Joseph's English Journal

Dear editor of the Guardian.

In this response, I shall explain why I disagree with Russell Brand’s views on our democratic system. As I think his views on our political system is inaccurate as he has presented rash solutions . I will challenge Russell Brand’s views of his quest on this, proposed revolution and how it is a wrong way to approach the political system.

In the article Russell Brand states that “Democracy is irrelevant.” I disagree with his opinion, as democracy is not irrelevant in anyway. Democracy is way of resolving many problems that may dwell in society without resorting in civil wars or violence. It encourages participation as it shows that people’s votes determine the way the government is run. Mr. Brand also states that ” The only reason to vote is if the vote represents power or change. I don’t think it does.” I disagree, as its representing that power dwell within the people who vote. This is shown by countries without a voting system, an example of this is Ukraine, which had fought for democracy for many years and now it’s a democracy, they even considered themselves a more unified country than ever before, with a much stronger sense of national identity.

Russell Brand, himself ,states that “I don’t know, the reason not voting could be effective. ” and also states  “My opinions are a results of decades of drug abuse”  Russell Brand does not make very effective arguments, but he has made points to a targeted audiences where the more unfortunate of people, who don’t feel like they have a say in the democracy can relate to Russell Brands views, since he is trying to represent the minority, so by sharing the fact that he is a drug abuser will help readers to sympathize with him more as a person. However this does not help from a political perspective, as this shows he is not familiar with it. Russell Brand uses anecdotes to persuade his readers, to show where he as a person started from. This is an effective way to persuade the readers, it helps them relate to his real life experience. This involves and interest the readers, as anecdotes are true stories that can be very convincing as well as believable. This adds authenticity to what he’s write since it shows genuine passion for what he’s talking about. Russel gains adds authority since he has experience these inequalities, instilling emotive and personal depth to what he is saying which can be considered a way to entice his readers.

Russell Brand has exaggerated many political problems and stated that “Egypt and Easter islands the incubated ruling elites, who had forgotten that we are one interconnected people,destroyed their societies by not sharing. This is, what’s happening now.” He has compared the situations of Egypt and the Eater islands dictatorships to the UK, this is a exaggeration as  Egypt’s situations is more drastic as they had the same leader for 40 years, whilst our selected-leader is changed every 5 years, unless they are to be re-elected again.

What Russell Brand has said, was dangerous and ill-advised, as people are still dying all over the world for the right to vote and he’s just dismissed all of this with “ The impact of voting is negligible” its a gift that we have the right to vote in this country. He didn’t present any solutions to the problems he has presented, so how are his comments actually helping young people who feel disengaged in our political system as it is ? Russell has only expressed biased views against democracy, stating that voting is unnecessary as it has no meaning to the way the country is governed.

“That depends on them? The system that we are invited to vote for? Of course not, that’s why I won’t vote. That’s why I support the growing revolution.” Russell Brand uses a lot of rhetorical questions throughout this article, which is used to get the readers to think and to realise how are current democratic system is not unified, for such reason he wishes not to vote, however this creates more of a rift in the UK system, which is no revolution. He has used persuasive devices such as question marks to subtly influence his readers and to answer his proposed questions, which could cause the reader to doubt our political system.

Russell Brand should better educate himself in politics since he is not solving any key issues and to say“ There’s no point in voting.” is not helpful  so instead he should try to encourage young people to vote more and to get involved, instead of causing this rift as he says “The facts are the facts and problem is the problem.” and Russell brand is the problem and he is only causing more “disparity” which is a fact. I may have been biased myself but an article, for democracy by me and article for the cons of democracy by Russell Brand, should help the undecided to become decided.

Sincerely,

Joseph Babalola-Davies

Have you ever been bombarded with a ludicrous amount of internet pop-ups whilst you were surfing the internet? Well if you have been, then you are a victim of ” Mad pop-up syndrome.” This is where pop-ups keep popping one after another on your web browser, if this has happened to you, then you have my dearest sympathies.

Internet advertisements can be very irritating and can be a pay in the neck. We have all been a victim of them at least once in our lifetime when surfing the web. This has happened to me when I was checking my email after I had clicked on one simple link, it had then made my computer screen become filled with all these advertisements, which had resulted my computer to crash as a result.

Some people may say that ads help our economy to grow, as ads are online 24/7, so there’s a constant exposure, which allows people the opportunity to see potential deals and to keep buying online things due its convenience. But to me this is a way to keep us hostage in our rooms, to get us to keep on buying these ridiculous products, products we may not even need. This is a psychological  ploy to get us to buy these useless and faulty online merchandise.

According to the Telegraph, the UK spends £4.8 billion on internet advertising on average, and in 2012 the UK had spent £5 billion on advertising alone, according to the Guardian. I understand this helps firms make more money due there being more exposure, however 95% of firms use internet ads as a means of promotion. Its bad enough they have spent £5 billion in advertising alone, where as they could use such a vast amount of money on other things, instead of these annoying pop ads. Even TV ads would better as they are less questionable in comparison, as the internet has many untrustworthy deals.

These days there are ads everywhere, on the streets, signs, billboards and even in your own home, yes your home and now your computer has literally become a window to advertisements. Ads offer you seemingly good deals, but with obscure fine prints. They may have invaded our homes , streets and practically our daily lives but don’t let them hold you hostage, ads present themselves in a convincing manner and use propaganda to get their way.

We live in the digital age, where there is more advertising than ever before. This has even started on our own phones and mobile apps. More firms have spent more money to advertise on phone applications, in fact advertising has increased by 157% since 2011. This has been quite devastating to us since now all business are trying to scam us out of our money via ads. Many more firms are advertising on apps we use and play, such as an app I “used” to play which is called Subway Surfers. You may have noticed every time before you start this wondrous game, there is a dreaded ad with an X icon ,being equivalent size to a pin head. it’s so small you can hardly touch it and it’s too close to the ad that you will accidentally click on it, which then opens up pages and pages of nonsensical advertising. However this is not the worst of things, the developers of Subway surfers themselves, prompt you to watch their ads in exchange for coins, people such as me have been enticed with the idea of receiving these coins to buy their “rarest items.” I find watching their adverts quite tedious to get 100 coins ,which honestly is not worth much in in-game money.

YouTube have used a similar “technique” to get you to watch, or force  you to endure through their adverts. Before Google, YouTube 2 years ago didn’t have any adverts, it was a simpler time when pop-ups weren’t a constant reminder of how greedy multi-billion corporations were for your money. Ever since Google had bought YouTube for £1.6 billion, YouTube had change for the better and for the worse. Google had place pre-loading  adverts, which will force you to watch often from, 30-45 seconds of ads and you’ll find it in once in a blue moon that you’ll see a skip add button in the bottom right corner of the ad.

As for Google or should I refer to Gmail, it’s great but yet you find it rarely, that your inbox is empty. It’s always filled with junk mail from Google play store as Google is trying to promote their own apps . I have Gmail on my phone and every second it constantly vibrates and  I check my phone to only see a grotesque and vulgar ad, from the one and only Google. To this day I still receive these ads, unable to stop them.

I feel pop-ups shall be forever irritating and we have to suffer by the hands of internet ads, not even ad blocks can cure ” Mad pop-up syndrome” I can only hope that one day pop-ups can be completely eradicated off the Earth. Some may say internet ads are useful perhaps, they are to some extent however I feel it’s not, as for the many reasons I have given but we are all grown ups here, so lets agree to disagree on the usefulness of ads.