social media – Page 2

Just Say No-No to Jo-Jos (How to FIDO, part 1)

When I’m interviewed by the press, a question that comes up often is the ancient and revolutionary technique of FIDOing. As most of you all know,* learning how to FIDO has drastically changed my life. But as my interviewers and fans often ask pleadingly, how exactly does one FIDO? Well luckily for humanity, here’s one solid tater tot of an example for you to tuck away into your mind’s jean pocket.

*drum roll*

Just say No-No to the Jo-Jos in your life. Who are Jo-Jos? In my particular case, Jo-Jos are guys who I dated for very small amounts of time, and then valiantly attempted to remain friends with afterward. As much as it pains me deep in the psoas to admit this, it didn’t work. Usually one of the following happened: 1) we tried to be friends and one of us realized we hated the other (or the disgust was mutual) 2) we didn’t really try to be friends but their very social media presence spiked my blood pressure** 3) now they’re engaged/married and I just feel like a creepy stalker seeing the intimate details of their precious budding ‘ship.

Btdubs, I’m not saying these guys are intentionally trying to be Jo-Jos, but in any case interacting with them tends/ tended to almost always give me bad feels. And life is too short to subject yourself to bad feels just to prove a point to society that you can be friendly-like after being romantical. I will let someone else die on that hill, while I roll around happily in the field of friendship flowers with the sunshine of sincerity beaming down on me.

.. Anyway. So how did I say No-No to these Jo-Jos? First, I went on a social media purge. Unfriended on fb. Blocked on Instagram. Unfollowed on Spotify. Second, I plan to not engage in rando texting with flirty undertones with these Jo-Jos. I’m 2-frickin’-7 years old. Ain’t nobody got time for that. (“Poo or get off the pot,” as they say.) Third, I will not find other creepy ways to stalk them to make sure their post-Galloswag life is appropriately pathetic. No friending their sister so I can cackle over their holiday weight gain when she posts fam pics. No googling to see if they were arrested for excessive public displays of douchery. Heck naw, Jude Law.

Some of you may not be able to relate to this specific example, but everyone has Jo-Jos. If you’re a young stallion of a man, maybe you need to consider saying No-No to some Ho-Hos. If you’re happily married, maybe you need to say No-No to the Psycho you met once at that thing and now wants to tell you how to be a parent. Idk, it is up to you to identify Jo-Jos and initiate operation No-No. Each No-No operation will need to be tailored to your specific needs. The most important thing is that everything rhymes with “O.”

Now Go-Go and be free from Jo-Jos!

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*A brief initiation for the unlearned: “The sophisticated practice of FIDO is the key to not obsessing and making yourself miserable over circumstances and people you cannot control.” – Galloswag, Ph.D.

** because HOW DARE THEY ENJOY THEIR LIFE???

Claire-voyant Speaks: The future of the interwebs

In 57 years when the Galloswag is a zesty, swoll old maid, we’ll look back on these tumultuous times and refer to them as the Wild Wild West of the Interwebs. Right now, anyone can post almost anything willy nilly with very little repercussions. Enjoy the exhilarating freedom while you can, my bold babushkas.

I consider myself to be a bit of a Claire-voyant,* and I see interwepolicing in our future. I betcha the Authorities will set up sites to be more like physical property – some public spaces that pretty much anyone is welcome to wander into, as long as they follow basic rules of conduct. BUT sites with certain types of info will require clearance – or recommendations, maybe – that is based on who you are, your conduct on other sites, your reasons for wanting &/or using the info, and perhaps where you live (e.g. Israel sites may not let Pakistan have access to any of their sites).

I can also see us being restricted to a narrow range of acceptable topics to discuss on social media. Because, you know, triggering, micro-aggressions, image-vomiting of engagements, weddings, and babies, etc. will be psyche-shattering for the milleniascamps.** Instead of Google’s demure suggestions (e.g. “Did you mean ‘Ted Nugent‘?” when you type in “Ted Nugget”), there will be a hyper-aggressive system that liberally auto-corrects our posts (e.g. “You meant to say ‘Thank you for sharing. I respect your opinion.’” when you type “Fudge*** you!”).

My last rando prophetessing: I think social media will be increasingly nosy. Already, my phone will say stuff like “You’re at Times Square, a popular place to post pictures. Want to add one of your own?” In the future it will be like “You haven’t tagged Jo-Jo on any meme posts in a while. Are the two of you still friends?” SPOILER: No! Jo-Jo is dead to me!!!!”

So.. hmm. If I began this post with a clear point, it has been lost. Thus is the life of a Gallosage. I will sacrifice coherence on the altar of brilliant creativity!

But wait! I must say- don’t resign yourself to this invasive interwepolicing. Creeper Ags in Minority Report said it best-

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*teehee

** aka children of millenials.

***Mama sez not to swear.

Fight aggressive activism with passive aggression!

