Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille has caused quite a kerfuffle after her fight with a journalist on social media. Go, Zille! Zille’s supporters argue that since journalists dish it out with glee, we have to accept that in a robust democracy the price to be paid by the media is not to whine about getting […]
Posted inGender violence, Media
Shaming rape survivors and other bull
“What a week for women! First, two of the (very few) prominent political mavens became kissing besties and then spectacularly not, and then that rape-cry-baby Michelle Solomon made a scene and had to be put back in her place by a good ol’ cigar-smokin’ man like David Bullard (for a bet it turns out, classic!) […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics, Tech
On voluntary tech servitude
I’m one of the many Android users who recently installed the Blackberry Messenger (BBM) application on their phone. Big deal. Doing this as I did, however, on the day Germany and Brazil were introducing a draft resolution on the Right to Privacy in the Digital Age at the UN General Assembly, I found myself confronting […]
Posted inGeneral
Safe, warm and dry
“Our love was like our house. There were cracks in the walls and chips in the paint, but it kept us safe, warm and dry.” His eyes were hollow. His wife, the love of his life, died two weeks ago after a stroke. I was there to give him the painting inspired by one of […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media, Tech
The slow descent into social media’s superficiality
I think I know why social media is good for everyone. I just think I do, but don’t really. Besides being a vehicle for sparking Arab Springs, social media is first with the news and enhances your brand if you’re a journalist, editor, social commentator or political analyst. In fact if you’re none of these […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Innocent ’til proven guilty…
I, like many, have been following the Oscar Pistorius saga on Twitter. The plethora of tweets on one topic is something that I have not seen before. Almost everyone seems to have an opinion, a view on what happened and how it went down, and some, maybe even most, have a verdict. Yesterday Pistorius was […]
Posted inLifestyle
Should we let Justin Bieber take the ‘reigns’?
I should have averted my eyes, I know. It’s my own fault for looking, and I’d only bought a copy of heat because I’d already read this week’s You. But once you’ve read a statement like “Move aside, Lady Gaga: Justin Bieber has taken the reigns as the most powerful person on Twitter!” you just […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
There simply is no space
I find it odd that people today will log into various platforms of social networking to ”consume” new music yet you ask them what their favourite band is and they draw a blank. Look at your twitter timeline or go onto Facebook and just study for a day or so the amount of new music […]
Posted inNews/Politics
St Francis, shack fires and the professionally offended
It sucks being an over-educated Joburg northern suburbs white liberal of a certain age. It really does. You haven’t given over to the cynicism of your parents’ generation, so you’re perpetually in knots over the twin anxieties of your whiteness and your privilege. You spent years at university studying critical discourse analysis, so you never […]
Posted inNews/Politics
10 African leaders turning to twitter
By David Smith Nana Akufo-Addo (@nadaa2012) Leader of the New Patriotic party and presidential candidate in Ghana. 1 640 tweets 35 following 6 132 followers The opposition leader is hoping social media can propel him to victory in forthcoming elections. One of numerous recent tweets declared: “In #48days, we will go to the polls to decide between […]
Posted inLifestyle, Tech
Twitter won’t give you Aids but…
Twitter is not the healthiest of habits. It sucks hours. It sucks days. It requires dedication. It requires long stretches of inactivity. It makes you lie to yourself. It makes you tell yourself that you are learning something by continuously refreshing your feed to read the latest article or tweet from such and such opinion […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dear Tshidi: Thank you too
Dear Tshidi I don’t know you. Apparently you’re a model and actress but, like Jessica, I hadn’t heard of you until yesterday. And I must say I’m astonished that it took me so long to find you. Specifically, this gem of a tweet, which you judged an appropriate response to the Jessica Leandra debacle: It […]