This is the end
It's done. I'm spent. I can't take any more. When it first started it was the height of frivolity. No limits, unbounded conversation. I posted and liked pictures, poked a few people, and even played a game or two of Bejeweled Blitz.
Then things got a little serious. Politics met social media and conversations I wouldn't dream of having over a beer were happening on my Facebook wall. These were still good times. I made a rule for myself to never delete what anyone posted so as to keep an open dialogue and open mind. I became something of an activist, attending rallies and protests based on groups and conversations I found on Facebook. To this day I have broken my censorship rule only three times, though I've lamented having it many more than that.
It's not the politics that have turned me off. I enjoy the vigorous exchange of ideas, seeking and finding common ground and compromise. I like pwning dumbasses with facts and watching the mental gymnastics they do to avoid changing their opinion. But one can only take so much.
A turning point
At some point the reason was completely replaced with the gymnastics. The demotivational pictures with their charged one-liners became the argument, rather than conversation pieces. No, I don't want to join your farming, pirate, slot machine guild. If you cared about my birthday, you would make a better effort than asking me to remind you of it. Stop. Fucking. Ruining. The Walking Dead!
Now the majority of my "friends" are as disengaged as if I'd never clicked on them. Most of them I don't recognize by the contrast between the flat, soulless propaganda they post. Political, religious, whatever. I'm just as turned off by the pictures of tortured dogs and diseased children as the blithe affirmations of Christ's love.
That's all I can stands...
Over the last three days I watched people, knowing how they really feel, choose to prioritize expressing their selfishness in the face of unimaginable horror. Selfishness. That's what it is. People afraid that the big, scary government is coming for their loud, bang toys because some psychopath decided to make a name for himself with the same toys. It's silly to talk about what might have happened with an armed faculty. If more guns equated to more safety this would be the safest country on the planet. But hypotheticals like that are unfounded, contradicted by data as vehemently as they are promoted by the NRA. Any question, any call to examine our violent, gun culture is an attack on freedom. In reality, all values require tireless and constant examination to be worthwhile. Except, somehow, gun ownership.
Detractors will be quick to point out that hey, liberals (a term too narrowly defined) deal in propaganda too. Maybe, but we libs are really bad at it. We tend to back our ideas with facts and research. And that takes time. Wouldn't it be easier to regurgitate NRA pamphlets and Bill O'Reilly quips? It really is a false equivalency and one I'm not willing to entertain here.
So long!
I have no illusions that the loss of one blowhard will make any impact on the day-to-day bullshit of Facebook. I'm just done with it. I'm done with the aggravation. I'm done with the misinformation. I'm done with seeing a side of people I love that I wish I would never see. Could I just purge? Could I just remove what I don't like and keep only those who agree with me or those who relish in the absurdity of constant contact. Probably. But that would be too much a violation of my own rule. Instead, I choose to remove myself. I'm the one with the problem, so I'm the one who should go away.
So, goodbye, Facebook. It's been real.
It's done. I'm spent. I can't take any more. When it first started it was the height of frivolity. No limits, unbounded conversation. I posted and liked pictures, poked a few people, and even played a game or two of Bejeweled Blitz.
Then things got a little serious. Politics met social media and conversations I wouldn't dream of having over a beer were happening on my Facebook wall. These were still good times. I made a rule for myself to never delete what anyone posted so as to keep an open dialogue and open mind. I became something of an activist, attending rallies and protests based on groups and conversations I found on Facebook. To this day I have broken my censorship rule only three times, though I've lamented having it many more than that.
It's not the politics that have turned me off. I enjoy the vigorous exchange of ideas, seeking and finding common ground and compromise. I like pwning dumbasses with facts and watching the mental gymnastics they do to avoid changing their opinion. But one can only take so much.
A turning point
At some point the reason was completely replaced with the gymnastics. The demotivational pictures with their charged one-liners became the argument, rather than conversation pieces. No, I don't want to join your farming, pirate, slot machine guild. If you cared about my birthday, you would make a better effort than asking me to remind you of it. Stop. Fucking. Ruining. The Walking Dead!
Now the majority of my "friends" are as disengaged as if I'd never clicked on them. Most of them I don't recognize by the contrast between the flat, soulless propaganda they post. Political, religious, whatever. I'm just as turned off by the pictures of tortured dogs and diseased children as the blithe affirmations of Christ's love.
That's all I can stands...
Over the last three days I watched people, knowing how they really feel, choose to prioritize expressing their selfishness in the face of unimaginable horror. Selfishness. That's what it is. People afraid that the big, scary government is coming for their loud, bang toys because some psychopath decided to make a name for himself with the same toys. It's silly to talk about what might have happened with an armed faculty. If more guns equated to more safety this would be the safest country on the planet. But hypotheticals like that are unfounded, contradicted by data as vehemently as they are promoted by the NRA. Any question, any call to examine our violent, gun culture is an attack on freedom. In reality, all values require tireless and constant examination to be worthwhile. Except, somehow, gun ownership.
Detractors will be quick to point out that hey, liberals (a term too narrowly defined) deal in propaganda too. Maybe, but we libs are really bad at it. We tend to back our ideas with facts and research. And that takes time. Wouldn't it be easier to regurgitate NRA pamphlets and Bill O'Reilly quips? It really is a false equivalency and one I'm not willing to entertain here.
So long!
I have no illusions that the loss of one blowhard will make any impact on the day-to-day bullshit of Facebook. I'm just done with it. I'm done with the aggravation. I'm done with the misinformation. I'm done with seeing a side of people I love that I wish I would never see. Could I just purge? Could I just remove what I don't like and keep only those who agree with me or those who relish in the absurdity of constant contact. Probably. But that would be too much a violation of my own rule. Instead, I choose to remove myself. I'm the one with the problem, so I'm the one who should go away.
So, goodbye, Facebook. It's been real.
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