Text messages have officially just turned 21. Let’s party!

The very first text was sent by 22-year-old communications engineer Neil Papworth in the UK on December 3, 1992.

From a computer to the phone of a friend at a party. It said, ‘Merry Christmas.’

Much later that same night the next three texts were sent. All to an unidentified female workmate, and they were:

‘I’m the only one in the world who can text, and you’re the only one in the world for me.’

‘Sorry wrong number.’

‘Babe wanna meet up anyway? I’ve totes just invented this amaze-balls thing. It’s going to like be, like proper huge. Like the thing in my pants. OMG you sound cute. Call me lol.’

In case you were wondering, ‘SMS’ stands for ‘short messaging service’. Not ‘so many slip-ups,’ or ‘sexting makes sense’ or even ‘Steve might get some’.

So I wonder how text messages might have celebrated turning twenty-one?

Maybe by legally getting drunk in the USA.

Then sending inappropriate versions of itself to other pieces of technology.

‘Hey iPhone, take off that cover and send me a naked selfie.’

‘Yo Snapchat. Get nude and send me something crazy. Via text. So I can keep it.’

‘Excuse me picture messaging. Have you heard? A word tells a thousand pictures. You’ll never replace me!’

Text messages were originally 160 characters long, and this limit had its origins back in 1984 with a German named Friedhelm Hillebrand. At a time when mobile phones had barely been invented, he sat home typing out random sentences and questions. He counted the characters and spaces of each, and discovered that nearly every time the total was less than 160 characters.

‘Perfectly sufficient,’ Hillebrand would later recall about his discovery.

Which makes sense to say in retrospect, because at the time, his findings would’ve lacked any useful application, so been only perfectly pointless.

His research also formed the basis of Twitter’s 140 character limit, which launched in 2006. I wonder how Hillebrand knew to include hashtags, insults and hyperlinks to porn in his experiments.

The first mobile with texting capabilities was released by Nokia in 1993, with sexting invented moments later, when someone discovered they could use punctuation to draw a pair of boobs.

Predictive text first appeared in 1995, which surprisingly few people saw coming. The first predictive text mishap occurred that very night, when a 14-year marriage was ended after the word ‘hello’ was turned into ‘I’ve been sleeping with your sister’.

Around this time, the first awkward pregnancy portrait and photo of an obese sans-pants person in a Walmart were published on the internet, and the future invention of Buzzfeed became inevitable.

In 2000 Americans were sending an average of 35 text messages a month. Meaning everyone was using text responsibly, for the only time ever, or nobody had discovered it apart from a couple of college girls who used it for epic debriefs.

Around this time the only people still using pagers were doctors and drug dealers. Any doctors who were also drug dealers or cheating on their partners were then easily identified, as they had two pagers.

In 2002, more than 250 billion SMS messages were sent worldwide. So either those same college girls had gone completely mental, or texting had become globally popular.

Despite the earlier introduction of predictive text, the continued use of the alphanumeric keypad meant that ‘text speak’ only increased in popularity. Resulting in a whole generation of children who never learnt to spell properly, and only have jobs in Australia thanks to the mining boom.

Some of the worst school essays ever were also recorded during these years, and the puns on personalised number plates reached new lows. Five pinnacles of this artform include: ‘VGNALVR’, ‘UB6 IB9’, ‘RU 18?’, ‘GLBLWMR’ and ‘NOSUP4U’.

In 2007 the number of texts sent in a month passed the number of monthly phone calls placed by Americans for the first time, and so began the demise of the people actually speaking to each other.

Indeed by 2012, speaking on the phone had become so unpopular that a large percentage of all under 18’s could record a video, upload and edit photos, and play music and Candy Crush, all at the same time. However, if their phone ever actually rang, they freaked out and had no idea what to do.

The iPhone was also released in 2007, and around this time the 160 text message limit stopped being observed. As a result text messages started to contain more words and less point than actual conversations.

In 2010, there were 200,000 text messages sent every minute, and worldwide for that year a total of 6.1 trillion text messages were sent.

How and who counted all those messages? Probably nobody, and I reckon the official counter got bored and just invented a number.

‘How does 250 billion sound to you mate?’ the text counter asked a friend.

‘What’s a billion?’ the friend replied.

‘Exactly. It’ll do.’

‘Also, that seems like a suspiciously exact number,’ said the friend.

‘Shut up. Or don’t you want to go to the pub?’

Taken from the amazing ‘Texts from Bennett’: http://textsfrombennett.tumblr.com/

Over the years, along with VHS tapes, DVDs, records and USB memory sticks, the text message has outlasted many competing technologies. Many analysts have foretold that the text would be toppled, but that day is yet to arrive.

