Saturday, May 31, 2014

#@^!book


They stared from the lifelessness of the vacant blank screen like the pictures of family members posted along the wall of a prison cell. And why not? Are they not a surrogate family? 

If I don't watch it, I'll shortchange my kids, while blowing the day away on this timesuck, "liking" pictures of theirs and sharing pictures of cats.

Like. Like. Like. Share. Share. Share. Like. Share. Share. Like.

Scroll.

From Massachusetts, Canada, California, Idaho. I don't know...what the hell? But they're all my "friends." LOL.  Oh it's some woman's birthday. She lives in Tennessee. I should wish her a happy birthday or click "like" because her husband got a new job as principal of an elementary school. Why does that feel awkward?

You worked out at the gym. Guess I should hit "like."

There was a deathly tornado in Oklahoma. And what do you know, the woman is standing there in her tank top and shorts, holding a wheelbarrow full of supplies, as if to say, "Look at what a do-gooder I am?" The selfies in her bathroom weren't enough. "I'm sure she paid good money for those boobs," my wife said.

"Aiiiight bitch! Sayin' and I'm fucked and wanna kill my family & that's not true and you hacked into my account & I will not call the po-lice but take care of you like the little bitch you are in the way you like & Kyle will be by to visit you & Todd's gonna find you. And I blacked out last night and where's the bar. I don't need herpes, Man..."

 And on he goes, having a mental breakdown on facebook. Posts written while he was obviously drunk or on pills. Probably both.

Dramabook. Guess I'll check out my 21-year-old brother-in-law's Facebook page where they use the word, "nigga" and argue over who truly has swag.

But wasn't it all so cool in the beginning? An old newspaper pal, wanted to be my friend on facebook. That was cool.

Then I "friended" an old friend from high school. He "likes" Rush Limbaugh now. Yesterday he posted something from Right Wing News about all those lazy welfare scumbags screwin' and breedin' on the taxpayer's dime. 

Look at these parasites I knew in high school sending me friend requests.  A bunch of exclusive A-list high school celebrities. They were untenable, masters of exclusion  & now they pathetically want to be my friends as if they've bought into some revisionist history theory that we were actually close. And why the hell not? If they're so hard up now they have to use me to add to their Facebook friend arsenal because they're still playing the popularity game, why the hell not?

It's cool. Their shitty kids are teenagers themselves now with their own little self-colonies of Facebook profiles and friends, which they use for slut shaming, gay bashing and bullying kids into suicide. Hey, that's what you do on a site designed for "friends."

Around the time I lost my Facebook virginity, I met the Facebook whore. Some blonde woman wanted to be my friend, and I didn't know her from Adam and Eve. I asked a friend, an honest to goodness friend, "Is this someone I should know?" (We knew a lot of blondes back in the day.)

"I don't know her either. She sent me a request too. I think she's a Facebook whore," said my friend, who has more "friends" than many D-list celebrities.

The Facebook whore likes to hook up with so many Facebook friends, collecting notches on the ol' wall post.

My friend private messaged me back: "I notice that she's attached herself to a lot of people who work in the media."

Ulterior motive. But isn't Facebook, on its face, an ulterior motive? Ostensibly designed for friends, the site exploits and commercializes friendship for the purpose of data mining.

Familiarity breeds contempt. When my wife, Maria, wakes up in the middle of the night to pee, I turn the light on because she's afraid of the dark. Maria told her friend who told her husband and next thing I know I'm getting a post on my wall: "Dude, I think it's cool how you turn the light on for your wife."

It's not an intimate detail from my life, but it feels awkward, this guy commenting about it on Lamebook. I'm sure he was trying to be nice, telling me what a nice "dude" I am. He's Mr. Nice Guy. All about positivity.

Positive people piss me off.

He's all about posting sweet affirmations like the serial posting 70-year-old grandmas on Facebook like to do. "God is good." Like. Like. Like. Share.

What are affirmations, but "like" magnets?

Oversharing is trending. The serial poster will post every problem, every picture of his or her kid, every bodily function. Likely, the serial poster and the Facebook whore are friends. In some instances, they're the same person.

A "friend" posted a "scholarly" article about how guns don't kill people. People kill people. The article was linked to a site called "Ammo land." Everybody has a soapbox. Yes, I know. Obama's part of the Muslim Brotherhood. No, they didn't check with Snopes first. Nothing like Facebook to remind me that several of my friends and family are bigoted jerks.

I put a moratorium on accepting family members as Facebook friends. With family it's like this. I love you, you're getting on my nerves, see you later. I don't need to see their faces every day mixed in with the surrogates. Of which there were too many.

I decided I'd done some Facebook whoring of my own, recklessly "friending"  anyone who would have me - people I'd only met one time and in many cases, not at all. So I did some house cleaning, "unfriended" some people. They aren't going to miss me. I did it for them as much as I did for me. They shouldn't feel obligated to wish me a happy birthday. Some of these fringe "friends," I found, had "unfriended" me.

"Good for you," I thought. "You're getting on with life."





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