Social Media Has Turned Us Into Idiots

 Oh look a meme nobody has seen ten million times in the last month.

 It seems at times that social media, which was built around being social and sharing ideas, has been overrun with memes, e-cards and inspirational quotes over shitty pictures. In fact just the other day I took a look at my feed on a popular social media site and realized probably 80% of my feed was filled with them (go ahead and take a look at yours I will wait).

 See what I mean? Count out the first 50 posts and note how many are pointless snarky images and how many are actual posts from people talking about their day, their successes, their utter failures at life or something useful such as a news article they find important or even a shout out...at least the shout out is them talking (shout out to Big Mike btw). 

 Posting a meme once in a while is acceptable and can even be found funny, posting 5 memes in an hour is not. In fact it is more like a scream to everyone that you are unoriginal, have done nothing (interesting or not) or just love to annoy the fuck out of your "friends". 

 Most of the people I have on my social media sites as contacts are one or more of the following.

• We grew up together, and want to keep in touch.
• We worked together, and want to keep in touch.
• We are related, and want to keep in touch.
• We hang out on a forum together, and want to keep in touch.
• We are friends or were friends and moved or live across the street and are too lazy to actually hang out anymore, and want to keep in touch.

 See the common theme in that list? Keeping in touch, sharing our lives even a little bit like we once did. Obviously that time together meant something and we added each other to our respective friends list/groups/twit feed or whatever, so why do you only speak in these crappy images with stupid words that aren't even your original thoughts? I know you didn't talk like this in real life or we wouldn't have become friends.

I like to think of it as though any time I post we are sitting around and having a conversation or each post is the start of a conversation. If someone sat down and used the text of a meme to start a conversation I would probably tell them to get stuffed without a second thought. For some reason though we feel we have to play this passive aggressive game of hiding how we really feel because it may hurt someones feelers. Well I say screw that, when someone is acting in a manner that you wouldn't accept in real life why would you not call them out about the same thing online?

 Maybe the person doing it doesn't realize that they are adding to the dumbing down of society as a whole or the extent of the continuously unoriginal posting they are doing. Well, that is a bit sad really, but by pointing it out bluntly maybe you are saving them continued embarrassment of showing the world what an unoriginal person they really are, kind of like removing a band aid...with a chainsaw sure it hurts now but they are going to thank you later for it. 

 I had to go through my list and remove several of the worst offenders and I felt bad because one of the offenders was someone I had known for most of my life, but repeated warnings were lost on them. Once I removed them I looked back through my feed and saw a beautiful sight, it was filled with news articles, comments on current events in both personal lives and national/local issues, arguments using words (I love these most) and photos of my friends with their families or places they have been. Gone were the kitty pictures, the Capt. Picard images that god awful "Worlds Most Interesting Man" and I can't forget to mention the steady stream of Chive ripoffs as well.

 It was as if someone walked into the social media bathroom and flushed the toilet on a twenty pound turd and with a few pumps of the plunger all was right enough with the world that I could comfortably sit down and release the evil within me in peace.

 As I end my rambling for today I ask that all of you take one thing with you from this, first and foremost social media is about being sociable and about being in touch with each other when you can't actually be there. So share your life, not just the good parts so everyone thinks you are the greatest, but share the ugly bits too so others can tell you that you are great especially when you don't feel it so much. Reciprocate with honest output because social media is only as good as what you put into it, and lets be honest here do you really want to be known for snarky unoriginal content and passive aggressiveness or as an honest asshole that shared your life/lives with those who care enough to call you a friend?

  That's my rant today, hope I offended.

  John