Ally On Social
Ally Branley

The circle of life ...I'm a busy social media manager with a passion for my new allotment project. I've assembled a fantastic team (a plot shared is a plot used!) and together we're turning our plot into a micro farm. When I'm not there I'm learning more about plant and garden design at Capel Manor, or playing tennis, but mainly working, as a busy social media manager...

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January 27th, 5:55am 0 comments

What a Canned Chicken can tell us about friendship

There seemed to be no merit to the unfortunate end to this probably unfortunate chicken.Perhaps it was eventually eaten, I don't know. 

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However this post that was shared by a friend on Facebook, (originally from the comedian http://www.facebook.com/pamannairhostess  to whom I attribute the photo), created quite a buzz when I shared it on Facebook, so I stopped for a moment to count the number of different friendship groups this covered.

I don't have a lot of Facebook Friends, and am getting ready for a new cut back as it's peaked over 200, which for someone born in the mid 70s is too many! And let's face it one's friends sometimes upload embarassing pictures (not really compromising but just an unintended minor infringement of privacy, that make you want to turn the internet off).  It's not because I don't like the people, but generally because it feels like an increasingly personal space and I don't think you can spread good friendship too thinly. I love that it reflects a lot of stages of my life to date though. This is good.

So riffing on the friendship groups I decide to look at this post to see who's responded and I was suprised that it was actually 8 groups and most of them don't know each other, but are happy to chat around 'my' recommended content for the day's hilarity.

  • Company A
  • Company B
  • Company C
  • Company D
  • Family
  • University friends
  • London Gang
  • Old Flatmate

I don't have a wall chart a la Our Chart from the L-Word, but I'd like to work up an infographic on exposure of otherwise non-connected friends over the year and make it my 2012 Christmas Card. If anyone knows a good tool to get cracking with please comment below.

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June 7th, 9:15am 0 comments

Fat Hoes and Rapist Songs

What have these two phrases got in common? They are both top trending right now on Twitter. Clicking through you see a whole host of mean jokes about things a person who eats a lot and makes money as a sex worker might say (in a parallel universe where self-mockery was compulsory). Clicking to the rapist songs and you'll see sick jokes about lines in songs that sound 'a bit rapey'.

I tweeted how depressing the first one was an got a response from @ who pointed out the 2nd one and was just as disgusted.

I realise there is some irony in posting on my blog, when the whole point of my argument is what a waste of time to spend on something negative, but it made me thoroughly depressed to see how negative people on social platforms can be and how infectious and rapid the spread of the disease can be. I wondered if it was an accurate cross-section of the wider world.

If each one of the people tweeting on one of these hashtags spent just as long doing something positive today, humankind would advance in small and significant ways. I realise I'm at risk of appearing in the script of 'Pay it forward' but being nice isn't boring, it's actually quite easy and just as infectious as being mean, the only thing you have to do is choose which world you want to live in.

I've made my choice...

 

 

 

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