In general, I’m not a fan of Facebook.
About once a month or so, I accidentally find myself going through my feed. And every time, I’m like, “Oh yeah. I remember why I never visit these parts of the interwebs…” Usually this is due to the fact that it reminds me that, *sigh*, I’m related to certain people.
Well, to be fair, it’s more that I’m related to certain types of Facebook people. I love my large extensive family through and through, but, damn, does Facebook ever bring out the dumbassery/face-slappery in all of us1By using the term “us”, the implication is that I include myself in the group of people susceptible to the negative effects of Facebook. or what? That’s largely why I stay far, far away from even making eye contact with the beast. It won’t end well for my public image.2…which is hilarious given what I’m up to here at thepointofthestory.com. The irony is not lost…nay, it is embraced.
Further, it should be a fair reminder why neither business nor family pair well with politics or religion. I posit that Facebook’s slogan really should be “Facebook: serving up only the shittiest parts of Thanksgiving, all year round!”
But avoiding interpersonal shenanigans with loved ones isn’t always easy. For example, it is typically my own mother who makes me regret visiting ye ol’ Book of Faces the most.
IRL,3In Real Life, in case you had to ask. we have a great relationship. She lives just down the street and watches our girls 3 days a week, and so I regularly see her in person. We even go for lovely evenings walks together most of those days. It’s a real treat, actually.
One would hope that would spill over into cyberspace, but…
LOLNOPE.
I blame the Noise. So. Much. ----- Facebook noise.4I prefer the version of this statement with “Facebook” removed. At least as long as I’m one of the noisemakers…
Even with her acts of digital motherly affection, the Noise is there ready and waiting to drown it out.
For example, if I were a musician and this blog were my heavy metal band, she would be that mom who brings fresh-baked cookies to every one of the band’s shows. But instead of cookies, it’s usually half-baked comments. And instead of me being like “Mo-om! You’re embarrassing me! I’m trying to be so metal here!”, in this analogy it’s “Mo-om! You’re embarrassing me! I’m trying to be so meta here.”
Obligatory maternal embarrassment notwithstanding, I was totes-magotes5
excited when I saw that she was the first to share a post from this blog’s official FB page. I quickly scurried on over to behold it in its full majesty in her Facebook feed. “What would my precious handiwork look like to the rest of the world? Majestic? Splendiforous? Magnificent?” I pondered to myself with giddiness.
I gotta admit, I was a little disappointed when, instead of finding it shining like a beacon, I found it only after tunneling through a blizzard of 13 other posts.
Way to make me feel special Mom. Well, at least as special as your 5 home-remedy, 4 patriot-on-steriods, 2 funny animal clips, and 2 super Jesus-fangirl posts…aka Noise.
Interestingly, I view my writing off most of her shared content as mere “noise” as a premeditated act of love.
Like anyone who is blessed with the combination of an oversharing mom along with a well-populated and diverse family tree, every time I log on, I’m statistically destined to see plenty of content that, um, how do I put this? “That doesn’t resonate with me,”–that’s how I’ll describe it for now.
The trick is, if I can reframe all the digital chatter as mere “noise”, well, is it still annoying? Abso-fudging-lutely. But is it relationship destroying? No. And that’s what’s important, at least in my book.
So there you have it folks. When one asks “what does true love in a digital age look like?” the answer is perhaps…”like the unsexiest beast ever to roam from West to East6Ok, so this reference is a little unfair in that it’s hinting at an unpublished and overly-frank song I wrote (at least lyrically) about the career trajectory of my sex life. It remains unpublished for a reason. Nobody wants to hear about that shit.…question mark?”
In other words, it looks like intentionally choosing the relationships with our loved ones over our own opinions. Even if/when those loved ones don’t reciprocate.7This word will forever remind me of the best (and worst?) Cards Against Humanity pairing I’ve witnessed first hand:
“Today on Maury: ‘Help! My son is…’ “
“Not reciprocating oral sex.”
You’re welcome.
And let’s not kid ourselves. This is Facebook we’re talking about. There’s no “if”–it’s always “when”, and that “when” is always. What can I say? The Peoples of Facebook love them some opinions.
So the point is, if you want to not lose your soul to Faceboook, be prepared to do a shit-ton of ignoring content incongruous with your personal value system.
Who says we can’t all get along?
