May 28, 2020
#advertising, #bullshit, #clap shaming, #clapping, #coercion, #Dennis O Driscoll, #honest, #honesty, #manipulation, #No thanks, #O Driscoll, #obligation, #plain speaking, #saying no, #social media, #social media platforms, #spin
by Lucy Crispin
I was walking with a friend the other day—how marvellous to be able to write that again—and she was telling me how she’d been co-opted without consultation into a cheesy social-media-platform birthday tribute to someone she hasn’t even seen for about many years, and with whom she had no significant relationship anyway. Something about this, or rather, our reaction to this, put me in mind of the glorious ‘No, Thanks’, by Dennis O’Driscoll. This is the only version of the whole text I can find online, and it’s been very slightly edited from the print version I have. You have to scroll almost to the bottom of the page and when you get there it’s not laid out well. But I reckon it’s better to have a “nearly” version of this poem than not. Do read it out loud to yourself. It’s one of those poems which tells you exactly how it wants to be read.
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