Years ago, I was one of those who lived on the Faceplant (Facebook).  See the film “The Internship” if you’re not familiar with the Faceplant reference.  I spent hours lurking, liking and responding to people’s posts.  Because I was sick (really I was in a wheelchair for a while) and could do nothing, but vicariously live through other’s activities.  That was years ago and over the years, that time on Facebook diminished a great deal, to now, when I can barely tolerate it.   I’m on there maybe once a week and primarily to see family and like/support the Seahawks feed.  I might find myself feeling like I should like friend’s posts if I happen to make it to being logged-in 5 minutes 90 seconds.  I set my profile on private and all my settings are also private so people really can’t see much about me like my birthday or anniversary.  If I had that information available to others, than I would feel obligated to also give people the appropriate, “Happy or Congratulatory” remarks on their walls.  So I rarely log-in to the social network thank goodness because who has time?  When I got a new iPhone last Christmas, much to my dismay the Facebook app came pre-loaded, but I do not use the app for the reason that I am not that important.  And Twitter?  I have an account, but I also don’t use that.  Because I’m not that important.

My husband laughs at my attitude because he thinks I sound like an elderly person.  Hush, you whippersnapper.  I guess I noticed last time I logged-in that people used Facebook as a means of obtaining relationship advice.  A while back, I saw the marital demise of some friends based on the surplus of their disparaging Facebook posts at each other that were out there for the world to see.  Don’t people tire of notifying everyone of what they’re feeling moment to moment or capturing every second of their life through taking pictures of themselves and posting another variation of their emotions or what they’re wearing?  #Narcissism

Speaking of Instagram, I joined and my husband will attest to the fact that it was while borderline kicking and screaming.  Social networks elicit that kind of a reaction any more because I feel like it’s, “just one more thing” that I’m required to monitor consistently.  Thank you to those who hounded me on Facebook a few years ago when I didn’t respond in your timely fashion (immediately).  And I closed the social network and turned to blogging.

I read a blog the other day and the writer was annoyed by the self-appointed blog experts who condemn bloggers new and old, like me for ‘doing it wrong.’   I can accept that I don’t know a lot, but I write because I like to and am not in any way trying to reach a certain crowd or a certain number of followers through my writing.  The only thing I fear with blogging is making a commitment for a daily or weekly post and may miss a day because for example, Music Monday is on Monday and God forbid I miss the right day and have to post it on Thursday.  That’s failure to me and a very real fear.  That silly idea happened months ago and I already failed to maintain Music Monday because well, I was busy staging our home to look like we actually live here and then the whole thing with adoption started taking root, so you may understand that life has become busy.

My social networking pages are about me or what I want to see.  I have a right to post what I want to post or filter-out what I don’t want to see.  I should be able to maintain a page without fear of another individual high-jacking MY post by inserting their hashtag to use my post as their vehicle to support what or who they support.  I guess I have this mentality that because I wouldn’t be that selfish to use a hashtag on a friend’s page, others also shouldn’t be selfish.  It’s already challenging enough for me to share / post anything on Facebook without having to monitor / censor friends comments that appear.  I support the Hawks and with football  season beginning shortly, I changed my page’s photos to reflect my support.  A friend commented that they couldn’t ‘like’ the new photos because they support a different team – insert hashtag.  I deleted the comment because the hashtag supported an opposing team.  I posted those pictures for ME to support the Hawks so perhaps a better response to those mascot pictures might have been for my friend to roll their eyes and NOT comment with an opposing hashtag?   I guess I fear this friend’s response if they were to read this, because I don’t believe they can separate the difference between me disliking (deleting) their response or disliking them as a person, which is not the issue because I like them very much.

I get that there’s a certain satisfaction / ego boost that goes with razzing friends who support opposing teams, but why the hashtag?  Personally, I see the hashtag as a great way to categorize, but because of their over-abundant use anymore, I’ve grown to see the symbol as  #anotsocleverfiller.  I #rantneverriot

Of what social networking trends are you tired or bored?   Thank you for reading.

~Jenn