM model Jessica Leandra dos Santos and marketing student Tshidi Thamana met up with some folks from the local press for a sort of mini-TRC at Maimane’s mansion.

I guess this is how they do things in Aunty Helen’s neighborhood.

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Contemplating Kony2012: How to save the world

There’s no place you’ve gone to run and hide on the internet this week (except maybe here – ) where at least one person hasn’t been talking “Kony2012”. As the video started gaining online momentum, I caught a little flash of the hashtag here and there. Then my friend Sarah invited me to a Facebook group. Then good ol’ Stephen inboxed us about it. Then numerous statuses (I really am starting to prefer saying “statii”) and tweets kept me aware of it. Finally, I received a phone call about it. Not to discuss what we were going to do to smear Kony’s name all over the place, but to critique the public’s sudden emotional reaction to the campaign. Suddenly everyone was talking about saving Africa: what an insincere bag of dicks!

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Fear & Self-Loathing in the Brave New Futureworld

In her piece “Vile Bodies, Cyber War”La Resistance’s own Libby Allen discussed the negativity and hostility with which we often approach one another on the internet. The reason most often cited for our harsh online ear-biting frenzies is that it’s the “benefit” of anonymity, but Libby writes this off as too easy an answer. I’m inclined to agree with her. I read too many comics about guys who wear masks to selflessly protect the human race without asking for so much as a bus token to buy into that. And that brings me to the question she’s faced us with near the end of her article:

“Why are we using our growing connectedness for attack?”

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