What Sophie Said

Today on Twitter I saw a major spoiler for the new episode of Pretty Little Liars. My first reaction was extreme annoyance – it was released on UK Netflix today so those of us that work during the day can’t watch it until at least this evening. And it was a big plot spoiler, too, complete with screenshots. Ironically, it was from someone who always complains about other people tweeting spoilers but that’s another discussion… And then what did I do? I got over it. Just because I haven’t had a chance to watch something yet doesn’t mean I can stop the rest of the world from talking about it. Yes, people who go out of their way to spoil tv shows and films are NOT NICE PEOPLE, but if someone is tweeting an opinion on something they’ve seen, they have every right to do that. When I see people ranting and raving on twitter about people ‘giving away’ results on things like X Factor or the Bake Off, it just makes me laugh. You can’t expect the world to go ...

I’ve ‘almost’ written this post so many times. As a fact in itself, this makes me sad. Each time I’m prompted to write it, I take a step back, and just note it down. Because I don’t want to make it clear each time exactly what I’m reacting to. The particular discussion/topic doesn’t actually matter. What matters are people’s reactions to it. On the one hand, the blogging/social media world is a tight-knit community. People make great friendships. People share great content. People applaud one another’s successes. But every now and then – and unfortunately it’s fairly consistent – there’s drama. This is to be expected to an extent. After all, no one is happy all of the time, and arguments and disagreements happen. The majority of the time, people are mature enough to accept that it’s ok to have different opinions. Sometimes, these opinions are harmful or upsetting to one or multiple people. Sometimes, it’s impossible not to respond. The probl...

A couple of years ago, I deleted a LOT of people from Facebook. Well, I ‘unfriended’ them. When you first get Facebook, which for me was at school, it becomes all about how many ‘friends’ you have, and about immediately connecting with everyone you meet. Then you start university, and that game starts all over again. The problem is, the majority of those people you just don’t care about. It’s not that I wish ill on any of them, but I just don’t need to know every detail of their lives. The new rule is, if I wouldn’t stop for a chat in the street, or drop them a message to catch up, I don’t need to be a Facebook friend. I think that became even more clear for me when I got into Twitter. Twitter is more about connecting publicly with a wide range of people, who share your interests. In contrast, I see Facebook as much more private, a space to share photos and messages with ‘real life’ friends. I’m not too strict, and there are people in my ‘friend’ list that I’ve not caught up with ...