We all share and share alike — and that keeps the busybodies busy
Nothing is off the table nowadays and it’s because we all keep on oversharing on social media, writes
ON Twitter last Thursday, SixOne co-presenter, Caitriona Perry revealed, as it is said, that she is pregnant. “To all the eagle-eyed @rtenews #SixOne viewers who have been in touch… you are correct!” Perry tweeted. “I am expecting some ‘news’ of my own later this year.”
There was a smiling steeliness to Perry’s tweet. It was a bit like the way a school teacher would commend a student for being awful smart, when they meant smart-aleck, rather than clever.
She’s patting those observant viewers on the back for noticing that she looks a bit different, even though everyone knows that’s the last thing any pregnant woman wants to hear.
Still, why would that stop anyone these days? We live in a time when nothing is off the table and even though real-life politeness still exists around pregnancy, we’ve found a virtual way around that.
In the anonymous, arm’slength world of reaching out and getting “in touch”, we’ve found you can say whatever pops in to your head and then watch it reverberate.
Perry’s polite reaction to what she suggests was viewers’ reaching out to her was to say, “You’re right, well done, but that’s it. Back off.”
No due date. No revelation of whether she’s going public or private or which hospital she’s chosen. No medical charts. Polite but firm, in the hope that it’s put to bed, which is a lot to ask in the age of the busybody.
Andy Murray went full hospital bed last Thursday, when he posted on Instagram a photograph of himself recovering after an operation on his hip.
Murray has been publicly open recently about how his ongoing hip issues likely signal the end of his tennis career and he has been uncharacteristically emotional about retirement coming earlier than he might have hoped.
Having shared and been emotionally open on the subject may have in part driven Murray’s decision to upload the snap of himself on a hos- pital trolley, begowned and abundantly be-tubed post-operatively. He may also have felt keen to convey that he was OK, given how bleak he has been lately. So there he is, looking wan and weak but unbowed after his unpleasant-sounding hip resurfacing.
What people continue to hope is that they will make a statement, visual or verbal, and that will be it. That will define it. Perhaps, there will be mood- or ego-boosting ‘likes’, but the character of the revelation will be what they say it is.
Dream on. There is always a busybody. We live in a world of busybodies.
Andy Murray got plenty of ‘get well soons’ last Thursday, but he also got a message from the Association for Vascular Access (AVA) in the United States, who took exception to the level of treatment he was receiving.
On Twitter, they reposted the picture of Murray, with arrows to the various tubes inserted in to him and notes attached outlining all the things that were done incorrectly.
“Fifty people die every day in America as result of complications related to hospital tubes,” they wrote. And the notes included details such as that his arm hair should have been clipped if tubes were to be inserted; that there was blood visible in the IV tubing; that stopcocks were present and could possibly cause infection.
It sounded like Andy Murray’s life was in danger.
We don’t know how it affected Andy Murray’s mood or confidence, which one could guess had been relatively good when he agreed to be photographed and displayed online.
Needless to say, a UK doctor was forced to disagree with their US colleague. This reported consultant in intensive care and pre-hospital care added notes to the AVA notes, contradicting that arm hair should be clipped as that can increase infection rate, apparently, and that the visible blood was common post-operatively.
They also said that the multiple tubes the AVA said were in the incorrect arm had to be positioned there due to the fact that this was necessary due to positioning the patient on their side during the operation.
“I think someone has got a little bit excited in terms of trashing it without knowing half the story,” wrote the UK medic.
Not that the UK medic necessarily knew the full story themselves, of course, and yet rowed in, keen to be part of it.
To a great extent, however, we invite the busybodying. Ours is a culture of laying it all out there. Murray may have thought he was posting an innocuous, end-in-itself medical update, but then it grew legs. And that’s what happens. What seems trivial or innocuous as a statement or action is all open to endless busybodying.
Meghan Markle’s pregnant belly is a case in point. Last week saw analysis and even criticism of how she seems to show it off in her choice of clothes and the way she wears them. Her constant cradling of her burgeoning bump was becoming irksome to some, giving rise to much online chatter and discussion of whether she is a warm woman bonding with her baby pre-birth, or simply a show-off.
Busybodying is an activity that runs the duration of a pregnancy, it seems. And not your own pregnancy, obviously, but any you are eagle-eyed enough to keep a watch over.
It may be too late to say that we have brought this on ourselves with the constant sharing, but here is the consequence. Even when we share innocently, inconsequentially, or don’t share at all, there’s always plenty of opinion.
Whether we like it or not.
‘Meghan’s cradling of her bump gave rise to much online chatter’