Share My Cock.

 It's fair to say that these days, once you post something online, it's out there forever. Probably in the vaults of the NSA, but that's a paranoid theory for another time.

 The internet - or at least, the version of the internet familiar to the common man - is young enough, and grew so rapidly, that we're all struggling to catch up, and it leaves some parents paranoid about what their teenagers might get up to online (hint: wanking) and whether it's safe to do so (hint: not if you take pictures of it.)

 A while back, someone decided to post a picture on social media, with a caption along the lines of "please share this picture, I'm trying to teach my students how fast something can spread online." That was a good idea and a smart way to prove a point, but as the internet is basically a giant echo chamber of narcissism, it rapidly spawned a billion copycats.

 As a species, we don't need to do everything ourselves. Like higher primates and some types of corvid, we can learn from others without having the same experiences. When Edward Jenner invented the Smallpox vaccine, everyone around him didn't immediately start working on their own alternative. They saw what he did, said "That's a good idea!" and learned from it. Had we adopted this same attitude with the initial "please share" post, we could have taken one person's good idea and actually seen how far it went. By the end of the process, we'd be able to cite it as an example and actually tell students how far an online post can go.

 Instead, the current crop of pictures in the "share this to teach my students/girl scouts/orphanage/underage employees at the Nike factory about internet safety" are just a bunch of desperate "me too" copycats who are actually hindering the initial experiment. The first message sent out is now lost amongst the thousands of similar ones by sad, lonely people who in all likelihood have nothing to do with education or kids, and just wanted to start their own little message in a bottle as an ego boost, with the net effect that all of Twitter and Facebook are now littered with unread bottles that nobody gives a fuck about.

 So if you see something online that's a good idea, maybe appreciate it for what it is instead of feeling the urge to join in. And if you are a teacher, please don't add to the problem by lazily starting your own experiment. The initial data is now totally lost and it's the fault of yet another internet fad that's been pummeled so relentlessly that it's lost all meaning.

 And if you're sick of seeing "share this photo to teach kids" posts, then please, show someone this picture of my cock.

 I'm posting this picture of my cock, not to show people that if you upload a picture of your own cock, it'll get shared a lot by people you don't know - although it will. I'm not uploading it to show off, even though it's a magnificent specimen. I'm not uploading it to prove that my cock can be shared by lots of people in succession quite comfortably, or that it can, if handled enough, reach all the way to Australia, even though all of the above is true.

 I'm posting it in the hopes that maybe my cock can be a force for good, for once, and we can put an end to this tedious "please share" business.

 Enough is enough. Share my cock if you agree.