A follow victory

Dave investigates a channel face duking his social media stats, hapless coppers, the Loch Ness monster, and a waxy Zuckerberg

I always feel somewhat nauseated when I hear someone boasting about their number of Twitter followers, and I don't mind admitting that I did a little vom in my mouth when I saw a mid-ranking channel exec doing just that recently.
Taking far too much of a personal interest in a trivial matter that has no bearing on my life (is there any greater pleasure?), I decided to investigate further. The exec does indeed have a huge Twitter following, running well into five figures.
But looking at just who was following them, there were a huge amount of faceless egg accounts, mostly in surprisingly large clumps
of Russian and Spanish names. A cursory online internet web search tells me that this could be the hallmark of someone buying followers, who can be acquired for as little as £10 for a couple of thousand.
Or maybe our channel friend studied at the Moscow State University before beginning their career in IT managing the Peruvian channel?

Arresting developments
Sticking with Twitter shenanigans, the New York Police Department recently became the latest hapless addition to the file marked: Incredibly Ill-Thought-Out Attempts to Engage With People on Social Media.
The force uploaded a cheery snap of a civvie mugging happily with a couple of officers and urged the public to tweet in shots of them with a member of the NYPD under the hashtag #myNYPD.
The trouble is, the only times the average person interacts with an officer of the law is when: a) they report a break-in or a missing loved one; b) they're urinating in a bin on Leytonstone High Road after one too many sherbets (I imagine); c) they're being kettled.
In each of those cases, I dare say most people don't feel like commemorating the occasion with a photo. A quick recce of the #myNYPD hashtag reveals an eclectic assortment of men, women, children - and even dogs - feeling the long arm of the law in the form of a jackboot in the ribs or a baton in the face.
It may not have worked out for the rozzers, but it's still given me a dynamite idea for my outfit. If you have a picture of yourself with a member of my team, why not tweet me under the hashtag #DodgiServiceDodgiCompany?

Mystery unloched
I was shocked to see the following headline on the Daily Mail website recently: "Have Apple Maps found the Loch Ness monster?"
More shocked still was I to find that the article below consisted of anything more than the single word ‘no'.
A glance at the images captured by the fruity vendor's satellite cameras does indeed reveal a large squiddy sort of shape appearing to float just beneath the surface of the loch. Apparently, after six months of intense study, it has been decided the form in the photo is "likely" to be the mythical beast. This is according to "experts at the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club", says a blithely oxymoronic chunk of the Mail story.
Fair enough. But I might take issue with the article's claim that the photo "is enough to send shockwaves through even the most cynical Nessie sceptic". I'm still as sure as sure can be that there's no such thing as the Loch Ness monster, and I'm not even in the top 1,000 cynical Nessie sceptics.

Wax on
He may have already created one of the world's most recognisable brands, which interacts with one in seven of the global population on a daily basis - and amassed a $27bn personal fortune in the process - but now we can confidently say that Facebook mainman Mark Zuckerberg has finally made it: he's got himself in Madame Tussauds.
San Francisco-based appreciators of eerily lifelike hunks of wax will now be able to get up close and personal with the 29-year-old tech guru, who is posed sitting cross-legged on a funky chair, wearing his familiar
uniform of jeans and a hoodie. And no shoes or socks.
Perched on his lap is his notebook, which we can only presume he's using to update his Facebook status: "I can't believe that British tourist thought I was Joe Swash."