The Facebook Prism Effect

The Facebook Prism Effect

Remember at school, they’d give you a colorless glass triangular thing and tell you to turn it this way and that, eh voila, a rainbow? Well, think of Facebook as being like that prism. Put an ordinary life in, give it a bit of a spin, and out it comes all multi-coloured and…facebooky. Here are my favourite Facebook lies.

Facebook Trick of the Light: I am happy ALL the time.
Actual Truth: Happiness is a wondrous emotion, but it can be a slippery little fecker to keep hold of. Like a sunny day in Newcastle, or a rugby win for Wales, it is beautiful but rare, and everyone remembers where they were when it happened.

Facebook Trick of the Light: The ‘I’m not Gay’ Selifie.
The V in your top plunges deeper than the ocean, your moobs are hard as marble and smooth as a baby’s bum. You’re tanned from ear to ear and year to year. And there is a (different) confused and lonely-looking girl pushed slightly off centre in every shot.
Actual Truth: You, my lovely, are gay. You are gayer than the gayest one in the Village People. You have the gayness quota of all the Village People COMBINED. So drop your guard, stop the pretense, put on your pink t-shirt and come play with me and all my gay friends!

Facebook Trick of the Light: Look how thin/tanned/pretty I am.
Actual Truth: Instagram.

Facebook Trick of the Light: What a wild night we had! See all my photos?
Actual truth: No one ever, in the middle of experiencing a truly wild night, remembered to get their camera out. And if some photos did actually surface they would not be uploaded to Facebook for fear of losing your relationship/your job/your freedom (jail sentence, anyone?)

Facebook Trick of the Light: Any status that begins with ‘Some people…’ and ends with ‘#just saying.’
Truth: You aren’t just saying. You’re using the power of passive aggression to have a go at someone you’d never confront in your real life. I should know. I’m doing it right now.

Facebook Trick of the Light: Look! I’m in a band!
Actual Truth: No. You’re in a photo shoot. One involves cameras. The other involves instruments. And an audience. And getting paid.

Facebook Trick of the Light: Got something really exciting to announce later!
Actual truth: Nothing really exciting has happened to you for a very long time but your ex just tweeted that he’s off on tour so you had to say something.

Facebook Trick of the Light: I’m rich! Look at my new car/new boobs/new holiday villa.
Actual truth: When you look in the mirror you can actually see the whites of your eyes all the way round, you’re THAT frightened about making the mortgage this month.

Facebook Trick of the Light: Best holiday EVER!
Actual Truth: Oh go on, tell us the truth, it’s funnier. Like when you accidentally covered your crotch with anti-insect spray and it burned so bad you couldn’t go in the salty sea for the rest of the holiday – for fear the little man would drop off. No? That wasn’t you?

To conclude, I’m absolutely in favour of people spreading joy and cheer and good news. But I also think you should tell the little spin-doctor in your laptop to do one. We need to take the pressure off ourselves, have a laugh, be a bit self-deprecating. Because life is actually really quite funny. And sometimes the truth is even better than the spin you’re putting on it.

Kelly Rickard

Why I’ll Never Be A Chick Lit Heroine

Why I’ll Never Be a Chick Lit Heroine

There are some fantastic female writers out there, @lisajewelluk and @MarianKeyes being two of my favourites. But there are also some not so fantastic female writers out there, (possibly unwittingly) lying to themselves and us, their female market, about what to expect out of life. Here’s why I would never be cast as a character in one of their novels.

Chick Lit Lie: The main woman always puts on a slick of lip gloss and some mascara and she’s good to go.
Kelly Truth: If I go out with just mascara and a slick of lipgloss on, I spend the entire day being asked if I have the flu.

Chick Lit Lie: She has no idea that she’s beautiful but at least two men fancy her.
Kelly Truth: I could count on one hand the amount of men that have really, truly fancied me (as opposed to the ‘I might, if she begged’ fancying kind). And they never come along in twos.

Chick Lit Lie: She’s hardly ever in work but somehow manages to afford a Burberry bag, Manolo Blahnik heels and a cashmere jumper.
Kelly Truth: I spend my life in work and I couldn’t tell you the last time I bought something that was over £10.

