[I must say this: don’t be put off by anything you find here. If you’re reading this, I’m probably not talking to you.
Ha, shows that I’m still afraid to really go off on a rant. Wouldn’t want to offend anyone.]
I was cleaning out my inbox this morning and came across some comments for this blog, which guilted me into starting a post. Well, that’s harsh. I always want to post but I don’t want to write something of mediocre quality that I’ll later regret. (In truth, the reason is probably more that I’m lazy, but we’ll go with the first for now.)
But here I am now, aware that, though few they may be, I actually do have a few readers and I should keep them coming back at least occasionally by making some additions from time to time. When I look at other blogs I usually see very short entries, maybe even just three lines. Especially celebrity blogs. Celebrities are so lazy. Why would they not put valuable time into communicating with (sorry, to) their ever-doting fans? Isn’t that a priority to them? Ha. If I were famous I’d write less too. Because obviously they don’t need Internet fans. I, on the other hand, seem to be doing this as a thinly veiled plea for kindred spirits. And I’m long-winded. Seems when I open up that certain valve, it takes a lot of force to get it shut again.
I’m going to do something new here: post poetry. Well, it rhymes, at least; I don’t know if I dare be so bold as to call it poetry. I’ve put some poems on Facebook before, but honestly, I’m not sure why I bother. I usually hate other people’s poems on Facebook. For some reason I consider my own different. And if people out there hate them, they keep their mouths shut, because it’s not polite to criticize someone’s creativity. Bah. Send it through the fire if you want anything of worth. Believe it or not, I don’t put things on Facebook to attract attention. Well, maybe I enjoy the attention when it comes. But my main sentiment is not, “Look at me, look at me.” If it were, I’d lip-sync pop songs on YouTube. Or something. No, my main feeling behind any publishings is, “Hey, I wrote this, what do you think?” But people seldom say what they think – they compliment, yes, and maybe it’s genuine, but that’s a very superficial reaction. I really want a deeper reaction – “What do you think? Are you changed by this?” Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, but ultimately I want my writing to change things (by things I mean people), and not just on an emotional level. I didn’t write a letter to my deceased grandfather because I was overcome with emotion, and I didn’t put it on Facebook so others could feel similarly! Don’t cry, change! Value the relationships you have that could be gone tomorrow.
But people cry and compliment and forget. However, that is the way of humans. It just means I need to practice to become a better writer, a deeper writer, a more…permanent writer. Sorry about that long paragraph, and sorry that it started sounding like a rant. One of these days I may forgive myself a real long, explosive rant (and it probably will never see the light of day) but for now I’m content to suppress them. They’re cheap and low-class, after all.
[Haha, I wrote that paragraph thinking that the next section would be fairly short. That was before I decided to let loose…]
However, I’ll push the line here once again. Because there’s one more thing I want to address that bothers me.
The ‘Like’ button.
(And before I launch in again, I suppose I should disclaim that I’m not against compliments per se. Thank you to all who’ve commented on anything that I’ve written anywhere, I really do appreciate it, and thank you especially for all the condolences. In fact, now that I slow down a bit, I realize that I should be careful what I say, because it could be misunderstood. Hmm. Okay. Let’s do it this way. I’m not talking to any of you guys. You all rock, except for the anonymous person who said, “This is fake.” To you, dear sir, I don’t quite understand what you mean, but I’m guessing you won’t be elaborating. To the rest of you, I appreciate you very much. When I complain, I’m talking more to the Facebook crowd, and not even to most of them, because they’re good people – I’m really just talking to a few select people. You know, the ones who say things like, “OMG this is SOO sad!!! it made me cry SOOO much!!!!!” That’s who I’m complaining about. The rest of you can rest easy. Whew. That was a long disclaimer.)
The ‘Like’ button. It’s appearing everywhere. First Facebook (at least, that’s where I first saw it), then YouTube, now here! And since Facebook is connected to everything, I see that button on every site that has a link to Facebook.
The ‘Like’ button. Could anything be more lazy, apathetic, cheap, or infuriating? (Yes, I know, many things, but that was hyperbole.) Not only are people too lazy to form opinions consisting of more than one word, they’re too lazy to even type one word! This button is barely more than a stamp of ‘noted’. What they’re saying, whether they mean to or not, is: “I read this, or at least enough to think that I got the gist of it, I felt slightly favorable towards the content, and then I moved on and forgot about it.” Blurghkslvwfla! Don’t even indicate your passing if that’s all the response you can muster.
Of course it doesn’t help that every time I see that someone ‘liked’ something I imagine their attitude to be like that of the overly cheerful intern on Scrubs (season 8). “Oh, that’s great, that’s wonderful! I only read the first line but I’m so happy for you! Bunnies!” Would I regret punching you in the face? No, it’d be worth it.
