The time has come to bid you all farewell.
For those who can't be arsed to read a long-winded explanation, I will be deactivating my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts on New Year's Eve.
I am letting you know, so you don't think I committed the cardinal sin and unholiest of all unholies by "de-friending" you. I may be back online at some point, but probably not for a while. I believe my connections will still be intact if I do decide to return; if sense prevails and these platforms are finally subjected to proper policing for the spread of lies and ever-more obscene ways to serve quinoa and avocado in a bowl fashioned out of frozen puppy puke.
I have also decided to make it a top priority to quit the UK in 2020. So, I bid you adieu here and now, in case our connections were solely on social media. It's been a blast!
The longer version:
No, it hasn't!
Over the last decade, it has become apparent that social media has been the leading cause of human decay, planetary annihilation and the spread of a pathogen more destructive than the most apocalyptic virus know to man: stupidity, spread through misinformation and vanity. If you think this is an extreme, over-exaggeration of where we are today, please try harder and look again.
Bullshit spread about immigrants, sexualities not openly accepted in a book about a bearded dude in a dress (who insisted on going by his ĂĽber-hetero drag name of "The Fisher of Men" and has been the poster-pup of plenty-o-paedo priests over the centuries), climate change and the dim-witted cry of "sovrinteeeee" has been swallowed willingly by the idiocracy. A bitter pill that will serve as a cyanide tablet for those that have been so willing to lap it up.
The world has lurched so far to the right through populism and bitter resentment of difference, that staying on these platforms would be hypocritical, as I denounce their existence.
The UK, soon to be remembered as the Kingdom formerly known as United, has sunk so low in a mire of blind, extreme conservativism, hatred and racism that it has, in an extraordinarily short time, become unrecognisable. The decision to leave our home has not been taken lightly, and I have been fighting as valiantly as possible to slap those of a more-persuadable disposition to realise how our country was being attacked by the wealthy, corrupt zealots we see in power today: grotesquely vile puppet-masters and their extraordinarily cretinous, backward, self-serving puppets.
I'm reasonably certain the referendum and subsequent elections were stolen from the sane, using vast swathes of illegality; so, don't let all the blame fall at the feet of those unwilling to believe such politics could play out; with their staunch, once-centrist political leanings. But they have, and I trust the pain of realisation in the coming years will serve as a lesson to pass on to their children (the lesson all those history classes should have taught them, back when what brand of anti-acne wash to use before their first snog was the largest of their troubles).
I am saying goodbye, because I have made a concerted effort to utilise the better aspects of social media; to inform, create, entertain or just vent my spleen. I have cemented some firm eFriendships along the way and used it to good effect, in order to remember people's names after meeting them at the pub. Next time you see me scribbling something unintelligible on the back of my hand with an old fashioned thing we used to call a pen, you'll know why.
The harder aspect of relocating will, besides finding a job to enable this expatriation, of course, be the distance to the elder younglings. But, with the reactions of "wha'evah", "cool...foreign holidays!" and "once I'm done at uni, I'm joining you and leaving this Nazi shithole!" have helped somewhat. Their reaction to me leaving Facebook was an impertinent, but expected, united sigh of relief, to say the least. I don't expect any move to be in the next six months, but hope it will be within twelve; as I can't handle another year of Katie Hopkins threatening to suck-off Nigel's Fromage if he plays a game of soggy biscuit with Jacob Greased-Hog and Piers Organ over a blue passport.
So, without further ado, I tip the cap that I uselessly use to cover my balding pate, try to do a click of the heels, fuck it up and fall arse-over-tit and embrace you all in a weird and clumsy virtual way, as I set the timer for the deactivation to T-minus 31st December 2019.
It actually has been a blast, and I love you all.
❤️
P.S. Of course, some of you may have witnessed my failed attempts at quitting many things before, so who knows how this extraordinarily over-dramatic departure will play out...