Attempting (yet again) to post on YouTube, I started from scratch and created “My Channel.” Wow, I’m important. My own channel. Not sure what it meant but I went for it. It asked for my avatar. My what? Er, do I have my own god who descended to Earth? Oh, a photograph. Dang, I used to be good at languages.
To talk me through this, I met with my — what to call her — my social media guru? A web angel. Perhaps she’s my avatar! See, I’m stunned by the number of websites on which, as an artist running my own business, I’m supposed to have a presence. There are those I’m already using but can’t get off the ground floor: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube. Others, like Tumblr, Flickr, Spotify, Storify, are gaining momentum; hundreds I’m only now hearing of. New ones are created daily and somehow everyone’s hip to them. Except me. And maybe a few folks in my age range. Babies are now born with this knowledge in their DNA.
I try to keep up, really I do. I’m not new to computers. I was there at the start: Cadbury Schweppes, London, 1980, an IBM 8100. Obsolete by the time it was installed. Letterhead, glued onto continuous feed paper one sheet at a time, flew off the printer like paper planes. No polite question when you gave the computer an instruction. No “Are you sure?” No “yes/no” button. When you said, “Delete,” it deleted. No second chance. Many a freshly-typed 40-page financial report was lost that way. Much sobbing was heard.
Conan O’Brien joked: Twitter, My Space and Facebook should form one site called, “My Twitface.” Quite right. ONE web communication zone; a sort of Universal Remote combining all my social media, a Universal Remote Combo, a UROMBO! Whenever I write, act, sing, dance, smile, burp, fart, or tell a story, I push URombo’s button to broadcast on all my media simultaneously. URombo will have top-notch, state-of-the-art questioning ability, asking, “Are you sure?” if I try to share on YouTube a video of a drunk Englishwoman slipping up in the lobby of a 5-star hotel clutching a litre of Bombay Sapphire. URombo will question before I know there’s a question to be asked. URombo understands me!
Wait a minute…Mum loathed the universal remote; we laughed at her individual controls for the TV, VCR, and the Goblin Teasmaid. My mother-in-law only recognizes the on/off switch. “Something’s happened to my TV! I tried to record The Golden Girls when it just died!” I quietly curse before talking her through it one more time. Ah, Berni Nason, you know what this is? Computer Karma. Pay-back time! Universe, if you’re listening, I vow never to treat old people like idiots again. I’d better have a cup of tea to calm myself down. What the…hey, Geek, move away from my kettle!