If all that seems like an atypically optimistic outlook coming from yours truly,8Background reading: Fiddy Percent. then I applaud your keen sense of What the Fuck’s Up.
Sure, we can reduce life down to little nuggets of wisdom all we want, but in the end, that’s just us doing our damnedest to survive the traumatic and chaotic experience of being human. Reality tends to be complicated. We should never be so naive as to forget that.
Oh, so I forgot to mention that I can be naive sometimes.
Turns out, silence is the easy answer, but not always the right answer–and searching for that right answer can be a tall order.
Every now and then there comes a time when loving someone means having to tell someone else to kindly shut the ----- up. But, you know…figuring out how to do it with grace and respect, because you love that other person, too.
Curious? Then read on, Dear Reader, read on…
[Spoiler Alert: I’m not so sure that I was successful in my endeavor, so don’t get your hopes up too high.]
Facebook can be a real echo chamber…chamber pot,9(TM) that is. It’s a great place for people of all political persuasions to get together and bounce some really crappy ideas off each other until all the walls are dripping in fudge-colored poo.
Hmmph. Well, while I’m extremely proud of myself for coming up with the portmanteau-esque term “echo chamber pot”,10A google search of the phrase yielded only one direct match, and briefly reading over the article, the author didn’t appear to tie it to any particular concept. In other words, Bud, you wasted your chance to lay claim to it. Don’t worry though, it’s in good hands now. We’ll give it a good home and put it to good use. I think the visual imagery is getting a little out of hand. One can employ only so many fecal-centric literary devices in a day, and I really do need to ration my supply for later. We’ll just leave it there for now. You get the idea.
Anyways, let me take you back in time a few months, and regale you with the tale of the time I slipped and fell into one of these so-called echo chamber pots. And, instead of living by my easy-peasy maxim of “Well, that’s just, like your opinion, man,”11This is a Big Lebowski reference, which I have previously referenced here and here. and going on my merry way, I got in over my head trying to be a humble voice of reason.
For those of you following along at home, let me help you paint a visual picture in your head.
The scene: my bathroom, 0045 hours. Me, ironically sitting down on my own chamber pot for my pre-bedtime defecation session.12Thank ----- somebody wrote a song that gives the underrated pastime of philosophizing while pooing it’s due-due: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ur0dAeD4vY. I check my emails and find the following notification from Facebook:
I remember this moment vividly, as I truly did find it incredulous that Rolla (my home town) would be spraying for mosquitoes. Typically you need still water to have them, and in SW Kansas the only places you find that are…cattle tanks, I guess? I dunno, maybe I’ve suppressed so much of my memories about life in rural Kansas, that somehow it’s not uncommon for there to be a mosquito problem and I just don’t remember.
Either way, it was this asinine detail that I just had to confirm that sucked me into Facebook that night. And even after verifying that there indeed was a mosquito problem in a dusty little town 1500 miles from my current location, I went against my better judgment and continued perusing my feed.
Sure as shizz, it wasn’t long before I came across something that caught my attention…for all the wrong reasons,13Incidentally, I also enjoy our favorite local car sales baron…for all the wrong reasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t61Hi0_omJ8 this gem of a [re]post:
Ugh. Now I remember why I don’t spend time on here.
And judging by the chorus of agreement from the peanut gallery, it appeared that we had ourselves a regular echo chamber pot on our hands, didn’t we?
Posts like these are a large part of why I find Facebook beyond useless and actually quite harmful. Don’t think that such sentiments don’t hurt anyone. They’re just an early step in dehumanizing the target group, which can lead to much more serious consequences.
And let me be clear: when I say “posts like these”, it is not because it reflects a particular socio-political viewpoint. No, it is the simple fact that it is talking at a group of people, clearly with no intentions of engaging in a meaningful, respectful conversation.
Also, maybe it’s the latent Libertarian in me, but it is really hard to see where people get off perv-splaining. Whatever happened to “live and let live”…mind yo’ own ----- business, por favor. Lemme perv how I see fit, and I’ll let you do the same. And is that some woefully, woefully misguided gay-splaining I hear? I can’t even.
BUT I DIGRESS!
Now, my first reaction was to indignantly respond with something like: “What is this pile of garbage? It appears you know little to nothing about what it’s like to be part of the LGBT community; so *clears throat* if you would, could you kindly shut the ----- up?”
