Why Facebook Brings Out the Worst in Everyone

To begin with, I want to clarify that yes, I have a Facebook account and yes, I check it occasionally. So I know that I am including myself in this commentary. But this commentary wouldn’t exist if I didn’t hate myself a little every time I log onto Facebook and get lost in that news feed…come on, we’ve all been there.

Just today, I found myself reading a post and thinking to myself “haha, I have something clever to say to that.” I began typing, thinking to myself how people would laugh and think how witty I was. Then the backspace button saved my lame self from ever posting the ridiculous garbage – and I realized the world would be perfectly fine without my intelligent and slightly sarcastic quip. Which made me wonder: what is it all for? Or, more specifically, what is Facebook for? 

All it does is bring out the worst in everyone.

Example A: Young, technologically-savvy, Martha-Stewart-loving, blog-reading, exhausted moms. I love moms. I have a mom, I want to be a mom someday, and I know quite a few moms that blow my mind with how amazing they are. But sometimes my news feed picks up only on the worst in this life stage. Such as the “Look how cute my kid is – oh wait, I’m actually showing you a picture of how awesome it is that we got to go to Hawaii this summer” Instagram pictures. Or the “Please give me advice because my kid won’t use the potty – oh wait, I’m actually just trying to prove that I am the best parent ever because I am trying to potty train my 6 month old” posts.  Or worse, and more painfully obvious, the repost of funny picture/list/quiz/true statement about being a mom that only 57 other moms respond to and no one else on all of Facebook really wants to read because a) we feel like we are not part of the click and therefore would never understand what it’s like to have cheerios crunching around between our sheets – come on, like your 3 year old is the only one who eats cheerios in bed – or b) we are disturbed by the massive quantity of these “reposts” or “shares” and so avoid them at all cost.  I may love you as a person and love your children dearly, but it seems like for a lot of moms, Facebook functions like a backwards support group where instead of people bringing real problems to people facing similar problems, everyone brings their best solutions to problems that neither they, nor anyone else, really seem to be facing, and then they all high five and give each other attaboys.

But, I am currently not a mom, so I don’t want to sound judgmental. How about I pick on someone in my own stage of life.

Example B: The happy couple. This goes for any couple. On Facebook, stage of relationship doesn’t matter. If you are a couple, this applies to you. I am part of a couple. And do you know what I do? I use the “we.” You know what I’m talking about; the “we” posts. The posts that one person clearly writes but they use the word “we” even though you can only have a profile for one person. So you end up rubbing your relationship in everyone’s face. “Sorry we can’t make it Shelly! Have a great party.” The happy couple is also not immune to the indirect-envy-inducer post. In fact, happy couples mastered this before the moms even got started. Take a look at the profile picture of your fave happy couple. Is it some quirky photo of the person and a few friends? No. It’s a picture of them making googly eyes at their significant other; or it’s their most photo-shopped wedding photo that makes them look like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Or, it’s a picture of one or both of them on one of their super fabulous couple trips to somewhere exotic and oh-so-romantic (that last one is me…sorry everyone). Rubbing. It. In. Even when we don’t mean to. Even when we think we are just sharing our life with the people we love; it gets taken by the Facebook monster and made into some horrible, jealousy-inducing, comparison-causing, self-indulgent, self-absorbed thing that then rampages through everyone’s news feeds until we just can’t take it anymore and we have to log out and take a break from the amazingness of everyone else’s lives.

We will skip my commentary about Example C: Single people, flirting, and how Facebook enables you to name drop in a way that's classy -- er, at least socially acceptable -- and we will move on to…

Example D: General posting habits that don’t look good on anyone. Even if everyone is doing it. Let’s start with the check in. No one ever checks in when they are alone. Seriously. Unless they are alone somewhere really cool like a Buddhist temple or something. The constant stream of checking in is just an online version of the middle school playground. Who is hanging out with whom? Who said they didn’t want to hang out on Friday, but then “checked in” at that cool new bar downtown? Enough said. Next, witty quips and brain dumps. Or any comment really. Oh dear. This is a double-edged sword. First, Facebook is terrible because it gives people a chance to think. Really hard. About what to say about something that is usually completely irrelevant to life. Suddenly everyone is a comedian (whoever gets the most likes wins!). And perhaps even worse – Facebook is terrible because it gives people a chance to not think. At all. Before posting whatever pops into their brain. Then it is recorded for all of time, for people to read and examine and wonder and analyze and dissect and resent and add weird emoticons in response that try to communicate in some kind of bizarre short hand what should have just been a regular person to person conversation complete with real faces smiling, and real eyes winking, and real heads shaking, and fingers wagging, and the sound of real laughing out loud.

