Ten suggested activities on World Social Media Day are:
1) Post crap.
2) Try new platforms, but not Parler because that must be white supremicist because it's dedicated to free speech.
3) Go meet your online friends in person and post pictures of that.
4) Post a picture of your granny and try to remember if or how long she's been dead, complete with teary emoji,
5) Kitties!
6) Share some stupid meme.
7) Arrange to start a riot and burn down businesses owned by African-Americans to show your support for African-Americans. Also tear down statues of famous abolitionists to show you are down with the cause and not some spoiled clueless white brat like everyone thinks you are.
8) Start a knitting club!
9) Show more pictures of whatever stupid thing you want people to think you ate for lunch. Leave the Ding Dongs off to the side.
10) Demand the defunding of the police while you interview private security firms.
Now, of course I am using the editorial "you" here, as I am fortunate enough to think that readers of this blog prefer the merits of peaceful protest, intelligent discourse, free speech, and respect for history. My readership may be small, unlike Mashable's, but it is not moronic.
I understand that social media, as a collective thing, is a tool, and like any tool it may be used for good or not. You can drive nails with a hammer, or drive in skulls of the innocent. I have used social media to stay in contact with local friends and those from my past who would otherwise have been lost to me. Others use social media to protest the tyrannical societies under which they live, as in Hong Kong and Iran.
Here in America, some use it to target people, destroy careers, drive people to despair, and as seen most recently, play-act as freedom fighters while they behave like Nazis. Sometimes I think there are few things in America as anti-social as social media.
"Social media" seem to be in a race to bring about the dystopia Orwell warned us about.
ReplyDeleteOnly certain words are permitted (newspeak); contrary viewpoints must be rubbed out and those who hold them punished (thoughtcrime); the cognitive dissonance that is reflected in movements like "defund the police" must be accepted (doublethink); those who speak out against the madness are cancelled (unpersons); and of course "Big Brother" in the form of Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Prichai, etc. are watching and censoring your every move and expression.
Twitter delenda est.
PLW et al - My niece works at Fakebook. We just see the tip of the iceberg. Every day there is like Groundhog Day (the film) in a Chicom Cultural Revolution reeducation camp. In fact, I'm uncertain what actual work she performs except to absorb the newspeak, rewriting of history, and other fecal matter flowing down from their Beloved Leader. As distorted as the NYT and WaPo are, they are bush league by comparison. The sad part is she and others of her demographic accept this as the norm, and march in unquestioning lockstep. Welcome to the future!
ReplyDeleteYou guys make me even happier that I don't bother with any of that junk. The only "social media" I bother with are The Bleat & Vitamin Fred, because one meets the smartest, funniest & nicest folks in those places.
ReplyDeleteI will take my dogs to the park and avoid all media for an hour.
ReplyDeleterbj
My readership may be small, ... but it is not moronic.
ReplyDeleteI was not told there were qualifications required for reading here. Can I be grandfathered in, regardless?
You guys give me hope. Yes, Raf, you too!
ReplyDelete