Yes, winding down. This is another case of me being prejudiced and extremely favoritistic. I organize, usually without even thinking about it, my friends and acquaintances into groups. If you’re in the right group, you could do something as dastardly as click the ‘Like’ button on something of mine and I’d be sort of okay with it. We’d still be cool. On the other hand, if you’re in the wrong group, you could ‘like’ my status once and forever after be that person in the front of my mind as I pound out these pseudo-rants with revulsion. Don’t do that to yourself. Keep your fingers away from the button. Write something – something good. If you’re not sure about your standing in my groupings, put your comment in a message. I don’t want weird stuff in front of all my other friends. Now I’m just being mean. But yes, I do delete comments.
(I rarely disclose these group listings, but if you really want to know, I guess you could try asking. Most people in the right group know that they are, and the people in the wrong group don’t know. Haha. If I say, “Don’t worry,” then you’re good, if I say “Hey, I don’t share that information,” then you might want to worry. Do other people classify like this? I know I’m awful, but am I alone in my awfulness?)
This joke has been said a thousand times, but perhaps I can redeem myself somewhat by saying I don’t mean this as a joke, I’m completely serious: if you’re going to have a ‘Like’ button, at least give us people over here a ‘Dislike’ button to even things out. And while you’re at it, taking requests, I’d like a ‘Tool’ button, too. Countless are the times I could’ve used that one, especially to…well, er…should I say this? I guess I’ll go ahead and say it. It would be really useful for when I’m looking at the profiles of the other guy friends (the ones I haven’t met) of my female friends. Ahahahahaha. Oh man. Can I ever come back from that one? Let’s take a break.
[Please understand that I’m doing this as a favor to you guys. By baring my innards and being really honest about the way my thoughts and feelings work, I’m hoping you can learn from it somehow and be wiser in your dealings with others. I want to do everything I can to help you as you take on the world. So I’m like a case study. But perhaps a bad one, if other people don’t actually think like me.]
Okay, back. Let’s get this done with. ‘Downright Idiot’ would be another useful one. Imagine that showing up in your inbox: ‘Congratulations! Brad ___ thinks you’re a Downright Idiot. Best wishes from the Facebook Team.’
And since we’re now able to cast our indifferent approval upon any bit of content on the web, why not just apply these buttons to people themselves. Make it so we can ‘like’, ‘dislike’, ‘tool’, or ‘downright idiot’ people’s profiles. Ooo! Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could vote people off Facebook? ‘We’re sorry, but 500 of your so-called friends think you’re a Tool. If you are unable to collect 250 Likes within 24 hours, your account will be terminated. Best wishes from the Facebook Team.’ And then we’d have people running around saying things like, “Can you Like me? Please Like me! What can I do to get you to Like me?” And girls at their sleepovers: “So does he, like, Like you, or, like, like like you?” “Oh, he just Likes you. He doesn’t really like you.” What will become of our species!?
Guess I wasn’t really winding down before. But I am now.
All this to say that I think it’s interesting how as we become able to give our opinions on more and more things, we communicate less and less. We’re clicking buttons, saying more, saying less, losing our expressive ability.
So don’t ‘Like’ my stuff. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you hate. And why. Write something.
I know I should polish this and make it less rant-like, because yes, that’s what it is, no matter how much I try to deny it, but I created this, ugh, ‘blog’ so that I would be able to share without too much editing. I’d complain about this on Facebook, where people might actually see it, but it just seems like it would be disregarded. Why bother? And it certainly wouldn’t be as juicy. Plus, I don’t want to make it seem like I’m attacking every single person who’s ever ‘liked’ anything on my profile. I’m really just attacking those in the second group I talked about before.
Anyways, I promised something that rhymed, so here it is. I’ll give you the first, well, second, draft, and then the revised edition, because you get cool freebies like that when you visit my blog. Facebook will only get the final (for now) product.
Draft:
When spring is skipped
To get to summer,
The fall comes quick,
And that’s a bummer.
I laughed at that. But of course it’s unacceptable. So I thought a bit and came up with this:
When spring is skipped
To get to summer,
The fall comes quick –
Cold winter’s forerunner.
I kind of like that. Maybe someday I’ll be able to add some more stanzas to it.
Whaddaya know, this got long.
Thanks for reading, I’m going to take one more quick look through this to make sure there’s not anything I really couldn’t stand to have you see, then I’ll put it up. And hopefully the next one won’t be too long coming!
Bye
-Brad
Inspiration's Waiting Room 