TRT BROADCAST_02 [ THE MONKEYSPHERE ]

Good afternoon, faithful readers, this is Trigon, back with more insight.

Oh, I recommend Two Weeks by All That Remains. It's a little heavy but good nonetheless. Should this prove problematic, it can be found on Tap Tap Revenge 2 on Hard - I shall save the iTouch/iPhone and associated apps for another time.

Today, I'm going to be discussing Social Networking sites - well actually, just Facebook. Because MySpace is defunct (sorry if I offend), and while I believe Twitter is good, I have not yet experienced it.

As some of you know (or may even have been directed from there) I have set up a Facebook 'Page' for NSR. I was observing the amount of users gained over time, and I noticed several things. Because of the time of night, my posting of NSR flew off the bottom of the news feed. The only people who became fans were those who knew I was creating it.

So the NSR Page pottered along until slightly later, when our steady trickle of fans led to us being featured in the 'Highlights' column. Now this may not sound groundbreaking, but I am sure that this featuring led to an increase of at least 4-5 people out of our total fans. Because of the nature of the Page and it's picture, it would be hard to justify (well, to people of our maturity - more on that later) simply becoming a fan just because someone else did. I find it interesting that such an increase came simply from being the bottom square on the highlights column for about 10 minutes. Even then, that was only the people that the fans know. If I had chosen to design and submit an advert, the number would have probably been even greater.

However, there exist people, 3 of them actually, who have most likely never even been to the fan page, and certainly will not read this post. Yes, it appears year 7 girls lack the maturity to distinguish between something that they want to be fans of and something their friends want to be fans of... If you are reading this, accept my profuse apologies, and tell me so I don't remove you off the fans list later.

Wow, breaking news guys, a good friend of mine just sent me a profoundly interesting link.

Listen to some good music while I go and read it.

Now, this may be a rather lengthy explanation, so if you want to skip it, go ahead. Here's a secret time-warp code leading to the line further down. If you're not up to mental gymnastics right now, come back later. It is interesting, I assure you.

The story begins, of course, with a monkey.

This monkey belongs to you. His name is Snap. Imagine a personality for Snap.

How sad would you be if Snap died?

Now imagine you have two monkeys. Their names are up to you.

How many monkeys do you think you could have before you start forgetting them?

Before Snap's personality was lost in an endless sea of monkey face?

Before one of them could die without you caring?

I can tell you that number, by the way. Stay tuned.

For monkeys, that number is 50. That is, they are unable to mentally care for more than 50 other monkeys.

Consider this. Have you ever thought:

I wonder if the trash man is grumpy today?

How is the guy in that house getting on with his wife?

No. You haven't. Because they exist outside of your people sphere. You are quite literally incapable of caring for them. This does not make you a horrible person. Everyone does it. This is also what makes the difference between the hurricane in China which decimated the population of province such-and-such, killing over 13 million people... You see? You don't really care. Though if I told you that your mother just died in a car crash, well, that's a bit closer to the heart isn't it? Or even if you used to live in province such-and-such, and still have 3/4 of your friends there...

Anyone outside your sphere is reduced down to nothing, a one-dimensional character... as this quote from the aforementioned link says perfectly:

"Remember the first time, as a kid, you met one of your school teachers outside the classroom? Maybe you saw old Miss Puckerson at Taco Bell eating refried beans through a straw, or saw your principal walking out of a dildo shop. Do you remember that surreal feeling you had when you saw these people actually had lives outside the classroom?"

It's strange, in fact, because this even works when the person is the worst one you can think of:

"Osama Bin Laden. Did you just picture a camouflaged man hiding in a cave, drawing up suicide missions? Or are you thinking of a man who gets hungry and has a favorite food and who had a childhood crush on a girl and who has athlete's foot and chronic headaches and wakes up in the morning with a boner and loves volleyball?

Something in you, just now, probably was offended by that. You think there's an effort to build sympathy for the murderous f**k. Isn't it strange how simply knowing random human facts about him immediately tugs at your sympathy strings? He comes closer to your sphere, he takes on dimension."

Sorry about that... a bit off topic.

I shall save the remainder for a later day...

Oh, and just not to disappoint, the estimated number for humans is 150. Which is probably us being egotistical and it's more like 75.

Regards,

DJ Trigon.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And still you feel like the loneliness 
Is better replaced by this 
I don't believe it this way 
And I can see the fear in your eyes 
I've seen it materialise 
Growing stronger each day