Helen Zille’s Groupies Are Vicious

Anyone who knows me knows that I keep as far away from Politics as I possibly can, which is further than most people realise. The reason being is that my Dad was a prolific politician for my whole life (and is actually friends with Helen, which adds some extra humour to this post, I think) and so from a very young age, people have been asking me in-depth national questions as if I was some kind of an authority on the subject. I remember when I was 10 years old, my teachers would ask me about the policies of the ANC or the future of taxpayers' money, and they looked so disappointed when I told them I wanted to be a ninja when I grew up. So it should be fairly obvious why I swore off politics, and to this day I just agree with whatever my Dad says, whatever it is he says, I don’t really listen.

That said, I follow Helen Zille (the leader of the DA, the biggest opposition party in South Africa) on Twitter. For the most part, I find her funny, and she spends so much time replying to people’s questions that I wonder what the fuck else she does in her job. But it is a fantastic marketing tool, I’ll give her that, and I am sure like me, many people have been turned onto her ideals due to her embracement of this technology.

Recently, she made a statement which has caused a fair amount of stirring around South Africa. The statement was, simply put, that any man who partakes in unprotected sex with multiple partners should be charged with attempted murder due to the high AIDS rate of the country. Now look, if you are fucking a bunch of people, I agree that it is pretty stupid not to wear a condom, but I am strongly opposed to this extreme notion. I feel that the moment we get the legal system involved with something as beautiful as consensual sex, where does it end? The most personal and deepest sign of affection we can muster as human beings now monitored by the fucking government? Fuck that, it just feels wrong, like Big Brother here we come. And of course, her reasoning is not about the protection and well being of our people, but instead, money - surprise! The government forking out billions of Rands for HIV carriers’ medicine sucks for them I’m sure, but to write off these people’s misfortune as “careless” and slapping a manslaughter threat on top of that just seems to further separate the people, and installs fear into the oldest pass-time man has ever had. The whole thing is a weird concept to me.

Read more here and here if you want.

Whatever. As I said, I don’t give a fuck. I live in London for starters, and while SA was my home-and-raised for the first 23 years of my life, the political/criminal side of things was definitely a factor for me leaving it all behind, and so none of this really applies to me anyway. But something I do give a fuck about is Twitter, and so I just couldn’t help myself, and had to tell Helen Zille what I thought. To my excitement, she responded, and the brief exchange was as follows:

It doesn’t look like much, but it’s funny, admit it. Just admit it, I’m funny, c’mon. Sometimes I just laugh all by myself because I am that funny. But on this occasion, I had no idea what I had done. Before I knew it, my Twitter “exploded” in the tiniest of ways, much like a post-anal sex fart or a Pringles pop. People felt a need to tell me what they thought of me, and here are some of the remarks and retweets just so you can see:

Yup. Post-anal sex fart, I told you. So that was fun. Nothing amazing, but it is cool when one little Tweet can cause a bunch of people to react, I live for that shit.

BUT WAIT! It gets even better and I felt the deep need to share this particular conversation with you people. It all started from this one dude who was so upset, he actually told me I was ugly. ME? UGLY? Imagine! Hahaha gross. So of course I retaliated, and then his friends jumped in, and we had a nice little Twitter brawl. By all means, take a look:

Now despite my hard exterior and my reputation of being the most gangster white boy on the Internet EVER, this actually got to me. The reason was not their comments, I hardly read them, but more the fact that they just weren’t laughing. Try as I might, these people just couldn’t come to grasp that all of my Tweets (literally, all of my Tweets, every one I’ve ever written) were completely tongue-and-cheek and not to be taken seriously. I mean, just look what I was saying! Confessing my love, claiming I had AIDS, crying that I hadn’t been laid... desperately insulting myself and yet these people couldn’t get their heads around the complete ridiculousness of the situation. It’s sad that each attempt at getting a laugh was met with such hostility, and for this reason, the next paragraph is directed at these four individuals because I know they are the type of people who would google themselves.

Ian Vos. Schoeman Smit. Meg Pascoe. Jenna Bean Kerr. I am worried about you lot. I hope on some level you guys can tell what the Internet is, and the difference between this and real life. Otherwise, I am concerned at some point someone is going to troll you so bad that you might end up like Jessie Slaughter, and what if I am not around to help you if this happens? I shudder to think. So please guys, lighten up. I don’t have AIDS. I am not a ginger. I have sex quite regularly, thank-you-very-much. You guys seem like good friends, and that’s real nice, I truly would love to fuck all of you up the ass (yeah, you know you’d like that hey Ian my boy, kiss kiss). Maybe we could arrange it some time? But please, don’t take people on Twitter seriously, it will only result in confusion and wasted time. Especially you Shoeman, I worry about you the most. Hey Shoes? Schosholoza? Schoemandirin? Hey Mr. Smitten? Shoey McMan Smitibiti? I’m sure you’re lovely, take care of yourself.

For everyone else reading this blog, I would like to point out that I have conveniently linked their names to facebook. The reason is because I think these guys proved a specific quality of sensitivity, one that generally shouldn’t go to waste, so if you’re up for a bit of trolololololing, I think these are some perfect candidates. Yes, of course I want you to, they called me ugly.

Anyways, I know what you all are thinking. Why should you care? Why should this matter to you in any way? Well, it probably shouldn’t, but the whole REAL reason I wrote this blog is a different reason entirely. Due to people like those above and the others constantly ReTweeting and sending me messages, spreading my name like AIDS around Twitter (see what I did there Helen?) the following happened:

I checked the account in question (and I urge you to do the same) and it looks legit. Yup, for a few seconds I was a trending topic in South Africa, who wants to touch me? Two main things I’d like to say about this is (1) FUCK YES. ME. TRENDING. It is a mini-dream in one way or another (albiet on a smaller scale) and it does make me stoked that one little Tweet actually pushed me to that level of consciousness. I want it again. And (2) how fucking easy it is to trend in South Africa? I guess there must only be like 200 people in SA who know how to use Twitter, so if you can get 15 people to say your name, you trend or something? I can’t imagine what it takes to trend in London, but I will let you know when it happens. Regardless, thanks Zille, you’re a star.


And with that excitement out the way, the news in four lines:
I just launched a blog called 10 People You Have To Follow On Twitter (again), it’s shit.
Album Charts still going strong, I have started neatening up October now.
The Funpowder Plot are very close to Nitrous Of The Living Dead II, should be out in December, please watch the original here.
Coming Down Happy has hit a bit of a slow point, still set for February 2012 though.

The next blog will be launched around the 20th December, which will be The Best Albums Of 2011 (according to me). I am super stoked about this one because I have been writing since the 1st of Jan and I know I have a solid piece ready to go, far surpassing the last one. Then around the 27th or so my blog summarizing the entire of 2011 will be launched, so there will be plenty of Jared to go around.

And that is all. This was a weird post. I feel weird now.
Jared

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