And maybe that particular less-than-graceful response would have been exactly what was needed to be said. There are certain people who need to hear it bluntly and directly in order to be able to hear it at all.
However, there were several thoughts banging around my noggin that ultimately propelled me down a different path.
First, such, er, “directness” almost for sure would have just escalated the situation into a heated digital shouting match, indubitably devolving into personal attacks and only exacerbating whatever differences in opinions we might already have had. Basically, proving the point behind my opening treatise on “loving by ignoring.”
Second, if I was hoping to actually affect some positive change, it would have required a desire on the part of the listener to be a better person. I’m going to take a scientific wild-ass guess here and say that I’m pretty sure that this post wasn’t an open invitation for constructive criticism.
Third, Point #2 is underpinned by the assumption that somehow my definition of a “better person” is an objective truth, which may or may not be the case.
Ok…it’s starting to look like “righteous indignation” may not be the best response. So then what?
Let’s start over.
Well, the Golden Rule is a pretty good place to do that. How would I want to be treated if I were on the errant end of a potentially shitty opinion? What would being loved look like to me?
Yes! I know the answer to this one!
Love is giving the other the space and freedom to grow, with zero demands.14After all, I might be the one with the wrong idea of what “growing” looks like.
Yes, I’ve given this a lot of thought, particularly in the context of what I want–and want to give–within my marriage. Now, if I could only get my wife to actually read this blog…but I digress.
This particular Theorem of Love of mine happened to dovetail nicely with one of the secret ambitions I had/have for my nascent Point of the Story baby, and that is to subtly say “hey, here’s maybe another way of thinking about things. Not necessarily right or wrong, just here for your consideration, do with it whatever you will…”
In other words, it’s up to you to be your own ----- judge. My advice is 100% optional. Well, okay, maybe 97% optional.
So it was starting to look like that just maybe there was a way to out-think and maneuver the Facebook Beast after all.
It was also about this time that I had a critical “Eureka!” moment.
“Holy shit, Batman, I just might be dealing with a pack of #CasualAssHats!”15Pronounced “Pound Casual Ass-Hats” as alluded to in the title. One time the Boss Lady (aka my wife) had an older co-worker who was trying to motivate her colleagues in regard to a particular project. It would have been too embarrassing to tell her that she really meant “Hashtag” when she exclaimed “Pound: Teamwork!”, so no one ever did…and now it’s a family meme that’s being passed on to you. You’re welcome.
“But, BJ, exactly what is a #CasualAssHat?” you most definitely should be asking, but probably aren’t.
Funny you should ask. It just happens that, in my infinite wisdom, I finally decided to throw in my two cents by providing an example of one, hoping those who needed to hear the message would get my drift.
Also, the idea for this blog had been conceived less than a week earlier at this point, so me, being in my “workshopping mode”16See also: The Olde Timey Wheelchair,17See also: Shotgun Wedding decided it was the perfect time to take the whole “the point of the story is…” concept18A critical component of this is the “recycle my less-than-flattering life moments for the betterment of mankind” motif. for a spin. Really lean into my catchphrase and see how it felt on the typed screen, know what I mean?
“Oh! Oh! Can we see what you wrote? Oh, please!”
Yes. Yes you can:
(Okay, right off the bat, I just want to admit that I kinda lost my thread there and started producing inconsistent analogies involving “ass” and “shit”, etc. It was late at night. What can I say? Anyways…)
So why did I suspect this crowd of potentially being #CasualAssHats?
Because, ’tis I, the King of #CasualAssHat Mountain himself!
You still may be wondering, though, how implying that my family members and their friends are #CasualAssHats can even remotely be considered an act of love. Fair enough question.
I got yet another love-themed life philosophy to rap at ya: loving is assuming the best in the other.
I think it’s far too easy to do the exact opposite and assume the worst in those with whom you disagree, or those who say something that rubs you the wrong way.
Honestly, when I was reading the original thread–and seeing who liked it (including an aunt–for shame!), my thought was “You should know better than to be spitting such venom!”
But reflecting on the experience I shared above, I realized that I hadn’t really been intending to be hurtful toward my classmate; I had simply been too lazy to consider the consequences for others when I indulged in gossip. I had acted like an asshat largely as a result of just being too casual with how I thought of others and how I regarded them in my heart.19Ergo, the birth of the term “#CasualAssHat.”
