THE ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA

Anti-digital. Antisocial. That’s Mr. Jaafar, our neighbourhood's resident anti-social media man. All those hours people spend hypnotised by their little rectangles, posting their most absurdly banal thoughts and life events for the benefit of hundreds, even thousands, of their ‘followers’, just so other people can do the same; Mr. Jaafar has the most refreshing and refreshed attitude to all this. No smartphone for him. The guy loves an actual chat. He’d rather work on his gardens or tinker with his vintage cars. When someone mentions the latest viral video or asks for his Instagram, he looks at you as if you've just spoken another language, which is funny.

Not Facebook, not Instagram, not TikTok—none of it! Instead, he walks around with his 30-year-old vintage camera, recording moments in the most outdated way possible. When you mention the word ‘hashtag’ or ‘filter’, expect a disgusted smirk from him accompanied by a smug display of his collection of old-school photo albums before he incessantly jokes, ‘My pictures will last longer than all those digital ones, destined to vanish into oblivion.’ For that alone, of course, you have to respect him for sticking to his guns and adding a nostalgic backdrop to our wired world. I guess that’s just it—some people are so analogue.