Facepalm common reaction to Facebook

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Taber Times

I was struggling to find an idea for a column this week when on Friday morning I was enjoying my Life cereal. Ironically enough, my jet-setting lifestyle of wiping the milk from my chin as I ate Life cereal pondering life, I scanned my Facebook feed, which gave me my column idea.

There was a comment about the frustration over all the frustration that was being vented over Facebook.

Apparently, there is quite the Wrestlemania going on out there right now on the Taber Buy N’ Sell feed and of course the controversy over the white poppy as we celebrated Remembrance Day this past Monday.

I took note because I was one of those people who were concerned over the movement of Rideau Institute’s white poppy campaign, which insinuated the red poppy glorifies war instead of thinking towards peace.

My exact Facebook rant at the time read…“I’ve been accused of being the leftist tree-hugging hippy and I still think this is wrong in so many ways. Enough already with the PC crap. Red poppies don’t glorify war, it is to remember the ultimate sacrifice of the blood spilled in less politicized wars so you can enjoy the freedoms you have today, you ungrateful upstaging dickwads…textbook intellectuals in their ivory towers with no real life experience who think they are smarter than everyone else.”

Yes, not my most eloquently-written comment with the reference to ‘upstaging dickwads,’ but I stand by it. I can totally see the author of the Facebook comment’s point. It’s probably not the way you want to start your day, if all you are seeing on your Facebook feed is negativity and anger for your mindset with friends and family.

But what exactly is the right way to use Facebook, Twitter or other social media outlets? There simply isn’t one.

Coming from the guy who burns water and whose idea of an exotic dish is wieners in his Kraft Dinner, seeing the 800th recipe on flan or crab cakes on my Facebook feed doesn’t really float my boat.

Nor is the perception that if I hit ‘Like’ on a certain comment, that .00002 seconds I took to do that labourious task somehow proves how much I love my sister (give them a call instead), will save that boy in Africa from pestilence and famine or cure cancer. To me it’s lazy activism. Want to make a difference? Coach a sports team, go vote, volunteer at your kid’s school, help out at the food bank or pick up the phone and show how much you love your mom by finding out how her day was.

But everyone has their thing they like to post on Facebook and I’m sure several people enjoy the things I simply scroll past. There really is no one right way to utilize the medium and each to their own. My usual preference is to make Seinfeld-esque observations to life or post pictures of what I find funny for a guy that is probably likened to an eight-year-old with how easily amused I am. But, every once in awhile I shoot from the belltower with my rant for the day.

And I make no apologies about it, you should be passionate about things that go past only the things that directly affect you in this ever increasing me-me world.

But, I can see where that weighs on a person though, as the Facebook poster noted. I have deleted people from my Facebook given their constant negativity, lack of grasp of the English language, but apparent love of profanity, in which I have to share my Facebook feed with young and elderly relatives.

I’m all for my views being challenged in the world of Facebook social media, but could we please evolve past the YouTube vernacular “U Suk” or questioning my mother’s chastity. I always think of Facebook friend Tedd Allen, where we may be worlds apart politically in some aspects, but his debate is well thought out, rational and respectful. It progresses far past the YouTube town square arguments of ‘you turnip-eating Pinko.’

A former Taberite who now lives in California, his Republicans and Democrats could take a page on Allen’s commentary of how healthy debate should be, in which somewhere in the middle can be met in reaching a common goal.

At the same time, if all you do is spend your time lamenting about the evils of the world on Facebook, you’ll miss out on the beautiful things life has to offer. Like good family and friends, “Anchorman 2” coming out this Christmas and a fine scotchy scotch that goes down smooth.

So I feel the same pain as you do fellow Facebook users when I see motivational messages intertwined with a totally unrelated picture of a kitten, the 33rd update in a 15-minute span of a child’s maiden voyage into potty training, as if they just split the atom and the duck-faced selfie that is horribly misframed…but we must persevere.

Simply scroll past those things and get to the good stuff like the links to Cinderella’s video of “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone),” the people who don’t want you sticking your nose in their business but post their drama on Facebook anyway, or scantily-clad women in their Halloween costumes.

What? You don’t like those either? Each to their own I guess. I may find your observation about winter coming every October/November to be self- explanatory living in Canada, but damn it, I’ll fight for your right to post it on Facebook.

We all have our foibles of what we like to see and post on Facebook, in which in the end, no one’s is better than anyone else’s, it’s all a matter of preference.