When Social Networking Goes Horribly Wrong

Rant: used as a noun, an extravagant or violent declamation. It’s characterized by a lack of eloquence, impromptu speech, and sometimes belligerence. 

This is a rant. The reader is asked to excuse any disrespectful/judgmental language. Failure to do so will probably result in your own offended feelings, for which I cannot and will not be held accountable.

I have discovered that Social Networking sites are the worst. Especially for someone suffering from PGSD. Why? Because when you’re not sure about how your tomorrow’s going to look, you couldn’t care less about how somebody else’s today is going. Especially if that somebody else is somebody you haven’t spoken to in years, don’t care to speak to within the next few years, or feel that deep, deep down inside you ought to be doing better than. Yes, I know how that last part just sounded. You were forewarned.  Now, I may as well go ahead and make yet another disclaimer that I’m probably about to sound like a hater for a good portion, if not all, of this post. However, I am calling on two highly important facts: 1, Countless numbers of other people have written about how they don’t care about other people’s happiness when they feel like Time is nothing more than a perpetual state of doom. And they aren’t haters. Steve Jobs said it. Oprah said it. Need I say more? And 2, this isn’t that kind of post anyway.

Because Facebook is really the only Social Networking site that I visit regularly, my opinions are drawn primarily from it. I flat-out refuse to get a Twitter account, let alone actively use it. There are too many rules involved with Twitter; why the hell should I care about something trending? What the hell does that even mean? And the use of # makes no sense to me. Whenever I use that it’s to dial somebody’s telephone extension or to indicate a number. Now people are just using it to describe their exuberant state of being--#happytimes—or their dismal financial situation--#broke. I don’t get it. If it has to be restricted to 200 and some odd characters, maybe you shouldn’t be talking at all.

And then there’s Instagram, which I don’t even feel like addressing because I really don’t get that. Since when did pictures need to take on a life their own?

The problem is that people are being given the ability to put too much of their business out there far too easily. I miss the days when I didn’t know what was going on with people that I hadn’t seen since I was wearing Tommy Hilfiger jeans. I miss needing a venue or an event to bring us all together. I remember being a sophomore in high school looking forward to seeing what my peers would look/be like at our ten-year reunion. Now, all I have to do is check my minifeed for some grammatically-incorrect, indecipherable status about how happy they are with their four kids and “BD” (code for: baby daddy) snuggled up next to them. 

I just don’t care. I think that life is about meeting people, having them in your life for an allotted time, and then moving on. It’s like when a writer writes a story. Once a character has served his purpose, he exits stage left and never returns. And why doesn’t he return? Because the story has to continue and his unnecessary presence would prevent the story from progressing. To me, I’m not supposed to know how somebody that I haven’t spoken to in a year or so is doing. If we don’t talk now, it’s because we’re not supposed to. It’s because you were written out so that my story could continue on (likewise, I was written out of your story). And if we’re not talking, I shouldn’t know that you called off your wedding because you found out your fiancé cheated on you with your auntie (True story. Found that out courtesy of Facebook). These things shouldn’t be told to people whose phone numbers you no longer have/never had.

So forgive me if I happen to see that somebody that I haven’t talked to in a very long time is living it up, and I don’t care. Forgive the fact that I roll my eyes or have to resist the urge from commenting how much I don’t care. I don’t care about how great of a person you think you are because you got that job you wanted at Home Depot, and that your blessings are made evident by said employment. When you really think about it, it’s kind of messed up that somebody defines their blessings by a job anyway, but to each his own.

I just don’t care, and I don’t know why people think other people are supposed to care. I don’t know why people take Social Networking so seriously. When Facebook first asked: What are you doing? What are you thinking? I don’t think they literally wanted you to share your entire life story. I firmly believe that the Timeline was created to poke fun at everybody’s foolish over-sharing because, honestly, why should you have a metaphorical “Facebook Life” anyway?

The point of Social Networking is to stay in touch with people, not know everybody’s damn business, whether you want to or not. You’re not supposed to actually care about the people. The people whose lives and well-beings you care about are the ones that you still talk to. If I care about you, I’ll call you. I’ll text you. Hell, I’ll still have your number saved in my phone to do said calling and texting. I just feel like people rely too much on Social Networking. It’s how they examine and evaluate their existence, their relationships, their careers, their likes and dislikes, etc. And it’s gotten to the point where not having at least one account on one of these damn sites can hinder you in some aspect, whether it’s socially or economically (gaining employment, for instance). Being connected to the Social Network experience has become an expectation, a way of life. And to me, that’s just a

#damnshame.