Let’s be honest. It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to remain cognizant of the feelings of pretty much the whole wide world. In fact, I have a theory that this accounts for a significant portion of the backlash to political correctness: “Why does all this burden fall on my lilly-white ass?!?”
While my own LWA can somewhat relate to that sentiment, it’s really missing the point. At the heart of PC culture is not so much an onerous requirement to be perfect; it’s the hope that, when given the chance, we’ll afford each other the most basic levels of respect and human dignity.
So just like I would like to have the best assumed in me, and hope that 8th-grade me wasn’t an irredeemable dope rotten to his core, when I suggest that someone might be a #CasualAssHat, it’s a way of saying, “Yeah, I get it. I’ve been there. It’s all too easy to marginalize and disrespect the experience of others without realizing it or intending to. But I trust that you are really a good egg, too…”
Of course, letting AssHattery go unchecked can be a risky proposition. Remember, my story didn’t have such a happy ending; I got a much deserved “shut-the-fuck-up” sandwich served straight to my face.
Let it be a cautionary tale, so the same fate doesn’t befall you.
If you can relate, it may not be too late. You can still own thy shit today…
…and you can also own one of these overly-clever #CasualAssHats casual-ass hats today! Tell the world “yeah, I may be a #CasualAssHat on occasion, but I’m not okay with carrying on that way if I can help it!” Order now!20Or let me know if you encounter any technical errors trying to place an order…I haven’t had anyone try yet, so I can’t be sure it actually work, lol.
Seriously, though, you can buy these for real, and a portion of the proceeds helps support this blog. Please note, however, that what you see is what you get. They literally say “Plain White #CasualAssHat”, etc., so order wisely.
Appendix A
Now, Dear Reader, you have had the luxury of getting my fuller thoughts on how I attempted to handle the situation. But remember, the rest of the world was not privy to such things when this originally happened.
Since, at that time, I didn’t usually put myself out there into the virtual aether in such a vulnerable way, I was actually very nervous to see what type of response I would illicit. Would people appreciate my effort? Would I change hearts and minds worldwide? But first: would they even be able to tell what the hell I was going on about? Let’s find out:
I take it then, “K”, that the moral of the story was lost on you? Also, I’m guessing this wasn’t intended to be a compliment. But guess what? That’s some mighty high praise there, sir, when it’s applied to Yours Truly. Joke’s on you, sucker.
Another direct response I got:
Welp. I guess that’s two votes for ‘no’. But really my first question is: why are people thumbs-upping that comment? Why are we cheering on confusion and delay?21https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF_68T9H0UM Anyways, I knew I was attempting to walk a fine line here, trying not to be too obtuse…hmm, it seems that perhaps I had overshot the Subtly Runway and landed in the Meta-terranean Sea?
On the bright side, at least one bystander appreciated my handiwork:
What’s even better than a book? A blog–the gift that keeps on giving!
Thank you, and you’re welcome.
Footnotes & References:
Very interesting observations, though it won’t change my views religiously or politically. Well, one response I have is that I can imagine seeing that potty stuff in your mouth every time you use a potty word, so when you use those words in my hearing, think of how it would actually taste. I mean, how can you say words like that & not have some hint of a taste in your mouth? This is not only directed at you, but when I hear even strangers talk like that, I wonder what picture they have in their minds that relates to the words they are saying. Just wondering……not to take anything away from the content of your blog, but just wondering……
Hello, Mother.
Well, I think that’s exactly the point here…I have zero expectations of changing your views, just hope to provide more food for thought and extra perspective for you to have at your disposal.
As for all the potty words in this particular post, for some reason I’ve had a really difficult time for the censor software to pick up them up, not to mention some of those words are embedded in pictures making it harder to automatically handle them.
Of course, that’s ignoring the fact that I’m using those words in the first place.
But, no, it’s never crossed my mind to try to imagine the taste and texture of those words in my mouth when I use them. That’s an interesting perspective that I can now add to my “things to ponder.”
And I say this sincerely, “Thanks!”
Thanks not only for your perspective, but for contributing to the conversation. That’s what I’m really aiming for here…to provoke thought and jump start conversations…of the civil and respectful variety of course.
This is proof that I read it! My favorite yet.