Other advancements have been relegated to working with the text, instead of replacing it. Much like anyone who plays with Kobe Bryant at the Los Angeles Lakers, or who gets a job on Letterman.

So what next for the ubiquitous text? Well in 2011 over 7.4 trillion texts were sent worldwide, but the number of actual texts being sent in the UK and USA has declined, as people moved to other lower cost messaging services. Such as WhatsApp, Viber and Snapchat.

Which means there are more text messages being sent than ever, they just don’t cost anything so aren’t being counted.  By the same theory, nobody watches Game of Thrones, listens to any music, or uses Microsoft Office.

Xavier Toby is a writer and comedian. (www.xaviertoby.com)

His debut comedy non-fiction book about life on a FIFO mining site is available now:

http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/books-and-authors/book/mining-my-own-business/

Sharks are terrifying. Mammoth muscles with rows of razor-sharp teeth that motor through the water at speeds many times faster than us. It’d be stupid not to scared of them. Wouldn’t it?

Actually, no. Despite the two recent tragedies in Australia, according to the facts, death by shark attack is so rare that it’s not worth worrying about.

You’re more likely to win the lottery than be bitten by a shark.

Every Xmas in the US, trees and decorations cause an average of 250 injuries and 40 fatalities, while sharks in the US are responsible for around one fatality every two years.

So Americans are 80 times more likely to be killed by a Xmas tree, but nobody is hunting them down. We put them in our homes, and surround them with our children. So although sharks are technically much safer, nobody is surrounding them with children. It’s outrageous!

Worldwide there are on average only four fatal shark attacks every year. At Australian beaches, you’re umpteen times more likely to drown, be injured by a surfboard or laugh at a fat European in tiny bathers.

At beaches around the world you’re actually 60 times more likely to be killed by a falling coconut, than a shark.

But would Jaws be as terrifying if instead of a shark, it was a coconut or a Xmas tree? I don’t know, but that is a movie I’d pay tosee.

So if the chances of being attacked by a shark are so low, why are we so scared of sharks?

They do tend to kill us humans pretty horrifically, and a large part of our fear of sharks has to do with the way we’ve evolved. Or haven’t.

Technology has moved much faster than our brains, and on an instinctual level we have trouble telling the difference between real life, a movie or a photo.

Which explains why people will charge back into a burning building to save pictures of loved ones. Despite logic and reasoning telling us otherwise, part of us is convinced that those photos actually are our loved ones.

Nearly every time we see a shark it’s attacking someone, and although it’s not real or an accurate representation of real life, on a basic level, we’re convinced it must happen in reality all the time.

It doesn’t and despite all the facts, as a surfer I can’t suppress these instincts and am still terrified of sharks. However, I know that my irrational fear is not a good enough reason to hunt down every single dangerous shark.

I could just stay out of the water, but not surfing is nowhere near as much fun as surfing, so that’s not an option.

Hopefully I’m getting so many waves that I don’t have time to think about it. Which never happens, and while waiting, each shadow created in the ocean by the passing clouds is a potential shark.

So I accept the risks, and acknowledge my irrational fears without letting them dominate.

In recent times, the families of shark attack victims have come out on the side of sharks, in one of the most difficult statements I can imagine any human would ever have to make.

If these people, who have suffered the greatest imaginable loss, still believe that we should be protecting sharks, then we should too. Despite what we might feel about them.

For more info: www.amcs.org.au (Australian Marine Conversation Society)

By the way, it’s shark week on the Discovery Channel in Australia (Dec 1 to 8). More info here:

http://www.discoverychannel.com.au/shark-week/

Xavier Toby is a writer and comedian. 

His debut comedy non-fiction book about life on a FIFO mining site is available now online only. The ideal Xmas present! Click here:

http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/books-and-authors/book/mining-my-own-business/

Every year students finish high school and there are big parties.

It’s gotten so big for a few years now there’s even been a name for it – schoolies week. Any older people who tag along and usually happen to be men also have a name – toolies.

Every year, more and more of the media follow around the schoolies looking for outrageous behaviour. Big surprise – they always find it.

Put any group under a massive amount of stress, then give them some cash and a holiday and it’s obvious what’s going to happen.

However, with all this reporting of scantily clad nubile debauchery, what is the media really hoping to achieve?

If the point is to put a stop to it, that’s never going to happen. Not while all the schoolies destinations are making money out of it and the schoolies themselves are not causing too much trouble.

Even if schoolies on the Gold Coast were banned, it’d just move to a different location and similar sorts of partying is happening all the time, just without as much attention.

