Angry Birds

Perhaps it is a reflection of our modern mindset. Perhaps we have always been like that but modern technology has allowed for it to be communicated farther and faster. Perhaps it is the natural order of things for humans.

I speak of dissatisfaction. Of anger, even.

This came to light a short while ago when I was introduced to a strange occurrence called ‘Angry Birds’.

It appears that this ‘Angry Birds’ is a computer programme with which I am unfamiliar. It is, I am told, a game.

I do not wish to become familiar with it since the very name deters me from playing it. Not, I confess, that I play any computer game ever since ‘Elite’ dropped out of the market.

These ‘Angry Birds’ appear to have enemies called ‘Bad Piggies’. This merely compounds the revulsion that I feel towards this game.

These birds have, at best, embryonic wings and proportions that make them entirely un-birdlike, if I might coin an expression. But it is not their appearance or, for that matter, what they purport to do that irritates me so much.

It is just their name. ‘Angry Birds’.

Why can’t we have ‘Happy Birds’? Maybe ‘Content Birds’, ‘Cheerful Birds’, ‘Friendly Birds’ whose enemies are called ‘Chubby Piggies’ or some such.

Why is it necessary to promote negatives? What is it about negatives that is attractive, that makes this game so popular?

Have we become so inured to violent death and hatred on films and television that we see no other version of life?

Why is a bird called ‘Eggbeater’ much admired when, clearly, it has cannibalistic tendencies? Although, that said, there are many birds that rob other birds’ nests and eat the offspring.

Speaking of which, there is a Yellow Vented Bulbul, even now, pecking my window. Angrily. I am sure that it believes its reflection is a competitor.

We see, as I have mentioned before on oft occasion, a predilection for people to spread rumours and theories based on hatred on the social media. This immediately makes it ‘Unsocial Media’, of course.

There are so many comments debasing and denigrating the views of other people in, often, verbally violent ways. There are calls to ‘ban this’ and ‘proscribe that’.

Many of these comments are without basis of fact and are posted by people with little or no knowledge of what they speak; they are just passing along something someone else has said. These are comments that are based on misquotes and misperceptions.

It is almost possible to see the person ‘sharing’ or writing these posts being angry about it. Yet there is no reasonable, and I stress the word ‘reasonable’, excuse for that anger.

Anger has become the socially accepted ‘norm’. We are supposed to get angry. About anything, really.

Someone dumps trash in the road so we get angry and say that ‘somebody should do something’. We should skip past the idea that the person saying that could, equally, be the person ‘doing something’ because that will never happen. Nobody wants to ‘get involved’.

We should get angry about that, too. People should get involved. It is their civic and moral duty to get involved.

It is entirely possible that we could get angry about almost anything. Irrationally angry.

I get angry about ‘aves iratus’ computer games.