Jamie Williams

When I reflect on all the websites I've logged into, all the forums I've registered with, how many email addresses I have (off the top of my head I can think of five!), services such as online banking and all the different passwords and usernames I have to remember, I get this mental image below:



And frankly. it's all getting a bit much. I'm going to clear out my inbox, reply "Unsubscribe" to all the pointless emails I get, and generally clean up my internet history and activities. Not the porn though, I'll never give up the porn. But what I mean is, there's the one they call beambeam, and then there is Jamie Williams. One is outrageous, another is the lovable rogue adored by all friends and family alike, and it's time that I start clearing my tracks a little bit.

We live in a fucking bizarre world these days, most noticeably there's been a paradigm shift in media over the last ten year, I say ten because for me, 1999 was the year I first had a mobile phone and began to use the internet for more than just supervised sessions at the school library, during this time I've been privvy to many changes in the way we use the internet.

From simple browsing, literally not knowing what was out there, to knowing today, that there really isn't anything you can't find on the internet, rather than list exotic examples, I'll let your imagination run wild, trust me, you'll find it. But more often than not, the internet lands people in trouble these days, and as I leave the student life behind, it's something I'm increasingly aware of.
Say that I am destined for big things, when the media start googling me to bits, I don't want a paper(less) trail leading them to forum comments and blog posts where I've made off-the-cuff, attention seeking and controversial statements, 99% of the time for the banter. We all know how the media fucking love a bit of scandal.

With this culture of lazy reporting in existence these days then, I'm prompted to gently reduce the risk such scandals in the future as well as making all my internet information easily manageable.

I refer to contemporary journalism as lazy because any fool can google a name and find some dirt if they trawl deep enough, but it's another term that I like to apply when referring to this culture - Junk Food Journalism. I like to think I coined that phrase myself but the trigger was one of the more influential teachers from my high school, (those who attended with me require no naming of names) when discussing the merits of television.

Junk Food Journalism adequately describes the style of reporting that goes on these days, the red top papers and glossy magazines seem to care more about bringing ten page spreads on irrelevant individuals than reporting more wholesomely on the more intelligent side of life, What's worse however, is that the general public seem to crave this worthless information like a fat bastard wants a deep fried Pizza, hence the use of junk food.

People are shamefully addicted to dumbed down articles that easily satisfy their craving until they need their next fix the following issue, and amongst all this, fantastic achievements by admirable characters and genuinely impacting and intelligent news go ignored, saved in a bin for titbit sections, to fill the spare columns leftover when you rinsed a celebrity getting out a taxi for as many pages as possible. It is this that drives me to effectively wash my dirty laundry, my biggest fear is doing really well at judo again or creating a great career out of sports psychology and having this sullied just because some lazy cunt of a reporter googles a bit deeper than usual, I'd hate for my achievements to be overlooked in favour of a clutch of throwaway remarks I made in the past or something I've done coming back and haunting me years later.

I think I've explained myself a little bit more than I needed to now and I bet you're sitting there googling already wondering "What's he fucking hiding then?" but truthfully, there's nothing I'm that fussed about, just... imagine if your granny could surf the web, you'd find yourself in some deep shit wouldn't you!

Whilst I'm on the topic of junk food journalism though, I wonder, will it ever change? Will I always have to go online and find the news that I want to read myself, will the nation eventually tire of it's Jade Goody's and John Smeaton's, hardly Nobel prize quality really (he says as he turns the pages of his broadsheet!) but I'd take anyone as a replacement!

Right, enough for today, have a think about what I said now now.