For example, take every Friday and Saturday night in Australia. And nightclubs. And music festivals. And house parties.

During my schoolies week, my friends and I avoided the big parties and went surfing. We celebrated our schoolies week over the following years at a place called university. Where it’s schoolies every night of the year.

One of the main headlines screamed by the schoolies coverage is Parents beware.

Maybe the current affairs programs and newspapers are so obsessed with schoolies because they hope that by raising awareness, the parents themselves will stop their children from being involved.

Despite or maybe because of all the attention these events get, however, they only seem to be getting more popular.

All this current in-depth focus purports to show us, “what really happens at schoolies week”.

Exposing and uncovering what goes on and to me it feels like a dirty old man with a video camera chasing around barely legal girls. The Bernard Tomic lap dance is a perfect example.

What’s currently being reported during schoolies week for the most part is disgusting and if you’re looking at it, sharing it, ogling it, you’re staring at just graduated children without their proper consent – you’re a true pig.

I find women attractive and I like looking at attractive women. What I try to avoid is looking that makes anyone uncomfortable, otherwise known as overt perving.

What I’m really not into is perving through my television at very young and probably intoxicated women whose decision-making faculties are impaired and not properly developed.

Parents probably have their suspicions of what happens at schoolies week. Really though, do they need to see it when there’s so little they can do to stop it?

When I started uni, I was involved in a few questionable situations and I wish I’d had a better idea of how to react.

I learnt quickly and luckily avoided anything I now regret. Thanks to my parents I’ve always had a high level of respect for women, but more information especially during my final years of school would’ve been more than welcome.

If anybody was actually interested in promoting responsible behaviour at schoolies week, there would be talks at the schools months in advance about how to behave, what to be wary of and how to deal with the range of difficult situations that may arise when mixing inexperience, drugs and alcohol.

I’m sure such programs already exist and I know that there are groups that attend schoolies events in order to help keep people safe.

So here’s an idea. Let’s go back to the general reports featuring numbers, and a few smiling faces, and mentioning of the odd criminal activity, and the joke stories where kids get cautions for selling contraceptive pills as ecstasy, and then that’s it.

Where is all this schoolgirl media porn going to stop? Is the next step camera crews heading out every weekend, to catch the hottest girls they can doing the craziest things they’re willing for the camera? All in order to ‘expose’ the debauchery of youth culture?

Instead get a lap dance, watch a porno, or maybe even start lusting after your partner. Just don’t get your jollies from the news, while pretending that there’s anything actually newsworthy about it.

Xavier Toby is a writer and comedian.

Twitter: @xaviertoby

Facebook: www.facebook.com/xaviertoby

Around this time of year, I always have nightmares.

About that one exam that I still haven’t passed, that I haven’t studied for and that’s being held at 9am the very next morning.

In the nightmare, I’m so poorly prepared that I don’t even know the name of the subject. All I do know is that it involves computer programming, mathematics and drawing.

All subjects I failed while at uni, and skills that I haven’t used since.

This rash returned every year during uni exams, making each three-hour long regurgitation of whatever coursework I could remember especially painful.

Over time this rash has faded, and I was able to get special consideration for every exam I ever sat, which often pushed a slight fail to a conceded pass. So I got through year 12, and have two degrees.

Which means I was slightly thankful for the spider bite, until a uni classmate showed me how to forge a medical certificate using only a black pen and a photocopier.

The day after each nightmare I always think, ‘What was the point of all those exams?’

I don’t use either of the degrees in my everyday work, and I remember hardly any of the information I studied so hard, and even less of it is ever useful.

However, my year 12 marks got me into uni, and those two degrees still get me all sorts of unrelated jobs, along with a highly embellished resume.

(Tip of the day: Lie on your resume – everyone else does.)

So here are a few things to ponder for slackers everywhere.

All through my life I’ve heard people bemoaning the fact that they didn’t study harder, or apply themselves. Never do you hear anyone saying, ‘I wish I hadn’t tried so hard’.

Other lines you never hear:

‘Leaving school at year ten was the best thing I ever did.’

‘This year 12 certificate has never done anything for me.’

‘I really regret finishing my degree.’

Anyone who does say any of the above lines is either completely delusional or a liar. Don’t give them any money, or buy them a drink, and check your pocket for your wallet.

Now I’m not suggesting that you become some sort of socially inept hermit in pursuit of perfect marks.

If you have no social skills, all the intelligence in the world might get you money, but it won’t get you laid. I mean happiness. I mean a life.

Actually, I mean all of the above.

The examination system is extremely flawed. The obsession schools have with grades above emotional intelligence, social skills and problem solving is to the detriment of the entire system. However, that’s not an excuse to apply yourself.

