%$^&**&^^ Are You Proud of Me?
I’m skimming Facebook this morning, where I routinely accept anyone who wants to befriend me but never ask anyone to befriend me. I have a couple of thousand “friends.”
This morning, some guy named Matthew says that he’s going to hit the gym harder, read more books, learn a language, and raise more funds for charity, and that anyone who tries to out-perform him can (insert absolutely obscene phrase here).
I understand that Facebook is all about vanity publishing, braggadocio, commiseration, validation, affiliation, and loneliness. I get it. It serves a purpose, though if it disappeared tomorrow the fabric of the country wouldn’t be affected by one gram. However, it also exposes those who are bereft of intellectual ability, manners, and sensitivity.
I can curse like a longshoreman when I hit my thumb with a hammer, or my wife tells me she’s dragging me to another three-hour fund raiser. But that’s in the privacy of my own home. I’ve been known to utter an imprecation when my team loses a game they never should have lost.
But to routinely use profanity among strangers in widely-disseminated media, to be oblivious to the impression of you it creates, to fail to bother to find a more effective way to express yourself—well, maybe Facebook does provide a real service.
It shows us that there are people who are never going to succeed because they’re too stupid to gauge the impact of their actions on those around them. Maybe it should be called Let’s Face It Book.
© Alan Weiss 2013
