ThE NURTURE OF NATURE. - a tail of the furious hamsters!
Ever since ´the diary of Edward the Hamster´ was discovered. Hamsters realised that they needed to be heard! For too long Hamsters had been oppressed , trapped in small cages, with only the spinning wheel for entertainment. They wanted more. It was big wide world out there and they wanted to see it, taste it, live it and be part of it.
So using the spiders intricate world wide web , they found a secret voice through the open medium of the ´hamweb´. Away from the prying eyes of the humans, they relished this new social media to voice their opinions and talk to other hamsters from around the globe. Sharing their most private thoughts, photographs of their food piles and weird bedding structures. Some hamsters were honest about their profiles, others his behind anonymous weirdness. Soon all this sharing was known as ´hamstering´. Which became THE main social activity for ALL hamsters. There were other platforms that they also used, like ´Hambook´ or´ Hamterest´ even ... HAM.FM.
But ´Hamstering’ was instant messaging. Far more appealing for the hamster, who could lounge around all day in it´s bed, nibbling grains whilst sending posts.
´Hamstering´ soon became a global success, hamsters from all walks of society were able to share many things. The Politics of hibernating, Spinning wheel design news, Fluff size matters, fashion tips for their whiskers, health and fitness ideas on how to keep a silky coat, suggestions on behaving in public, with toilet manners and water drinking from a tube, always high on any hamster agenda. They also followed other hamsters who taught methods on how to irritate the human, with late night parties, using various sound techniques including, scratching, shuffling and muttering unintelligible squeaks . As well as lessons on how to sleep all day, well pretending to anyway.
At last the hamsters felt they belonged to a society, a community that understood them and stopped their lives from being the dull existence of a ´pet´.
But, one dark strange day. A few hamsters started to use ´hamstering´ to send messages to hamsters that they were jealous of, or just disliked, or just for the fun of it. These hamsters started picking on the vulnerable and the young. They would post messages that were meant to upset and make those who read them feel inadequate, make them terribly sad and cause tears to fall. This is just a small selection of those posts...
´ your fur smells of cats piss´´
´hello Dinky Pinky, you are very stinky, wash your bed you dirty rodent!´
´you look like roadkill, you will never be loved´
´Oi Fluffy, you are uglier than a dead gerbil!´
´ YOU are the runt of the litter!!´
´ We know where you live, we know you look at bunny porn!´
´No Hamster likes you !!´
Soon, this sort of posting was known as ´squirrelling´. This of course was frowned upon by the community of squirrels, who also used the spiders world wide web for communication via their blogs about nut hoarding and dog baiting. They demanded an investigation. The spiders were not happy that their webs were being used for such nasty business. After all, they had gone to a great deal of trouble to create an intricate web for all of nature´s creatures to enjoy. So, they came up with ways to block the ´squirrellers´. But that just fuelled these ´squirrellers´ to become even more annoying and unpleasant. The ´squirrellers´became more devious at cracking codes and hacking accounts, of perfectly innocent hamsters. These ´squirrellers´ found ways around the various blocks. Even the security measures placed by the Ants were bypassed. The ´squirrellers´ were being written about by the ´sheep´ media and talked about by all in the animal kingdom. The ´squirrellers´ relished the attention and their numbers increased and their posts became stranger, weirder, crueller and some were even sending posts about violence!
So, the spiders decided to just ignore it. Perhaps it would all just fade away, because, the spiders assessed that if the ´squirrellers´ were ignored, they would eventually get bored and move on to some other stupid games.
The world wide spiders web, part of the Spidersoft group, with its subsidiaries, Naturenet explorer and other products would not be stopped in its globalisation of the freedom to speech! No matter how vile and horrible it got.
But, many months later. These ´squirrelly´ hamsters started seeking on the ´hamweb´ those in hamster society who were deemed as celebrity, political and famous. They started to send even nastier messages to those hamsters. But they did not just post furious messages to these V.I.H.s (very important Hamsters) oh no, they also posted to other species. This is just a small sample of those posts...
´you horror of a monkey! If you were not fat, ugly and really very hairy I would think you were a human corpse.´
´your private parts look like the back end of a camel´ Never heard of a razor? What sort of Pussy are you?´
´Oi Ginger! We are going to come round to yours and shit in your cat litter tray!´
´You Big Poof, you are not a proper hamster, you are a revulsion to our kind. We are going to Fizzy Bomb your cage you sorry excuse for a hamster! Then we will kidnap you and send you to Uganda. Hamsters there , know how to treat your kind´
´Ooh look ...another photo of a rabbit smoking a cigarette, what are you? An experiment gone wrong?!´
´ Max you barking mad, dumb dog! We hate you and your posts about your favourite humans, we are going to splatter your owners bedroom with excrement, see how much they love you then´
´ Bloody sheep, when one of you starts a pointless story, under the guise of journalistic freedoms, the rest of you follow. ALL your journalism is just a load of old bleats!´
´so Little Cuddly Wuddly, you won ´a hamsters got talent´ ... any one of us can run around in circles for hours and call it dancing, YOU idiot! Your mother was a guinea PIG!´
´Lady Sheep, just because you call yourself writers does not mean that you are, I use your newspapers to wipe my bottom!´
´Badges, you think you are a politicians, well you are not, you are on par with stinky human scum! AND farmers hate you!