In years to come, I really hope it does improve but it’s the system that we have, it’s the one you have to deal with, and the only people with regrets are the ones that give up.

You’ve got the rest of your life to stuff around.

Xavier Toby is a writer and comedian.

More articles and mailing list here: http://www.xaviertoby.com/

Details of upcoming performances: http://lolcomedy.com.au/

Have you seen those TAB ads where the guys waltz through the pub, winking at girls and collecting big wads of cash?

What a load of rubbish.

There are rules around alcohol advertising in terms of what you’re allowed to show and suggest.

However, it seems that gambling ads aren’t subjected to the same controls, as these TAB ads are a complete fiction.

First, there’s not one packet of cigarettes to be seen on any surface. Anywhere there’s gambling, there are smokers.

Next, nobody’s visibly drunk, depressed or even just slightly maudlin. The happiness on display is actually the exact opposite of the attitudes of most patrons, in every betting arena in Australia. Also everyone seems to be relatively healthy – another mammoth fallacy.

Most importantly of all, there are attractive girls. In a pub. During the day. Who seem to be attracted to men who are gambling.

The only time I have ever seen an attractive female anywhere near a gambler is when the girl is being paid to be there. Usually in action films, as part of a scene where everyone is just about to be either blown up or blown away.

They may as well have set these gambling ads at the end of the rainbow.

Where are the men and rare women standing by themselves and staring off at nothing? Surrounded by scrunched up tickets, and combing the form guide with a pencil for some hidden winner? Searching and scanning for some way to claw back a smidgen of what they’ve lost.

Or the dead-eyed staff, seeing out their time for the cash they need to survive, get through school, or fuel their own entertainment.

The staff are the only ones in the venue who’ll go home in front because if you want to make money, you won’t do it gambling. You only make money by working.

Sometimes you might win more than you lose. There are even a few professional gamblers who do make a living from it, exactly because they’ve removed the risk and have turned it into a job.

Most other gambling ads are just as bad.

There’s Samuel L Jackson telling us to enter the matrix style futuristic computer wonderland that is online betting, simultaneously undermining every ounce of cool he’s ever accumulated.

Or Tom Waterhouse talking about how gambling is in his veins, while walking among footballers and horses.

You know what’s also in his blood but not mentioned in any of his ads? Cheating. His father and grandfather were banned in 1984 for one of the biggest scams in Australian history. It’s also worth noting that it’s no longer even his company – it was sold in August to British gambling giant William Hill.

Occasionally, I like to gamble. As a break from socialising, I don’t even mind pumping a few dollars into a poker machine, but I know it’s not about making money. It’s about the possibility and the thrill of winning.

The process of gambling hits a pleasure centre in your brain, and that’s why people do it, even though they keep losing. Studies have found that gambling can even arouse feelings of euphoria similar to a hit of heroin.

Every time you make a bet, you’re reminded of your previous big wins, as there’s a possibility that it’s about to happen again.

Despite the actual odds being always against you, with every bet comes a part of that wonderful winning feeling, delivered to your senses by a brain that’s preparing itself for ecstasy. It’s a trick, and it feels good, and also explains why people are more likely to keep betting after a big win, although logic should be screaming at them to stop.

Some Asian cultures have understood this for centuries, since gambling for them is not about how much you lose, but how much you’re seen to be winning.

It’s a trick that’s understood on some level by everyone who gambles, which is why we all share the good gambling stories but never the stories of the big loses, despite there being far more of them.

Talk to any gambler, and according to them they’ve won enough to retire many times over, but they obviously haven’t, which is why they still go to work every damn day.

Gambling is a fun park for adults, a video game arcade where we’ve replaced those machines that churn out tickets for ones that spit back cash.

You put in money, and it returns entertainment, and a little less money. Let’s all just stop pretending that it’s anything else. And that starts with getting rid of gambling ads that all seem to be set in a magical fantasyland, where every bet is a winner, and every gambler is a carefree, wealthy and healthy alpha male.

Oh and by the way, just like heroin, it’s horribly addictive. While writing this, I’m actually playing maximum lines on a one-cent machine, and I’m not going anywhere. The free spins are well overdue. I’ve just got to hang on until I get those three pyramids and I’ll be going to Disneyland.

Here’s a link to the TAB that inspire this rant. Spliced together with anti-gambling ad. Bet you can’t tell them apart!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc3-in4WMrs

(It’s simple, so that’s a bet I’d never make. Or maybe I would, if the odds were good enough.)

Xavier Toby is a writer and comedian.

More articles and mailing list here: http://www.xaviertoby.com/

Details of upcoming performances: http://lolcomedy.com.au/