Obligatory Witty Attention Grabber

Social Media is fun.  Especially Facebook ™.   People are ten foot tall and bullet proof there.  They say stuff they’d never say to your face, good or bad.  They can nitpick every thought you have to the nth degree.  Simple statements of alcohol enjoyment cause someone to go on a rant about the freezing level of alcohol; witty observations start angry political debates; pictures of tattoos bring the self righteous to say vindictful things – and that’s just my profile and interactions in the last 3 months. 

But those are rare.  Most of the time the interactions are mundane.  Polite coffee conversation, my grandmother would say.  And it’s all the same.  90% of status updates and replies can be summed up quite nicely by the following interaction between me and my friend G:

G –something clever and funny.

            Me: smart remark to said witty status.

            G: Cheap shot to feeble sarcastic remark

            Me: stupid acronym to show my amusement

            G: random punctuation marks denote my happiness

            Me: guilt-ridden question about your offspring that is totally insensitive since I asked it on your facebook status instead of calling or writing?

And that sums it up.  Occasionally its more involved.  Usually, though, that’s it.  Superficial BS about life.  Or “copy and paste this if you want [insert horrible disease here] to end.  If you don’t you hate puppies and want them to die.”  Or something like that.  I love my mom, my kids, my siblings and puppies.  I hate cancer, AIDS, leprosy, and death by giant squid.  I don’t care what color my bra is, where I keep my purse or whether your mom made out with a penguin in the bathroom of my uncle’s house because the man on the moon told her to (which means something simply mundane like ‘I’m happily married with kids and born in September).  I don’t really care how your farm is doing, or that your castle siege was thwarted by a dragon, or that your illegal money laundering scheme for your fake Mafia needs help. 

So I’ll make my pointless posts and my friends will give their two cents, and then I’ll “LOL” and ;) and the like.  If you have a prayer request I’ll : ( and say I’ll pray when we both know that I’ll just keep reading facebook and forget.  I’m slack.  If your neighbor’s dog is lost I’ll repost it so all my friends 9 states away will know and can help.  Then I’ll post a picture of my kid.

When people post pictures of their kids people comment with “aww” and “: )” and “precious” … no one ever says negative things.  “Here’s sweet Petunia in the new dress grandma sent” never has comments like “Oh, holy hell that’s tacky” or “Did you mean to make Petunia’s hair look like a show dog’s?” or “why does your kid look more like your neighbor than your husband?”  Just the “aww, she’s so precious I could eat her up!” I do it.  I’m such a liar a lot.  And people have done it to me.  Because its facebook.  Because social media is such a funny little monster.  Repost this 10 times if you agree.