See, in the year and a half or so since I finally decided to go on Facebook, much of it has been wonderful. Just recently I’ve reconnected with three woman friends, two of which are now out of town. And that’s just one example.
And here is one comment I spotted that sums up my feelings well enough, although it may have been tongue-in-cheek:
“I feel Like [sic] I’m being bullied into reposting this.”
Another unwanted type of post is the “soft” emotional blackmail of asking for a “hug” and then saying you will know who will and who won’t.
I could go on to something political, something where a complex issue is reduced to a supposed no-brainer (with a suggestion that if you don’t repost you are just a coward). But this post is long enough as it is. And I’d rather see some responses first.
I KNOW that my SDMB friends here will respond if they see this OP. Those that see this but ignore it… WELL! You aren’t really my friends, are you? Or maybe you are just afraid???
I refuse to repost things like this, I hide them immediately and if they come repeatly from one particular person I hide them too.
Reposting shit like this does nothing for whatever the problem is. Getting out in the community and actually, y’know, DOING something is what’s needed.
This is what I usually add: “This type of emotional blackmail is cyber-bullying, and passing this along doesn’t help any of the people mentioned in the story. Don’t succumb to guilt trip glurge like this.”
Or you could just add a comment to their timeline about how fucked up they are for buying into any bullshit FB sign that tries to beg, bully or shame you into re-posting it.
Well, we had it tough. We had to work twenty-seven hours a day down at t’mill for tuppence a year, grinding rocks into dust with our teeth, and when we got home in the evening, our dad would flog us to death with his 1970s-style death ray.
If I’ve learned nothing else from this place, it is that I have a fellowship with Monty Python-quoting people from all over the world. That is quite enough to take away from here and fill me with a warm fuzzy glow.
Yeah–meme posts are interesting. “Meme” itself is an incredibly appropriate word, for three reasons:
Straightforward–a meme is a self-propagating idea, and these posts are able to propagate themselves by hijacking humans’ sensations of guilt and community. They’re cool little non-alive parasitical beings.
Etymological: “meme” comes from a Greek word that means “Imitate.” A synonym for “imitative” is “like.” And what do these posts want you to click? “Like”! Okay, maybe you think that’s a stretch–but I’m just getting started.
English: when I see these posts, I imagine the person posting them saying, “Me! Me!” and desperately begging for attention.
Of course, a true Monty Python fan would know (and a true Doper would tell you) that the Four Yorkshiremen sketch actually comes from At Last the 1948 Show.
