Social Media

I enjoy Facebook, but with some fairly heavy exceptions. As with all social media, it has limitations. Those limitations are probably why I Facebook only. No tweets for me.
I get most of my news from the FB pages I like. When a page I like or trust betrays my trust, I give them the benefit of the doubt one time. If they violate that trust again, I unlike them. They clearly are not trustworthy.
I keep up on the lives of my friends as well. I read a share like anyone else. However, I didn't wish anyone a happy birthday on their wall last year. I did send the occasional message, but that was it. The wishing of happy birthdays gets tiresome to me and if people can't recall a birthday without FB reminding them, so be it. I figure if the birthday greeting is the only communication we have thanks to the notifications, then clearly we're not that close. I have other things on which to occupy my time. I've done the personalized messages and whimsical pictures as greetings in years past, but it's time consuming. It's not that I don't have good wishes for my buds, but last year, I had a larger focus.
Last year I took time away from the blog here to focus on making FB a little bit better. You see, FB gets awful sometimes. People post a joke, but it pisses someone off. Someone posts an article, which causes a tangential acquaintance to erupt in what seems to be a tirade because either it is a tirade or the person hasn't figured out how to choose their words wisely. Not only that, but people get plain mean on FB. Even people I used to think of as fairly rational come across as trolls. I even had a woman thank me for not ripping into her because of her opinion on a video that showed a man throwing leaves toward a bunny rabbit. A fucking bunny rabbit! She thanked me for not getting upset. How sad is it that two people who don't know each other can't discuss viewpoints on a bunny rabbit?

My mission last year was to make what I posted something that would make people smile. Perhaps they'd be mindlessly scrolling and chance upon my daily post and it would somehow please them. This required a lot of attention as well as self-discipline from me. Sometimes a topical article would come up that I just had to share because it was too important. Sometimes, I'd share articles related to my job or to my personal areas of interest. It was only until the very end of the year that I posted an article even remotely connected to politics. It wasn't really even about politics if you read it; it was more about the culture of meanness online as well as in real life and the treatment of individuals based on genders. However, because it was about Hillary Clinton, it drew some ire, which I promptly deleted. The ire, not the article. I stand by the article.
Anyway, I set out to share Mooseday pictures where I'd find a picture of a moose to share. Like this fella for instance.

On Tuesday, I would endeavor to send out compliments to people. I felt that people need an uplifting message directed at them in their newsfeed.

Wednesdays continued to be about whales. Some time ago, the phrase humpday became associated with camels (thanks to a commercial I think), but I chose humpback whales and it went from there.

 

Thursdays became Friday Eve Funny Bones where I'd post amusing short videos to make people laugh. Here's an example of something I might post.

Fridays were grand. I'd find a silly or unusually picture of an animal that fit how my week went. I often found this the most challenging item to locate as looking at pictures of animals being silly is not only fun, but sometimes checking in with myself to find just the right picture was difficult to pinpoint. It was also challenging to nail down exactly how I felt, honestly.

I took weekends off. That's when I did a lot of article reading in my saved file.
A few things happened as a result of this. I discovered that people actually looked forward to my weekday posts. Some people started sending me pictures of moose or stories about whales. I loved it. Some people, even those I didn't know well, sent me messages asking where my post was if I was delayed in some way. They looked on certain days for my posts because it amused them. The last thing I noticed? That thoseTimehop or FB memory posts that upset some people were mostly about moose, whales, or animals being odd. My year in review contained not a single actual photo of me or another person for that matter. After the emotional drain of last year, I was so glad that I didn't post anything about my mother in law dying or my husband's struggle through her difficult illness and eventual yet lengthy and painful death. I was relieved that when my friends unexpectedly died, that I hadn't posted because it wouldn't come back to haunt me months or years after. Who the hell needs FB increasing their misery anyway? Fuck that. That's BS.

In late fall though, my husband posted to the social media site that I had come through surgery successfully. It was a fusion of 3 vertebrae in my neck that scared the shit out of me in the time leading up to it. Still, I didn't post on FB. I emailed no one. Not because I didn't trust them or need support, but because the posts I did see told me that the friends I wanted were perhaps occupied. Other friends would of course lend the FB support that illness or ailments posts always garner if I made a status update. I didn't want those though. I didn't want some platitude or "Praying for you" or some such thing. I wanted voice or human contact. I needed someone to just sit and hold my hand. My own fear though had me frozen. Every time I thought about it, I got jumpy, my breathing got faster, I got splotchy patches on my skin (thanks vascular spasm disorder), and I just didn't want to spend more energy or thought on it than necessary.
I spent a lot of time talking to my cats.

Good news is I'm fine now, but a lot of people were stunned by his revelation. Personally, I was annoyed. I didn't share because I didn't want all of FB land to know about my personal story. It went against my goals for my FB presence.
It revealed my weakness.
Tomorrow is the first Monday of the new year and I have no plans for a Mooseday picture. We'll see how that goes over. I've learned the importance of not posting emotional turmoil on FB. I've learned that people thought of my posts as bright spots. I had over 3000 pages views (60 in December 2015 alone) when I totally neglected my blog. For now though, it's dinner time and then Downton Abbey premieres.