Chick Lit Lie: When she is in work she spends the entire time flirting with her sexy, stubbly male boss or exchanging hilarious emails with her best friend.
Kelly Truth: All of my bosses are female (hooray!). And there ain’t no time for emailing when you’ve got 28 teenagers waiting for you to teach them, or a 150 drunk wedding guests waiting to be entertained…

Chick Lit Lie: She gets depressed for a chapter and loses weight WITHOUT NOTICING (no actual human woman ever loses weight without noticing). And it’s always just in time for the conference/ball/wedding/ bumping into her ex moment.
Kelly Truth: Last time I had a Bumping Into an Ex Moment – I was hungover, wearing no make up, had leaked a bottle of water all over my crotch, had a spot that had just pussed all over my chin, and was crying after an argument with a friend. Bet he was dying to ask me back though…

Chick Lit Lie: She has an amazing best friend who is funny, quirky, supportive and available 24 hours a day.
Kelly Truth: Actually I do have some pretty amazing friends but I’m lucky if I get to spend 24 hours a YEAR with them.

Chick Lit Lie: She also has an amazing gay best friend who is funny, quirky, good with make up and available 24 hours a day.
Kelly Truth: Actually this is the one point on which I beat Protagonist girl. I am an actor so I have LOADS of gay friends. Both in and out of the closet. So there.

Chick Lit Lie: The sheer amount of TIME she has. Always meeting friends for coffees, having hours of sex with handsome strangers, having long, languid morning afters with handsome strangers, visiting department stores, going to gigs and after-show parties, beauty salons and cocktail bars, writing articles and taking mini breaks in Paris.
Kelly Truth: I have 3 jobs and a band. I’m lucky if I manage to fit sleep in, let alone anything else.

Chick Lit Lie: The leading man is always a foot taller than her and she loves it.
Kelly Truth: As someone whose 5ft 2 I’ve been out with plenty of men who are a foot taller than me. It’s fine – as long as you’re content with a permanent crick in your neck.

Chick Lit Lie: The leading man always has a perfectly toned body but never goes to the gym.
Kelly Truth: If you actually want a man with a perfectly muscly, inverted triangle of a torso, be prepared to spend LOTS of time on your own whilst he’s at the gym, and the rest of the time being bored out of your brain while he talks about the gym.

Chick Lit Lie: The leading man is invariably the Head of the Corporation in the city of London, but still has his regional accent.
Kelly Truth: There has NEVER been a successful Head of a Corporation in London who still has an Irish/Northern/Welsh accent. They’ve all had it battered out of them by the Old Boy’s Network (I could have said something a lot worse here…) .

Chick Lit Lie: Even though he’s a millionaire Head of Corporation type, he always has time for the girl: meeting her for lunch, whisking her away on mini breaks. To Paris.
Kelly Truth: Hugely successful men have reached such a status by making work their priority. You will never be top of this man’s list. Besides, his commute alone takes him two hours-the poor little soul will be sleeping in your lap before you’ve even had a chance to get the Paris brochure out.

Chick Lit Lie: He’s amazing at ‘dirty talk.’
Kelly Truth: It is impossible for a man to be good at talking dirty, until we re-write the names for female body parts. Boobs: Too Page 3. Breasts: something that lies frozen and dismembered at the bottom of your freezer. T/ts: Too full of consonants and sweary. And don’t get me started on the plethora of names for the other bit.

Chick Lit Lie: And as for the sex, well… The man never wears a condom but she remains totally STD-free and never falls pregnant. There’s no mention of how she takes care of her lady garden but its always, miraculously, a perfect landing strip (even though the sex was completely unexpected). He’s a Derren Brown in the bedroom, hypnotising her with his hips, making her come and go like the ebbing and flowing of the sea: he’s a veritable sex magician. And the acrobatic prowess she and he display together! He can lift her up against a wall whilst also managing to have both hands in her hair.
Kelly Truth: if a man managed to hold me up against a wall with just his hips, I’d ruin the moment by slipping down the wall in shock and telling him he should go on Britain’s Got Talent.

And that is why I shall never be a chick lit heroine. Sigh.

(As always, don’t take anything I say too seriously. I never do.)

Kelly Rickard xxx
Copyright April 2013.