Thanks to Facebook, I have been able to be in touch with people I haven’t seen in decades. I have been in conversation with former grade school classmates, relatives I haven’t talked to in years and have been able to follow some celebrities I thought I would never be in touch with. Who’d think the former crush I had from a television show in the 70s would file a restraining order against me. We’re that close now.
Another result of being on Facebook is that I am taking pictures of wherever I go and every meal I eat out. I have to share that with my friends. My friends may not think so, but I just have to. I also know when some of the people I am following are having a birthday, buying a new car, redecorating their house or having another grandchild. At the rate my sons are going, I will never have a joyful message to post on Facebook (do I sound bitter?). I am also on Twitter and Instagram. Instagram has me completely baffled. I have posted a couple of pictures but I’m not quite sure what to do with them. I’m just figuring out Twitter and might be getting the hang of it. I signed up to help promote my blog (BBRiley.net – check it out). I joined right at the beginning of 2020…holy crap. I walked into a frenzy of political back and forth, the spreading obvious lies and the vicious slap back at detractors with some of the most heinous responses I have ever seen…and that was just the President.
Every once in a while there would be a fun type of posting. Something from sports, a story about a celebrity or someone reaching out for a fun comment on a subject. Yes, my four favorite songs from the 60s are Light My Fire by the Doors, The Beatles Day in a Life, Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel and Sugar Sugar by the Archies. Hey, it’s a real toe tapper.
Things took a drastic turn for the better, (or as some would say, for the boring) when Donald Trump and his circus sideshow were kicked off the Twitter platform in early January. All the vitriol seems to have waned and twitter has gotten back to whatever it was meant to be. Not quite sure what that is but it is much more civil. I have friends and relatives who swear they will never be caught dead on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any social media platform. I completely understand but I do think they are missing out on some fun. Thanks to social media I was able to find out about my high school reunion. I follow a friend who has become an excellent photographer and I know exactly when some of my friends are heading off to an afternoon nap. Yawn, be back in an hour.
Back and refreshed. There is one thing about social media that does drive me crazy, the spelling and grammar are terrible. I guess that could apply to anything on-line today. Geez, all these people have spell-check and still can’t get anything right. Best example: The hoard trying to overthrow the government on January 6th weren’t attacking the “capital” building, they were attacking the “capitol” building. If you are going to be a successful insurrectionist, learn how to freaking spell.
A new language that has sprung up around social media called net speak (acronyms). BFF for best friends forever or LOL for laughing out loud are the most common examples. There are some people who just use three letters of a word and expect one to figure it out. I struggled with Spanish in high school and my grip on English is tenuous at best. There is nothing worse than a guy of my advanced age trying to use this new on-line language. I’ll just keep spelling out the whole word, make sure it is correctly spelled and in a proper sentence, then send out my tweet, email, text or whatever. That is why my responses to people on-line take about an hour. Have to be perfect.
Unfortunately social media does have a dark side. Even though some of the platform providers have made a weak effort to police such venom, a lot of hate is being spread across all these sites. When the purveyors of this filth do get kicked off such sites, they head to other sites that are more than happy to host them. The problem is not solved, it is just in hiding and festering. Maybe there should be some regulation of what is placed on-line, like the FCC does with radio and television. It might be nice if some of the lies promoted by politicians and their sycophants can be fact checked. Wait, just got a tweet. Great, now I have the “free speech” folks mad at me.
I was thinking about tweeting about how well my workouts are going each day and taking a picture of my arms to show my progress, but I’m afraid I’ll hear from the “gun’ lobby. See what I did there…LOL !
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