And that, my friends, is why Facebook brings out the worst in everyone. Now, I think I will post this on my wall.

Articulate Snarls

I have been reading so much lately that I have begun to see words dripping off scenery in big wet drops, the most mundane events seem to spiral into important plot points that unfold like a rapidly blossoming flower in my mind (yes, gentleman in the blue Buick Le Sabre smoking cigarettes and carefully balancing a well assembled floral arrangement on your knee, I am talking about you), and my usual emotional snarls have started talking. I know, I know. The point of emotional snarls is that they don’t talk, and therefore they go largely ignored, or get brushed away like annoying but familiar insects. Or maybe children.

But perhaps not everyone is familiar with emotional snarls; well, we are all familiar with them, but we may not know them by the same name. Therefore, in the interest of ensuring that you understand me,  let us establish a common definition of the term emotional snarl. For this purpose, I shamefully offer up a written record of one of my very own emotional snarls:

I was having a conversation with some acquaintances of mine and I referenced an author that I have been reading a lot of lately. I went into great detail about one of the chapters I had read recently, all to support some point I was making, and knowing full well that the people I was conversing with were not familiar with this author. Now, I broke one of the first rules of etiquette and was talking in a way that was self-gratifying – as in, I wanted to discuss this so I was going to regardless of rather or not anyone wanted to listen – so I shouldn’t have been put out when someone responded to my self-indulgent comments with the insincere response of: “Oh, I should start reading that author.”  

Now, don’t ask me why, but I snarled. Inside, I felt a surge of emotion in response to this person that was not positive. Usually, my snarls were no more than a guttural emotional noise, if you will, that I noticed and sensed and then sometimes ruminated over, trying to figure out why my emotions had stood up in revolt before my brain had gotten around to determining the cause and therefore the remedy, which was usually nothing more than a good slap of common sense. But this time, my snarl talked to me. It surged up and seized my brain like a SWAT team from a predictable cop movie. And it was armed with words: “Where does he get off saying he is going to read this author? He would NEVER read this author, he would hate this author. What is the point of a conversation if he is just going to say whatever he thinks I want to hear? He didn’t even fully understand what I was telling him, how would he even begin to understand this author and what’s more if he does understand it, he will think it is stupid and flippant and he won’t see the depth and the truth in it.” I sat there, shocked. No need to send out brain probes like fingers to poke around in my emotions with a stick and see what had caused the snarl; it had just told me. My snarls had been given a voice.


This was disconcerting for many reasons. First, my snarls were mean, which meant I was mean. My initial response had been really, really mean.  I had been judgmental, arrogant, rude, and spiteful for no apparent reason. I didn’t have a single excuse. Second, snarls weren’t supposed to talk, because if they did you’d find out how mean you were. They were just supposed to be there occasionally and more often than not simply forgotten about, pushed aside as your brain pursued other thoughts and your face and body language remained composed, hiding any response to the beast-sounds your emotions were making.

In a way, I liked having the words. I liked knowing right away why I was having that uncomfortable feeling that could never quite be pinned down with a word like anger, annoyance, or pain, but was likely a combination of many feelings, though they were usually never fully identified or realized. It was nice to know what I was feeling, what the snarl was responding to.

But it was also awful, because it meant I had to admit that I was a terrible person. My emotional snarls were better when they were vague because I could still live in blissful ignorance of the meanness of my mind and pretend that my emotional surges and responses were maybe good things, maybe only surged up heroically at the sight of evil or at the infliction of some great wrong. But once the snarls evolved into words, I could no longer pretend. I had to face the fact that while my angry surge in response to the affront made by this person in the form of insincere flattery and a teensy bit of ignorance FELT like righteous anger, it was in fact, just the opposite. I was quite the scoundrel.

