Traditions Now Measured In Minutes Instead of Centuries: Change Due to the Internet and Social media

Traditions-FNT-Small.pngLLANIDLOES, WALES – Died-in-the-wool traditionalists are bemoaning the gradual loss of community-minded events like May Day, and the Internet and social media are being blamed.

“I am completely disgusted. There isn’t a Maypole to be found within five-hundred miles these days,” said Eddie Stempowski, thirty-one, from London. “The next thing we know, traditions like Christmas and St. Valentine’s day will disappear too. You just watch.”

“And what about Maslenitsa? “ he continued, “It used to happen at the end of February and lasted a week. We celebrated the end of winter. My family cooked pancakes over fires and burnt straw scarecrows of winter. But last February when I lit a fire, a hook and ladder truck showed up. I blame those busybodies on social media.”

Mr. Stempowski is not alone in noting this alarming trend in disappearing traditions and his observations are backed up by solid research.

An Oxford University study has shown that traditions previously begun, carried on and passed down for hundreds of years are now being started, practiced and then discarded within minutes.

This flouting of habitual group behavior that, once established with symbolic meaning, used to persist and be passed on to later generations, does not bode well for the future.

“My friends and I had a tradition between eleven o’clock and noon of sending hashtagged photos to each other” said Tara Loudsen, who is studying first-year milk carton decorating at university. “But that was so this morning.”

“I tried to start a tradition in my family,” grumbled twenty-three year old Shawn Overmyer, looking down at his smartphone while he texted as he talked, not making eye contact, “And I set the boundaries for it and everything, but I couldn’t get anyone else interested in posting disappearing media to the Internet.”   Source: FNT Staff

Photo credit: Original images at: Sykes Cottages, CNBC

Christmas Miracle: Journalists Shift Focus From British Royal Engagement for a Full Seven Minutes

Christmas Miracles-FNT-Small.pngCANADIAN PRESS – Cynical skeptics who dismiss miracles as bunk and superstition, especially at Christmas, had their illusions rudely shattered during the holiday, this past week. After more than a year of invasive spying, non-stop gushing, rampant idle speculation and general mindless prattle focused on prosaic minutiae involving the day to day lives of just two youthful members of the 7.5 billion people on Earth, the media suddenly turned their attention to something else for a full seven minutes.

“It was a bona fide miracle!” exclaimed Todd Rolephson, a certified egg and turnip candler from London who has also worked as a part-time chauffeur for certain members of high-placed British families when they wanted a discreet pub crawl. “I never saw the like of it before.”

James Flinders, a toenail burnisher from Liverpool, who was hanging out with Rolephson agreed with his mate that the media’s sudden absence of obsessive preoccupation with the lives of these two young people “…was definitely in the realm of miracles.”

“It eases my mind to know that journalists are capable of turning their attentions to something of substance and that is actually of importance to the world, every once in a while,” he said.

It seems unseemly to look for causes when one is talking miracles, but as the media can never accept anything at face value without deconstructing it to look for nefarious purpose, this year’s Christmas miracle should not be exempt from close examination.

Thus the question: why did journalists suddenly abandon their posts for seven full minutes and shirk their self-professed duties that involve spending inordinate amounts of time gathering and then breathlessly conveying obscure, trivial details about the lives of these two people? Inquiring minds want to know.

Because when someone is as youthful, attractive and well-connected as these two are, prying into the tiniest aspects of their lives 24/7 is compulsory for media.

“It’s titillating stuff for people with small minds, short attention spans and a lot of free time on their hands,” said Broderick Kellerman, a photocopy-paper collator from Somerset. “And that group makes up a huge audience, so I can’t understand why the journalists would suddenly lose interest.”

James Flinders said he believed that he had the answer.

“They just took time out for a restroom break,” he explained. “Normally, five minutes would be enough. But it was the holiday, you know.” Source: FNT Staff

Photo credit: Original images at: RateMDs , Keep Calm And Posters