An open letter to all those who "Don't give a fuck" today.

So, you've decided that today you won't give a fuck eh? Well good for you. I assume of course that this means for the other 364 days of the year you will actually start giving a fuck. That's the idea right?

Today you'll have a rest and then tomorrow you'll start campaigning for change?

Bitter experience leads me to suspect not.

I've been going to council meetings as a journalist for nigh on fifteen years and see the same thing every time; A public gallery entirely filled with the fresh air left behind by people who "Don't give a fuck". Every time I go to a meeting where public policy is being decided I think "Sitting at home are thousands of people who clearly don't give a fuck". Coincidentally, I suspect they're the same people who then infect my day with their impotent whining and ill-informed rants about perceived injustices they had every opportunity to influence but chose instead to do nothing about. "I don't give a fuck" is apparently cooler than "I'm an effective citizen of the world".

I suspect the majority of the people who've decided to latch on to "I don't give a fuck day" are exactly the kind of people who "don't give a fuck" the rest of the year. I suspect they're the kind of people who don't give a fuck about local democracy, don't give a fuck about voting, don't give a fuck about politics or third world debt or nuclear proliferation or any of those other things which apparently don't matter.

The seed corn of your apathy, watered from the well spring of your utter ignorance, will grow into a rich crop of negative bullshit which you'll no doubt insist on feeding to the world in bitter chunks of helpless, pathetic, miserly, intellectual poverty. Well done farmer. You made the world worse without any effort at all.

Don't congratulate yourself too soon though, because there are lots of people out there who get a great big kick out of you not giving a fuck. They're the people who run the show. They're the people making billions while your back is turned. They fill the airwaves with blandness and stifle anything creative because while you're not giving a fuck they're getting away with bloody murder.

So I'm sorry to all those friends and relatives who invited me to join "I don't give a fuck" day and who's requests I've ignored. You've probably wondered why. Here's why:

The whole project reeks of exactly the kind of mindless, pointless, tedious, shitty, nihilistic, adolescent posturing I hate.

Today you're all clever and smug because you don't give a fuck. Well done. Give the monkey a peanut.

In the meantime the minority of people who do give a fuck will continue to do it for you, until you grow a spine, get up and join us, because right now the people who do give a fuck are outnumbered, and we're losing the fight.