FatuousBook

Possibly erroneous thoughts from recent combox chatter on a post by Terry ---long time blogging acquaintance, fellow art-guy and probably friend if we ever met in person--- that expresses the fatuous nature of a certain social media platform. The bit's in quotes are from other commentors and I wrote the stuff in blue (wait, that's an FB colour; Freudian?).

Circa January 2012, "People barely email me anymore - they all use Facebook messages." Circa 2002, "People barely call me anymore - they all use email."

"FB is essentially narcissistic." But personal blogs in general and a blog post on the wanton waste of FB and our vital comments on same aren't? Heh, heh, down girl, just having fun.

"...lewd and suggestive photos young girls post of themselves in massive numbers [on FB]" Golly, I must be using the wrong FB.

"Even tv bores me..." Haven't had one in decades myself. However, I have an eReader and love it so that'll no doubt add years to any purgatorial stop over.

"It is definitely the technology for a selfish generation." Well, not to visit the telephone again but you should have heard what my cranky old Methodist Gran had to say about that contraption back when I was 13.

Well, it's been fun...

P.S. The Word Verification and I am not making this up is, wait for it, "wayholy"

OK, silliness aside, plenty of people use FB and other social networks for a kind of networking that does not involve silly amounts of personal disclosure or an inordinate waste of time. What do I mean by plenty? Um, one in every 1,000? Me anyway. 

I hardly use FB except to scandalously promote my own blog posts and to follow along with those whose stuff I want to read and not miss. The best way to reach people and be reached by them is to use the method in which they choose to be reached. Not to go all religious on us or anything but I kind of think of St. Paul preachin' it in Athens by the statue to the 'Unknown' god and quoting a contemporary poet to move his hearers from the known to the Unknown.

I know authors who promote their books and other writing via FB and G+. I know Catholics who have a group to support Catholics and promote the faith because "Catholics Are Christians." I know artists, even casual amateur artists like the folks on the Every Day Matters FB Group who share their art and love for creating. I know grandparents who use FB to stay in touch with family and actual, real in the flesh, friends. For people who use it that way they might even say it's a godsend. 

I find it hard to get all bent and grumpy about this these days. I've been a crank about stuff like this in the past so I'm not looking for halo props here. I'm just trying to learn to live and let live a little more than I used to. I think that is the main thing behind my wanting to say anything about this at all. Make sense?

Oh, I do have one social network that I truly value. I do. Plurk. Not all of it. Just my/our corner of it. It's a very small group of people and most of us a) are faithful Catholics, b) keep our profile and messages set to private, c) do note some silly things and some ephemera but mostly we share one anothers prayer concerns, burdens, joys, victories. It's a warm, supportive place.

P.S. Posting on social media...man, this must be hump day or what?

Prize Fight, by Albert Bloch. Source.