One of These Things Is Not Like The Others.

KOPRIP

Miss Lloyd

CHER

Last week I made an FBFP. FBFP stands for Facebook Faux Pas and they are now as ubiquitous as the LOLs and WTFs that have made their illiterate way across cyberspace. FBFPs can take a number of forms – here is a short list of the most egregious:

1. Updating your Facebook status while in the middle of a conversation with an actual living breathing person standing in front of you.
2. Updating your Facebook status during sexual intercourse.
3. Describing the consistency of your stools in a Facebook update.
4. Tagging all 455 of your friends every time you upload a photo even if those friends aren’t actually in the photo which means that their photo albums are now clogged with pictures of you, your bedside table or the frock you took a liking to in a shop window.
5. Treating a friend’s wall like the comment board at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ and ranting at it.
6. Having a spectacular sense of humour failure when above rant unsurprisingly provokes some criticism.
7. Failing to pick up on a zeitgeist-y reference from a friend in another country and going off on a long embarrassing tangent.

It was a Category 7 FBFP I found myself in last Sunday when I noticed that a number of FBBFs (that’s Facebook Best Friends – please try to keep up) started campaigning for the removal of “Cher” off this mortal coil. Well I was shocked. Being a gay man in my (muffled voice) mid-forties, Cherylin Sarkisian La Pierre is an ICON. OK, so her new film, Burlesque, looks a bit naff, but straight talking, self deprecating CHER is a rare thing in this age of ersatz celebrity – a bona fide star. But of course they weren’t talking about (drum roll, name in lights) CHER but reality show non entity Cher Lloyd now ear-bashing the British public on the X Factor.

Now let’s get one thing straight: Only a handful of divas (CHER, MINA, MADONNA, KYLIE) have earned the right to use a single moniker (and to have as much plastic surgery as they damn well please). For everyone else – name AND surname please. The situation is however, further complicated by the fact that both CHER and Miss Lloyd bear an eerie resemblance to Michael Jackson or KOPRIP as he is now referred to (that’s King of Pop, Rest in Peace). Still that’s no reason to get them confused and cheapen the realm of Divadom by letting in any old slag who can hold a tune. Even if Miss Lloyd gurns and cries her way into winning this year’s X Factor U.K. she still couldn’t hold a candle to CHER – and probably shouldn’t try to as the real CHER might melt. I would however be interested to hear Miss Lloyd tackle her more famous namesake’s songbook. “Pikeys, Tramps and Thieves” anyone?