Facebook

All right, I've been on Facebook for a few months now, ostensibly to assist in the growth of my business.  In truth, I can't have a Facebook account that mixes business with personal business.  Some people who were invited to it thought things that I posted for business were worthy of their commentary, like the one idiot who, when I posted something about bankruptcy in Spanish, posted Yo quiero Taco Bell...LOL.  I deleted that offering.

Facebook has its utility.  For families that are dispersed over a wide area, it's a means for keeping up with each other.  Posting photographs of kids' events, momentous occasions or accomplishments, is much easier with Facebook, which has an immediacy lacking in other media.  Since I'm not favored with any family relations, Facebook from that perspective doesn't make any sense.

Karen has plenty of family who've adopted me.  They're wonderful people and it's fun to exchange pleasantries and other things with them.  I have a few friends with whom I connect on Facebook, but again, it's just not all that important to me.

There are, however, some things that have proven interesting about Facebook and how it's used.  From that perspective, Facebook is interesting.

Karen is an admitted people watcher, and watching people on Facebook is downright fascinating.  There are people who are nothing but snarky.  That's fun.  They find things I would never find and post them for my amusement.  That saves me the trouble of looking and gives me a good laugh.

Some people are unbelievably narcissistic.  Sure, having a Facebook account already means one is on the path to narcissism to a degree, but when one peoples the pages with picture after picture of himself, it gets a little tedious. Especially when said person has children and the number of photos of oneself equal or surpass those of his children, it's almost embarrassing.  Pucker those cheeks any tighter and the person may just shrivel up and blow away.

Politics is always a fertile territory on Facebook.  People who, in real life, wouldn't have the testicular fortitude to debate politics become raving banshees ready to man the ramparts on Facebook.  Some people with liberal tendencies have become so exercised over things Karen's posted they've unfriended her -- another concept that I'll discuss more, below -- even though they were merely position statements and not argument.  Family has even unfriended her over her political views.  And the hilarious thing to me, were it not so sad, is that these very same people post vitriolic stuff on their own pages for which they accuse Karen, unfairly, of posting.  Politics brings out the best hypocrisy in people.

This notion of unfriending someone mystifies me.  If a person is admired enough to ask him to join your page as a friend, why unfriend him when he states his politics?  I mean, if he was a friend before Facebook, didn't his politics become apparent sometime before he was invited to be a Facebook friend?  Sure, there are those people who don't know how to discuss politics properly, or are so argumentative and rude that trying to talk with them is futile.  But in Karen's case, talking politics for her is sport.  She's more diplomatic than most and argues facts, not emotions.  If anyone lacks the diplomatic gene in this family, it's me.  But compared to some people, I'm Henry Frigging Clay.  Yet these people rant and rave, descrying conservative views as if the Fourth Reich were about to be established.

Facebook still isn't that easy for me to navigate.  I'm going to start a page dedicated solely to my business when I get back from Up North.  And I'm not entirely comfortable about sharing things about myself with the world; that's why I have almost as many people blocked as I have friends.

I guess the upshot is that Facebook can be a useful tool but it can also be a divisive instrument.  There are friends and family that no longer talk because of slights, perceived or otherwise, that have occurred on Facebook.  I don't mind mixing it up, and would gladly engage in a debate here if anyone were interested, but since I don't want to alienate family or friends, I remain pretty tame on Facebook.

If I didn't, they'd have to rename it Smackbook.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles