Sarah Morgan
…their ability to make normally lovely people incredibly annoying.
This post was originally published May 17, 2010. Dark Ages. Since I’m teaching a class on social media who have just handed in their quarter-term projects on the ills and benefits of social media immersion, I found this kind of topical, kind of timely, but honestly mostly just kind of old-school and amusing.
I’ve annotated… but isn’t it amazing how some things never change?
Have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram oh God Instagram so Instagram some strange power to shut down the lobe whose job it is to consider:
“… Hey, is this of even the slightest interest to anyone else?”
“… Will this make anybody roll their eyes at me?”
“… Am I maybe coming off like a total asshat?”
Apparently, yes. Yes they do.
So I’m taking action. If your updates include any of the following, I hereby unilaterally and for all time revoke your ability to get hurt feelings for being mocked.
White whines. Self-explanatory.
Still true. If I can rant for a minute…
We are all so goddamned blessed just to be in this world, alive, this instant. And it’s so very, very, horribly easy for us (and by us I mean ME) to forget that and focus on what we don’t have, what we aren’t good at, what we haven’t been given. Stop. Please stop giving power to the small annoyances. Or to the big troubles. We talk about our troubles more than our joys. I know it’s innate. I know it’s hard to fight. I know your troubles are real. I know sometimes it’s impossible to not want to shine a light on them. I know sometimes you need to. But try to curb it when you can. I promise it won’t be bad for you.
Banal errands. I don’t care if you’re going to Starbucks. I just don’t.
I think people do this a lot less now. Maybe I just unfollowed the people who do.
Emo song lyrics. You listen to this music before you grow a sense of humor. And you leave it in your bedroom where you apply black eyeliner and write in your journal about how misunderstood you are. I did it that way, and I’d appreciate it if you did too.
Thank goodness emo is over. But this is still valid. So valid they make greeting cards about it.
Play-by-play. If I care about the game I have it on and I don’t need this. If I don’t I don’t and I don’t. Either way.
Well… I have to admit that I really liked this happening during the last World Cup, because those games were on during the work day here. So I get why you’d do this a bit more now than I did in 2010.
Topics that have formed the subject of three or more previous posts. The only possible exceptions to this are your own children. And only if they’re real cute.
This includes selfies.
Sit back for another rant.
The occasional selfie is awesome. I’m your friend; I love your face. But if it starts to seem like you’re trying really, really hard, your face actually starts to make me sad. It’s because I start to worry about you. I worry that maybe you feel like you have to show only your best version, ever, always. I worry that you think you wouldn’t be as important if you selfied less. So I get sad.
I’d feel happier if it seemed like you were noticing how amazing life was around you. So, you know. Selfies in moderation and for happy reasons. Better yet: all social media in moderation and for happy reasons.
Otherwise? Shh. Silence can be beautiful, people. Respect the beauty of a bare status.
Aw. A bare status. Remember those? Moment of silence for 2010 Facebook. With the brand-new crazy News Feed everyone hated because they felt like it took away your privacy. Aw. Bless.
(A Facebook hate post that has nothing to do with privacy or Mark Zuckerberg. Who would have thought?)
Well. I guess it did come back to privacy in the end. Most things do, don’t they. But what do you think? Was I a grouch then and am I a hypocrite now? Maybe. But am I right? I still think maybe.
