Twitter says this is totally a thing: the You Are The Reason hashtag

So, Twitter says this is totally a thing- a very popular trending hashtag, You Are The Reason... (insert banal experiences here). And in keeping with the custom now of pouring out any fleeting thought or opinion, no matter how private, people have been pouring all and any into the toilet of human condition. I think the idea of this particular hashtag is that it lets people vent publicly, or pour out their hearts to certain people, or act as a sort of confessional. The problem being that as a confessional it's about as leak proof as using a colander for a submarine; the sentiment to others, while genuinely nice, probably means bugger all to anyone else so such a public airing seems weird; and in getting vocal about the things that really grind your gears online, especially in such a concise manner as 140 characters, things might get lost in translation and you'll unwittingly or wittingly come across as someone you're not.

As Mr Charlie Brooker so brilliantly put it in a recent CiF piece for The Guardian this week, "Online, you play at being yourself". You might be a grumpy person in real life, like I am. That might extrapolate as the only feature of personality through comments online, as it sometimes does for me. At the same time, wildly exaggerated comedy anger vented through this hashtag might be picked up on as hilarious or banal, when you're neither or both in small parts.

And yes, I understand the irony/ hypocrisy of passing any comment on an online occurance by creating a larger version of those tip-tap-typings that inspire such resignation and grumpiness. But it's my blog, so I'll do what the hell I want. It isn't that I abhore change. I just want the things that people talk about, whichever way they choose to do so, to have quality, be necessary and interesting enough to abide. The same qualities I expect from people's conversation- people can be exceptionally verbose about naff all. And I'm right, so there.

So here's to you, internet- #youarethereason I despair that perhaps twenty years down the line we won't speak to each other any more, just laugh, chuckle, sigh, smile knowingly, all in relation to the ridiculous if prolific spoutings we pin to the world's biggest, most dog-foul rooted lamppost and expect anyone to care about.