And so, words that have taken residence in my brain and seeking outlet at any cost, seizing on the sunrise as a chance to pour forth poetry, clutching at the vehicle of conversation to delve into new depths of wit, and racing to write stories as I pass people in traffic, you have set loose a monster in me. But I don’t want to contain the monster because that will mean containing the words and I will lose the moment when I find just the right way to say something, miss the moment when I realize not that the light is fading, but that the color is being sucked back into the earth, and I would never have known that emotional responses really felt like snarls and should be called snarls because they were animal-like, instinctual, and did not respond rationally.

So I will keep reading and will tolerate the articulate snarls; because it is worth knowing that I am terrible person if I realize that I live in a wonderful world. Maybe I will learn something about myself from these talkative snarls. For example, now I know not to indulge my own interests in a conversation and then get angry with people when they respond insincerely after I have bored them to death with how much I love the sound of my own voice.

I wish I was Elizabeth Bennet...or do I?

“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.” ~ Elizabeth Bennet
“What do we live for, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?” ~ Mr. Bennet

*******

            Occasionally, while giving rapt attention to a conversation that is utterly engaging, and not at all allowing my mind to wander, I have been guilty of something terrible. I have been guilty of finding the person I am conversing with to be amusing, when they were being perfectly serious, or perhaps short-sighted, as they propound some shallow belief that is clearly a regurgitation of something someone else said. Other times, I have been having a conversation with someone and I have been overwhelmed with amusement at their idiocy. It is truly terrible, I know, and I acknowledge it here, on this blog, to my utmost shame.
            It isn’t fair to laugh at people when they are being serious, or to assume that you know if they believe what they are telling you they so fervently believe. Whenever this happens, I always wish that I was Elizabeth Bennet. She would keep a straight face and kindly encourage the person to continue making a fool of themselves. And she would have no guilt laughing about it later.
            Of late, I find that I cannot in good conscience encourage people to make fools of themselves. I am happy to tell you that I have recently reformed from this sort of behavior. There is a very particular reason why, which I am going to share with you.
            Foibles and weaknesses. This is what I used to amuse myself with. I enjoyed them as though I was above them, and that was the problem. I should not live my life as though I am above everyone else. That is so Darcy-ish and no one will like me if I act that way.
            I have tried to reason that as long as I don’t amuse myself with seeing through my friend’s follies and oddities and whatever else strikes me as funny, as long as I stick with people I don’t know, it is okay because no one will be hurt or offended. But there is no way to escape how judgmental that is, and being judgmental of people I don’t know is even worse because I don’t know any of their story.
            I know this, and yet there is still a big part of me that wants to provoke the Mr. Collinses of the world into defending their ridiculous ideas and then laugh at them in my sleeve. There is a part of me that wants to walk the room with the Miss Bingleys because they are so absurdly sure of themselves and puffed up and yet I know they won’t get the boy.
            But I keep coming back to one question: Who am I in this version of life? Am I Elizabeth Bennet, who is so proud to be above everyone’s petty weaknesses that she almost misses out on the love of a lifetime? Am I Mr. Darcy, who is so prejudiced against certain types of people that he misses out on good-natured friends? Am I Mr. Bennet, who is so content to observe that he becomes nothing more than a slightly entertained alcoholic who no longer truly participates in his own life? Is being any of these characters really any better than being a Mr. Collins or are people provoking me into giving a lecture on eccentricities in others while they chuckle to themselves about my own weakness?

Waxing Philosophical

I was innocently browsing the web and stumbled across a blog, the writer of which was “waxing philosophical” and forgetting to come back down to the rest of us on earth.

I was mildly amused by it. Then, I saw it on the side bar of the website. A large white poster, with black words all over it, some of them bigger and some of them smaller, which I think is supposed to help you sort out what the main idea is. This poster was clearly a child of that “I Hope You Dance” song, because it listed all sorts of creeds that you ought to live by and reminded you that you were going to die soon.

