Vote No on Politics on Facebook

This Thanksgiving when I sit with my family and we go around in a circle to list the things we are most grateful for this year, at the top of my list will be the fact that the election is over.

Fear not, I am not going to tell you who to vote for. Nor am I going to tell you who I plan to vote for. I would like to encourage you to vote because I think it's a privilege, because I think a lot of people who are affected by the legislation don't use their right to vote, because you really don't get to complain if you didn't do something to try to make a change, and because Michael Franti looks very handsome in the picture he posted online encouraging people to vote.

We are all entitled to our opinions, no matter how much they may vary. We all make our decisions based on the people and experiences to which we have been exposed. I am all for trying to cast a new light on certain issues and help people think about them in a more informed way, trust me. I think it's truly reckless how many people are outspoken about decisions that impact whole groups of people with whom the opinionated person has little experience with or exposure to. But I am super over the political conversations on Facebook.

I admit that I love Facebook. During my work day, I often need a little distraction to lighten my mood. Or sitting at an appointment, killing time waiting to be seen, it's easy to flip through. And I love people using their figurative voices. But there have to be other things you want to say other than who to vote for or who not to vote for, day in and day out. How many people do you think you are really convincing to change their minds? And the spirit of contention that it creates makes many people shy away from the conversation altogether. I think I have fallen into that group a lot this political season. It's been extra scary for me because of Romney's Mormon factor and feeling like people are sometimes misrepresenting ideologies I was raised on, independent of Romney's platform, which I am refraining from commenting on.

So when I go on Facebook, I want to see a picture of the cake that you just baked. I like hearing about the silly thing your kid said. I enjoy the way you define yourself online. But I don't want to feel defensive. And I don't want to like you less because of your political ideals. I want to look at your pictures, reminisce about shared good times and enjoy the person you have grown into, controversial topics aside.

Babies or Cats?

DID YOU KNOW THIS EXISTED???

If you didn't immediately click on my link, let me tell you what would have happened if you were to have done so. You would have been swept away to a site called Unbaby.me. The concept is that you can download something that will turn all the pictures of babies in your Facebook feed and elsewhere into pictures of things you prefer such as cats!! I'm not opposed to baby pics but I do REALLY love cats so they kind of drew me in there. (To be very explicit, though, I did not download this. I don't mind seeing pics of everyone's kids. But I am a tiny bit tempted to see what it would be like to have pictures of Persians pop up every time there was a kid pic. Just to see!)
Here is an article that expounds upon this idea and some reactions to it even further. What do YOU think? Is this wildly offensive? Mildly rude? Necessary or unneeded? How would you feel if someone downloaded something to avoid pics of your kids so they could instead choose to see something like bacon or a car or a certain breed of dog? If you downloaded this, would you let anyone know?

http://media.photobucket.com/image/cat/emodogess/animals/red10.jpg?o=2

Book Boyfriends

1. I hate that Facebook sends me a text message when I try to log in from a "new device". Really?? My home computer that is 2.5 years old and way too slow is new to you?

2. I am not digging the new blogger interface. Maybe if I took the time to read about it I wouldn't be so cranky about it but I'm here to write, not to read. I totally sound like one of those people complaining about a new Facebook layout and "how can I get back the old version?". I think with Blogger there's actually a way but, again, that would require work I am not yet willing to expend. Complaining is so much easier. It's always been my go-to first course of action. People love that about me.

3. I found a new book boyfriend this weekend. His name is Chase Jennings and he lives in the book Article 5. I wrote a long,enthusiastic review on Goodreads already. You can find it here. If that let's you into my personal Goodreads page, my bad. If you want to impersonate me as a reader, at least make me look smart, please. But back to the important stuff: this book was radtastic. It was one of those books that makes you sad when you are finished because you like "spending time" with the characters so much. I didn't love the lead girl, Ember, so much. Her thought process was all wrong a lot of the time but it created more tension. In my review I likened it to Rhett and Scarlett in Gone With the Wind, how you just want to shake them and make them communicate more effectively and stop hurting each other. The lead male, my favorite book boyfriend to date, Chase, was just yummy. Surly and strong yet wounded and sensitive. Standing up for his girl and caring for her more than himself. That's the way it should be done!

