Meditation for May 19th
The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword
When you ride a bus and someone shouts out that Hillary Clinton is a witch who should be burned at the stake, you would assume that this person is crazy and pretend to read your book more, or that your music on your headphones was too loud. If someone yells a rebuttal to the first yeller, you still assume that all yellers are crazy, and you will dream about owning a car. People yelling opinions in public is fucking crazy.
If someone yells out that people should use any bathroom they want, or that gay people should be able to marry, or that slavery is bad, then that person is also crazy, but it made your day so much better, but you still don’t make eye contact. Even if you agree, people yelling opinions in public is still crazy.
When people yell at each other publicly about anything, it is rude and barbaric. You shouldn’t be subjected to people’s loud, angry voices. You wish they would stop and that someone else, but not you, should stop them. It usually escalates even if someone tries to stop it, and several people start bickering.
Is this behavior okay because it is in written form? Does this make it more civilized because it is typed on a public forum instead of being yelled from the back of the bus? Suddenly, people who would be too scared on the bus are cracking their knuckles before creating a response to someone’s Facebook post.
Facebook isn’t a dinner table. It isn’t a coffee shop, and it isn’t a bus. We search for meaning anywhere we can, and one place is in the comment section of any website. If you truly want to see the futility of man trying to find meaning in their life, check the comment section on a local news site. People are empty, and now they can yell at the heavens without looking crazy, by writing it instead of yelling it.
Facebook is all that: a digital way to get a reaction. It is a way for someone to feel they have gained knowledge. In real life, some people have a harder time getting positive feedback, so they would rather endure hate and resentment than be invisible. If I can’t be treated like a princess, then I will surround myself with torches, pitchforks, and hate. Most of the time, people are just yelling what their audience already agrees with anyway, so there is no consequence to what they post, just looking for those likes.
We all do it. Every time I post one of these blogs on Facebook, I wait for someone to say they liked what they read. When I had a girlfriend, I made my girlfriend read them in front of me so I could see her laugh, and when she laughed, I asked her, “What? What made you laugh?” When no one reacts to a blog post, I get discouraged. I dread getting any negative feedback, but I would rather get negative feedback than none at all.
This is the addiction to social media. The common human connection isn’t enough or is too complex and scary, so we rely on Facebook to be part of something. We troll and post ridiculous things and get bogged down in political quagmires that just leave us angry and exhausted, wondering why the world is so terrible. If the person you were arguing with was in the room with you, would you talk to them that way?
It isn’t that terrible, but the internet shows us an opposing side of the human experience. It shows the tribal way we divide on political and social issues, and how much we need to win useless arguments. That makes the very dark side of people shine in your face like a blue light.
Please turn it off and reintroduce yourself to person-to-person debate and discussion.
Prayer
Jonathan Abrams,
Things have escalated since your networking social site, Friendster, took the nation by storm.
Boy oh boy.
First the Pimp Your Myspace let me have wild c, mild-manneredning bolts streak across my pr, dark holes,ong Get Low by Lil, Jon would be blasting making peopreactsling for the volume on their Dell towers quick.
Then it was this Facebook.
Why was this the one that everyone decided was cool?
It wasn’t different from Friendster, and the profiles weren’t customizable like MySpace.
Now people hide behind their phones and stand up for democracy with all caps, memes, and links.
People who supposedly have jobs are arguing on several comment threads at once every minute all day.
These meek, mild-mannered people come out of their dank, dark holes, blink at the light, and scurry back in case someone reacts to something they have written.
This is our great civilization on “paper”.
Boi oh boi.
It would seem that we shouldn’t have started this social media thing after all.
After all, no one wins but the people who have been winning anyway.
We’ve all lost.
Amen.
Craft
Find an intense Facebook argument.
Please print it out.
Cast actors or friends to play the parts.
Read the arguments with the most exaggerated tone of the original author’s intent.
Film.
Post.
Hilarity ensues.
Having Siri read Facebook posts is funny, too.
Goal
As long as you are arguing on Facebook, you have no goals.
You are not helping someone learn.
You aren’t having an open debate.
You aren’t starting a revolution.
You aren’t being the voice no one is hearing.
You aren’t helping people see the truth.
You are just an asshole.