Those are great and inspirational and all that and I felt my right brain taking off on the wings of the emotion that this homily offered, but thankfully the practical side of me intervened almost at once.

Let’s examine these words of wisdom more critically, beginning with the first statement “Do what you love.” This is a fine sentiment, and one that I partially believe in. But let’s be reasonable. If you tell the wrong high school student to do what they love, they will stay at home and eat Hot Cheetos in bed until 2 p.m. In Office Space, when the main character is asked what he would do if he had a million dollars, he responds, “Nothing. I would do absolutely nothing.” So we run in to an issue with this inspirational statement right away. We obviously can't have the whole world sitting around doing nothing.

But I don’t want to be nit picky, so let’s move on to the next suggestion: “If you don’t love your job, quit.”

I have particular experience with this one. I had a job that sucked the soul out of my life and could potentially have destroyed the good things in my life if I had let it. So I decided to do some research on my options and I went back to school and got a part time job (that I also didn’t love) until I got through school and could do what I loved. But I got lucky and only had to do this once. Some people do this so many times that they can hardly get a paycheck in their account before they are on to the next career. This means they are very poor, which is fine, but being poor interferes with another inspirational command on this same poster, which is: “Travel often.” I don’t think they mean go on free walks, so you need some kind of money, and if you quit your job because you don’t love it, then you obviously can’t travel. And then you are back at square one, and your life is unfulfilling because you can’t complete this checklist that you were given. And your right brain plummets back to earth.

By the time I was done reading the poster, I was just plain frustrated.

 I was frustrated because I have known many people who seem to live in the realm of the hypothetical, to walk on rainbows and float through clouds, and their advice is as ethereal as their moods. It all sounds great until you weed through it to find the actual meaning and then you discover that you have been given nothing of substance. That is the problem with this – and all similar – posters.  That is the problem with living your life in the realm of the hypothetical, of losing hold of the practical.

               

Spouting philosophical proverbs does not make you wise, following them certainly doesn’t either, and being able to inspire yourself with vague words about vague attitudes you should hold and impractical actions you should take is not only not difficult, it is unimpressive. What is impressive are the people who inspire you, not with their vain words and their platitudes, but with their life. When you look at a person and are inspired by their actions, their love, their approach to living – that is true inspiration, and your aim-for-moon-dance-like-no-one-is-watching cliches can be damned.

Put THAT on a poster.

The discovery of “just right.”

          Goldilocks always seemed weird to me. She went around trying out bowls and beds, always looking for the one that felt “just right.” It is an awkward story and kind of boring. But I now have a strange connection with this yellow-haired little girl. I have discovered the power of “just right.” Let’s start with the books. I have been reading and reading and reading and reading and the result is that I have discovered new authors and new worlds; there is one author in particular that satisfies my craving for fantasy perfectly. She has created the perfect fantastical world. It is strange enough that it is new and exciting, yet familiar enough that I can relate to it. The world is not weighed down by having to explain extraordinarily odd social customs or machines or governments. There are kings, but there are also monsters. There are common folk, but there are also humans who have been given specific skills and talents that make them different from the rest. In short, this author has created my ideal fantasy world. It is just right.

This was a good discovery, but was more like the bowls of porridge than the beds. It was a small victory. The big victory is the music: Ra Ra Riot. I just started listening to their CD The Orchard and I was captivated by it. The stringed instruments satisfied my craving for the unusual and the beautiful, the lyrics were sincere and, most importantly, clever and the vocals were absolutely exactly how I like it. Not too odd, not too nasally, not too low, not too high. Just. Right. Sometimes as I listened to them I wondered how they could be everything that I loved, how they could be so perfect for me. Exactly what I loved, resonating with everything inside of me. It was like someone had designed a band just for me – unlike Goldilocks, who just took things that had been designed specifically for other people.

I know I will grow and change and soon what was “just right” will become “too something” and I will move on – hopefully to another just right. Because the truth is that you grow and that just-right bed will become too small for you. But for now I am incredibly content, folded in the comfort of a perfect fit.