4. Now I'm just killing time until Insurgent, the sequel to Divergent by Veronica Roth, arrives on my doorstep on Tuesday. I like the boyfriend in that, too. Four. For how many fears he has. I hate most of the character names in young adult books. I think that trend has something to do with all the weird names kids get now, an attempt by their parents to make them unique. As someone with a non-traditional name (but in a Golden Girls, old lady way and not a state-turned-name-replacing-an-i-with-a-y kind of name way), I will tell you that it's really frustrating as a kid to go to the dollar store or the Christmas Tree Shoppe and to not be able to find a pen/mug/key chain with your name on it. I think I have gone on this rant here before so I apologize....the scars of youth surface so quickly:) Anyway, I kind of like the name Four, contrary to all logic I just stated. And I like the character Four and am looking forward to him filling the book boyfriend spot on Tuesday that Chase left vacant this afternoon.

5. Maybe I will only write numbered posts from now on. They are good for my brain.

Reality TV: A social experiment

Back on my soapbox and my concerns for the future, today's topic is reality tv.

Now hold on, my dearies. I have not gone all righteous on you and abandoned my own personal love for this genre. In fact, if viewer's choice awards were reversed and the shows got to vote on their favorite viewers instead, I like to think I would at least get an honorable mention from a handful of the slimiest reality shows. In fact, I once earned a gift card from VH1 for sharing my opinions about the shows I Love Money and Rock of Love. Little did they know I went and spent it on real, live books! Oh, the irony.

So now that I have stated for the record that I flat out adore reality tv and find even the people who should be receiving substance treatment on Jersey Shore to be heroes in my quest for escapism by Thursday night, I would like to express some of my fears for the future generation. I admit that as a thirtysomething professional with advanced education and a life dedicated to eradicating violence in intimate relationships, I have actually used some of the catch phrases from the creme de la creme of reality shows to try to start a fight. Having seen a lot of fight scenes and heard the language used to escalate them, it all started to sound normal in my head. Thankfully, on these shows, post-fight, everyone goes back to being friends and such is the ending to my tale, too. My point is that if it could sink into my head, what is it doing to teens who don't know what life before dating competition shows was like?

To expand, I'm slightly less familiar with all of the "extreme" kinds of shows but, of course, have seen a few here and there. How do these looks at the private lives of strangers impact still forming minds? Will my niece or nephew become hoarders? Or extreme couponers? Or will the world watch as they struggle to lose weight? While it's great to break down barriers of shame, certain behaviors that people in the past may have kept under wraps are now being glorified. I love Teen Mom (sorry) and I've lost more than a few hours to Storage Wars but with the distance of adulthood, I watch in awe that people put themselves out there, not with any assumption of normalcy.

It IS really interesting to get to see how other people live and think, sure. But combine this voyeurism with the public chronicling of Facebook (from yesterday's rant) and how do kids today learn about boundaries?? How do they know what is private? Sacred? What is worth looking at just to see and not to take a picture of to post online? As the national treasure Betty White said when she hosted SNL, 30 years ago when someone wanted to show you a slideshow of their vacation, you groaned whereas now we look at other people's pictures without even letting them know we have done so.

What a funny world we live in, right?

You probably shouldn't read this

I always have an excuse for not writing more frequently. Today's is that I believe I'm coming down with a mild form of social Tourette's syndrome. More and more lately I seem to say or do, impulsively, the most inappropriate things. Of course I mean no offense when these incidents occur but they leave me turning them over in my head for days, wondering if my audience clung to how wrong what I did or said was as much as I am. Honestly, I just thought of giving you an example and I was too mortified to even 'fess up.

This extends to the written word. I have probably already offended you and for that, I am sorry. The things I feel most compelled to expound upon lately are definitely things that should not be written down and made public. They are the kinds of things you might not even talk to your best friends about unless you were trying to make them laugh at you. Toilet humor has taken custody of my brain.

Whenever this happens and all I can think about is how I could wax eloquent about what happens in the bathroom or something of the like, I think about Facebook. Reasonable jump? I think so. Here's why: with no intended offense (but, as mentioned, that's probably a moot point by now) to all the wonderful parents out there, when you post about your child potty training couldn't you change the settings to only share with your family and immediate circle? What is this generation of children going to be like, having their every intimate move documented for the world without their consent? This is a legitimate concern of mine. I am truly curious about the long term sociological impact of social media on youth. As adults, we have some level of choice and consent regarding the information we share but kids, either the ones whose parents are posting about their uti's or the ones who have grown up not knowing any differently, are going to have an extremely different social development that any other generation. In a lot of ways I'm sure this is great and these kids will be way smarter and all. But they may also end up in with some funky social fallout. All I can think of is that they might end up in adult diapers. I think that's another example of my problem, manifesting itself.

So anyway, that's my rant for today. Thoughts?