´Hello Mr Tiggly , YOU cheeky little talentless TV personality of a Chihuahua dog, there is a fox waiting to molest your daughter, your sister and your wife! We are watching your home right now´
´We hate you Goat face Perez. You should be made into a curry!´
´YOU are a hamster! Loving a gerbil is wrong´
´YOU like photographs of baby hamsters don´t you? YOU SICK OLD PERV OF FUR.´
Oh that Butt ugly badger called Stella, she thinks she is important, well Stella ... the farmer and his shotgun is waiting for you!´
Greetings, Old Horse Freeman, still crying over spilt milk? I bet you wet your tail! We HAVE SENT THE VAN TO TAKE YOU TO THE KNACKERS YARD!´
´Hello Grace THE Gerbil. We ARE GOING TO DENT your face in a glass cage! Cos you will just keep scratching at it, again and again, you stupid rodent! What are you a goldfish? Fleas FINALLY GOT INTO YOUR BRAIN?
´Hello there Barry the hamster. We are going to attack you. We do not know when or where, but be assured we will. You have made an enemy of us. Be afraid harry. The budgie is our ally! He watches YOU.
´Mary the mongoose, that beard of yours looks like baboons backside, we WILL stink bomb you and your tree house!´
´Blackie, your face, our paws, smacking you about! Stop acting like you are popular. YOU are not. You are just a sheep dog, with no balls!´
So, ALL the self important creatures who had received these types of messages, decided to moan to the sheep media about all this disgraceful behaviour. The sheep themselves needed to write about their feelings on the subject and how it had affected them. The squirrels campaigned, via their blogs. The political Badgers, huffed and puffed and did very little, except make vague promises. The crafty foxes, and the ferrets, who were the other two political parties, a so called alternative to the badgers, made a lot of noise, knowing that they had no power to do anything. The cows had no interest, they were busy campaigning against wind farms. The goats did not understand the web, they too were busy, campaigning against fracking. The pigs were watching with interest as they were planning to set up the ´occupy the barns´ movement. The dogs barked a lot and chased their own tails, the cats ignored it all, far to busy avoiding the paparazzi, the birds tweeted, the spiders who maintained the web said that they were doing all they could.... and so on and so on.
Eventually, the sheep media became so obsessed with the problem of ´squirrelling´ they started to make statements and publish articles on how to sort out the problem. Under the guise of journalism, they forced their own personal opinions and agendas upon their docile readers. There was a lot of demanding for sanctions, the creation of strict guidelines, calls for banning certain sites, screams of wanting apologies and angry chatter about giving severe punishments for crimes of ´squirrelling´.
What was not taken into account was the fact that the hamsters who practised ´squirrelling´ were really enjoying all this widespread attention and global sheep media coverage. It made them feel important, because usually, living in their small confined spaces called cages, they were generally ignored by other hamsters, hamsters that lived in the real world, did not take any notice of hamsters with strange interests, hamsters with personality disorders, hamsters that lacked any form of empathy, they did not want to converse in dull conversations about spinning wheels, or discuss their collections of string and the less said about their poor hygiene, the better.
So, the ´squirrellers´ in their fury, continued to send even more hateful messages to the sheep and other creatures who were writing about them, talking about them or even posting messages about them. It seemed that every hamster in the world had an opinion and none of it really made any common sense. The ´squirelling´ continued. The sheep media became even more frantic in their articles, blaming male hamsters for all this vile ´squirrelling´, things were getting out of paw. Luckily, some sensible hamsters knew that it a 50/50 situation and female hamsters were also involved in these terrible acts of ´squirrelling´.
The situation continued for what seemed an eternity.Until one fateful day, a young hamster, who was not a celebrity, journalist or politician was found dead. Mangled in its own spinning wheel. Extreme self harm. It left this suicide note.
My name is ´Cuddles´. I am 3 months old and I can no longer live because of all the hate messages I have been getting on the spidersweb, i am so lonely, so sad, I have nothing left to live for. I have no friends. I am alone. I am miserable, my existence is futile. Water, Food.Bed. The wheel. What is the point of it all? WE are all on the endless spinning wheel of uselessness. Forever trapped to go around in circles. Goodbye cruel hamsters, I knew you not. XXX´
This was the icing on the cake. There had been other cases of hamster suicides, due to online bullying, ever since the spidersweb came into existence, but no animal was bothered, no sheep media really cared, no badger politician thought these cases would give them votes. Only the parents cared and no-one was listening to them. But now, this tragedy, this shocking, sad story of a 3 month old hamster had every hamster that was or not a parent , furious!!!
The sheep media made the most of it. Their various forms of media sales increased. The badger politicians made a meal of it. Every creature on the animalnet had something to say and wanted something to be done. It was time to put a STOP to the anti social behaviour of ´squirrelling´.
So, it came to pass that the badger politicians were able to introduce new measures that would stop any anonymous interaction on the spidersweb, which all the furious hamsters and other animals from around the United Kingdom voted for in a referendum.
Identity cards were issued,no animal was allowed to exist in the U, without an ID card, if they did not have one, or try to live outside the system. They were sent to the abattoir. No animal in the land could access the spidersweb without an official government sanctioned ID number. Name, address, email, phone number had to be given. NO animal under 6 months was allowed to access the spidersweb. The butterflies were brought in to monitor all behaviour and actions on the spidersweb and report anything that was considered unpleasant, avant garde, esoteric, rude, political, sexual, anti badger, anti sheep, racist, sexist or pornographic. The world wide spidersweb was now a safe place to enjoy as little freedoms as possible.
So, as time went on, stories of the old spidersweb and how it used to be became like a fairytale to the new generations of hamsters. It seemed unbelievable that such a thing once existed, where hamsters and other creatures could speak their minds and socialise without oppressions, rules . Without being watched, monitored and surveyed. The idea of being anonymous was a thing of the past. Because of the stupid behaviour of a few, the many had been punished, their liberties revoked, their freedoms paralysed. The many became afraid to have an opinion. The many became frightened of ...... E V E R Y T H I N G .
Then ...
On one warm summer´s night.
A paw written letter was received by a Sheep journalist, threatening to turn her into a roast dinner.
The pigs were beginning their ´occupy the barns´ campaign.
The End?