Complex Numbers

Business

Entry #6 for "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+]

3. That's always an interesting concept when you try to mind your own fucking business then you end up on face book or twitter.
plainsue

So, again, no idea what the original quote was, and it probably doesn't matter.

If you've been following along, you already know I'm no fan of social media. This site here is about the closest thing I ever use to social media, because it's relevant to my interests and most of us at least try to be kind to each other, or, at least, not hateful. There are exceptions, of course, and being a mod probably skews my viewpoint, but by and large I've had much better interactions here than on Facebook.

I haven't used my Facebook account in years. Every time I think, "I should close that account," I realize I have no idea what the password is. And then to recover the password, it makes me identify friends from their pictures.

Difficulty #1: Most of my Facebook friends are from this site, and I haven't met most of them in person.

Difficulty #2: I have mild face-blindness, so I can't identify faces even of people I know most of the time.

So, yeah, if you've tried to get in touch with me on Facebook, or friend me there, I'm not ignoring you. I just can't log in or close my account.

Apparently, Facebook is forever.

Twutter's another story. I first heard of it, I don't know, sometime back in the noughties before it became the Official Platform of the Pronouncements of the Most Powerful Person in the World. The way I first heard of it, a friend of my then-wife was talking about it. She's an engineer with a rather earthy sense of humor, and she described with some glee how a fellow engineer had rigged his office chair to Twit every time he farted.

As far as I've been able to determine, that site hasn't improved any since then, and may have even gone downhill. Considering that I think fart jokes are the lowest form of humor, that's really quite a feat.

So, no, I don't have a Twatter account and never have. The occasional really interesting thing from it always gets posted elsewhere, so I really don't feel like I'm missing anything.

And don't even get me started on the cesspool that is Instagram. Fortunately, that's not part of the quote above, though as it's owned by Facebook, it's relevant to mention it.

Oddly enough, I've made a shit-ton of money from Facebook. But that's another story entirely.

I've heard people say that the internet is not reality. I don't think that's the case. I was an early adopter, back in the nineties before everything turned commercial, and even then it was an extension of reality. I've met people from all over the world, first online and then in person. Some of my closest friends became so on this site, before I ever met them in person. To say that it's not "real" is to dismiss the people on the other end of the network as non-people, and I think it's dangerous to label anyone as a non-person. That never ends well.

So I understand the draw of social media. I just don't participate. I'd rather mind my own business, and if some picture of me ends up on social media, well, I just shrug and go on with life. But then, I haven't done anything egregious enough to get doxxed or called out. If I did, though, it's probably a sign that I'm not actually minding my own business.