I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I love how I'm able to keep in touch with old friends and relatives I haven't seen in years. I love being able to write on Adam's Facebook wall when he's deployed. I love meeting fellow bibliophiles and Boston sports fans on Twitter.
But here's what I hate. And I would be happy to never, ever see any of this on social media ever again:
1) "My two-month-old just said her first word!" Lady, no she didn't. She's two months old. Get a grip. She was probably pooping and let out a grunt that sounded suspiciously like "da."
2) If you think you may wake up the next day and regret what you posted on Facebook or Twitter, don't post it. (Drunken fun posts excluded. Those are always welcome. Only so I don't feel like the only one.) I'm sorry your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, mother, father, blah blah blah sucks. There have been enough of these posts to make me cringe when I see them. Just because you can post it doesn't mean you should. It's embarrassing for you and for those of us who read it.
3) I'm sure your baby is cute and you love him/her. Sometimes I'll even look at more than one picture of your kid. That is, until you start posting the same baby in 500 pictures in a month. Unless that baby is teaching the dog how to jump through a flaming hoop one day and teaching Grandma how to use her cellphone the next day, a few pictures here and there will suffice.
4) Constant whining. ENOUGH. If your life sucks that bad, maybe it's time to take a look at it instead of posting about it, and figure out how you can change it, even if it's a small change. After a while, do you notice you don't have any comments on such posts? It's because everyone hid your whiny ass.
5) For the love of God, can we please use proper spelling and grammar? Some posts I can't even read, and it's not because I'm old, SMH! I weep for the future of the English language. Stop making up your own spelling of words. My laptop screen is way too full of red ink from me correcting your lazy ass.
6) The next status I see that says along the lines of "OMG I'm so sad/upset/mad" I'm going to comment and say, "Awesome!" If you're that sad/upset/mad about something, get the hell off the computer and deal with it. Sympathy trollers will never receive an ounce of sympathy from me, because they're just that - they want sympathy. I am not cold-hearted (only 3/4, I have a working 1/4 "Give a shit" chamber) and I've offered sympathy, encouragement, etc. to those who actually tell why they are like they are.
7) If the best you've got to say is, "I just ate cheese!" then really, why post inane comments? No one cares. Honestly. No one cares. I'd rather hear what kind of bowel movement you had (ghost wiper? endless wiper? the kind that makes the toilet water splash back up?) That's just me. I'm gross. I'm also frustrated by posts you'd be better off saying to yourself in your head. Or keep a small notebook so you can jot down these random thoughts of your own genius.
These are just a few of my pet peeves about social media. I have more - but these are my top seven.
I don't hate babies, or you, I just get easily irritated sometimes. This is one of those times. If you're offended, maybe you see yourself in this post? Sorry I'm not sorry for not feeling bad. Opinions, which these are, are like assholes - everyone has one.
7 comments:
The most annoying are the trollers... Like you, I will NEVER ask "why are you upset?" or "what happened?". Even some of my most mature friends pull this stunt.
Not offended, but definitely an offender, especially of the baby pics offense. However, I only even get a chance to go through & edit my pics every few months or so. Therefore, I only post my pics at that time, so a lot get posted at once.
I also know I've been a part of the gross destruction of the English language. Now, that Facebook allows for more than "x" number of characters to be typed I try to write as completely as possible. However, there are times that mistakes occur, especially when typing on my iPod, which is most often the case. Many times the iPod auto-correct feature will "correct" something not meant to be corrected and I'll have missed it. Other times, I miss it due to having such big thumbs on a tiny keyboard.
Of course, this is correctable as is changing the frequency of posting my pictures of my children. The easiest way would be to use a computer. However, in my family we have only one computer & it really only gets used at night after the kids are asleep. My wife being from Korea, doesn't get to watch TV or keep up with the news in the same way that we can here in the States. Therefore, she only can do these things via the computer, so rather than takeover the computer so I can keep you happy, I give her that time.
I don't know if I'm offending you or not with my actions in my social media accounts, but if I am, well that's just too bad. It is my account about my life & my time, if I want to or need to use it in this manner I can. If you don't like it then we don't need to stay connected. I'll find it unfortunate, because I do appreciate your commentary & your posts on the success that work in your marriage. I will not be offended though, rather I'll understand that this is not an aspect you want as part of your social media experience.
A side note, I'm typing on my iPod again and I'd like to change my introduction, as well as proofread this for errors, the iPod though will not allow me to scroll back up and correct it.
My correction: I am not offended, by what you have to say or feel, because you have the right to express yourself & I wholeheartedly support that. I do feel that I am what you refer to as an offender, although I do believe I have a valid defense.
Lastly, I wanted to add that I do agree with you, in regards to the future of the English language. I feel that the character restrictions are bringing about this destruction.
My apologies, I have more to say to complete my thought, but my kids have now woken up & I need to care for them. This also is why you may find some of my posts offensive, but again that's too bad. I value the responsibility of raising my children over taking the time to make sure that I've appeased you in social media etiquette.
These beliefs aren't said with the intention to harm, but they are honest.
Rob, at no point while I was writing this did I ever think of you. Honestly, I do not think you have ever offended any of these at any time.
That said, your diatribe indicates that you have your own issues to deal with. Don't take Facebook so seriously. It's supposed to be fun!
Also, there was no need to be snotty in your second-to-last paragraph. I'm not the Internet, Grammar or Facebook police. I have my own hands full running a household singlehandedly so my husband can work his 14-hour days and not have to worry about what's going on at home. I keep things running so he can deploy worry-free that we're going to be okay. I've gone through 9 deployments with Addison since he was two years old, so I know about raising a child, especially on my own.
Let me start with the most important part to my reply, I'm sorry.
I didn't want to be snotty, I really had other things I wanted to say, and maybe I wouldn't have come off that way.
I also wanted to say I'm sorry if I implied in anyway that you were not a supportive wife and fantastic mother. I never intended that, I think you know from the social media conversations that we've had how much respect I have for you in that regard. With deepest regret, I'm sorry for implying that in anyway.
I wish to leave it at that. Yes, there is an explanation that could go along with this comment, but none of that is as important to me as apologizing to you for how my comments appear.
Oh the number of people I either hide from my feed or outright unfriend/unfollow (as the social media may be). You can only irk me so many times before I just snip you right out of my social media world. ;-)
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