YouTube views

We are being manipulated. Everyone is.

Advertisers, TV producers, YouTube uploaders, they all want as much of our attention as they can get. Because attention leads to money: we buy their products, or we watch their programmes and advertisers pay more to sponsor the programmes so that we see the adverts and buy their products, etc., etc., etc.

And above all else, one thing sells: sex.

How many YouTube videos have a picture of topless women as their main image? Even ones that have nothing to do with women will use these images to get people to view them. Because the more views an uploader gets, the more likely it is that they'll get sponsored.

Because we're exposed to all this sexual imagery on a daily basis, it means that we get used to it, it's normal instead of shocking, and that makes it more likely that we'll tolerate it.  Like people seem to tolerate the Johns and prostitutes in car parks.  And when we tolerate things we don't see them for what they really are.

Take for example a couple of videos:

The first one is about a jogger who keeps pooping behind someone's house, and the second shows a number of people using the back of a store as a public toilet.

Again, just so we're clear, these are criminal acts.  If people get caught doing this sort of thing they can be charged, with indecency offences and criminal damage.

Now I'm all for being tolerant, but let's try an remember what's important.

World News:
Stephen Sutton has been released from hospital.  After raising over £3million for charity thanks to his bucket list, he's been discharged.

I've heard a lot of haters on social media suggesting that Stephen is a fraud, that he pretended to have cancer, either to raise funds or for attention.  But my wife is a nurse and she has a different interpretation.

Sometimes, hospitals will send people home because there's nothing more they can do.  For the hospital it frees up a bed for someone else in need, and for the patient it means that they can spend a little more quality time with the family.  But Stephen is almost certainly not faking and his recent recovery might only be short lived.

And finally...

Strong language advisory. 
Epic takedown of a bully

For anyone who has ever been picked on, take heart, it is possible to dish out a little payback (BTW I'm not advocating swearing here, these guys are Scottish and to them swearing is like a dialect).