As many others have said better than I have, fb has become near intolerable. We’ve been rolling our eyes at exhibitionists* and passive-aggressive posts for years, but throughout the 2016 election and – good Lort, especially after Trump’s inauguration – my fb feed has been inundated with self-righteous-apocalyptic-hyperactivism posts. I’ve already talked about dismounting the activism high horse myself, but I think now it’s time to take back our beloved fb feed by force.**

How do you fight against obnoxiously aggressive activism? By being obnoxiously passive aggressive, of course. Therefore, I have made reaction gifs that should fit each and every post. Because let’s be real, most people just want to impress people that they are modern, concerned peoples. So let’s give them what they want, as obnoxiously as possible. Instead of commenting, just post these gifs for each type of post.

1) For those “I’m going to write a 5 page essay to show you how right I am about this” posts

2) For those “All white people / males / straight people etc. etc. should just all go kill themselves and feel super guilty” posts

3) For those “Let’s all get depressed about some horrible social issue” posts

4) For those “I will rise above you dirty scumbags” posts

5) For all other self-righteous-apolcalyptic-hyperactivism posts, otherwise unspecified

I realize this is coming across as a bit snarky. Well, my feed has induced this snark. I don’t doubt that some of my friends truly care about these issues… but I don’t care that they care. Please post a pic of your cat. Thx.***

If THIS post has inspired YOU, please send me more suggestions! Let’s start a massive conglomeration of passive-aggressiveness.

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*Fancy term for “people who post too many pictures of themselves and think that we care what they ate for dinner every night.” I am a perfect example of this.

**I really do take life and issues seriously. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – there is no worse place to discuss politics than on fb. Dr. Galloswag sez, “Discussing politics online shrivels every dendrite in our brains.” I have truly developed a deep dislike for so many of my “friends” now because of their SRAH posts. But I’m not advocating for a lack of action per se – I’m advocating against broadcasting every action you take. You go and change the world, little tiger. If you actually do something important, trust me, the world will recognize you.

***I have a feeling I will regret this post later. But rn, Claire Bear Don’t Care. All this endless barrage of profound outrage has induced profound apathy in yours truly.

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fgalloblog%2Fposts%2F1873464272930894&width=500

Don’t be a social media sneak

…one of the gravest of all social media faux pas is to consume the lives, words, and pictures of a friend’s page without even offering a cursory thumbs up as a sort of interweb up-nod.

From the time we are little tots, we crave interaction with other humans. We want people to acknowledge us, react to us, show us that we are individual agents whose actions are influencing the world and those around us.* That’s why social media is so addicting – all of these people are acknowledging you! Hooray! – you exist!

Therefore, one of the gravest of all social media faux pas is to consume the lives, words, and pictures of a friend’s page without even offering a cursory thumbs up as a sort of interweb up-nod. For serious! Fb has now given you the option of sad face or angry face if you don’t like the post, so… you are all without excuse. If your thoughts are so unique and special that you are offended by the constraining choices of pre-manufactured reactions that fb and other social media accounts offer, I’ve heard about this option called “comment.” The only downside is that you have to form words and put them together in a coherent** string called a “sentence.” Even if you’re “blah” about someone’s entire page, 1) why are you looking at their stuff anyway 2) the least you can do is comment below at least one of their posts with a “pfffft.”

I implore you – don’t be that person, who, as I’m telling you about my weekend says, “Oh yeah, I saw those hiking pics. I loved them.” As my closest confidante expressed recently, “Oh did you?? Well I didn’t see a little ‘ ❤ ’ from you, buddy!” I think we’d all rather log into our accounts and see 57 notifications from you going through our profile pics dating back to 2007 than for you to nod your head knowingly when we tell you our weight fluctuated a lot through college.

creepin_aunt — Galloswag sez, “Don’t be this meme”

So now for a moment of Galloswag honest vulnerability – this post is 100% motivated by my own vain curiosity. With any given blog post, my blog views are ~5x, even up to 20x more than I get in likes, reactions, or comments on fb. Were those views from people who read the first sentence of my post and said, “Oh Lort, ain’t nobody got time for that!” Did their clicker finger have a muscle spasm and they opened my page by accident? Did they read every single one of my posts, and were so moved by the beauty of my words they sat frozen for hours with graceful tears streaming down their face???

I guess there’s no way I’ll ever know. Oh wait, I would totally know, if 90% of you weren’t being social media sneaks! >8-O ***

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*This is all loosely based off of an undergrad class in Developmental Psychology I took 10 years ago. If you have information to the contrary, call me out on it yo.

**Although I think we can all testify that there are social media friends who don’t find the ‘coherent’ part necessary… but I digress.

***For those of you who were born after 1992, tilt your head to the left and you will see an angry face!! Isn’t that neat-o?? This is how people in primitive times expressed their emotions.

Dismounting the activism high horse

It’s like we’re all running for office and have to put out a press-release documenting our official response to all trending topics. Why?? Are you actually in a position of power to change those situations? Do you actually have anything new to add to the conversation, and/or can you actually say something more clearly and eloquently that someone who actually is an expert has not already said?

The world sucks right now, y’all. ISIS is displacing millions of people, race relations in the U.S. seem to be regressing instead of progressing, the next U.S. president will either be an unhinged maniac or a calculating murderess, there are millions of people still trapped in slavery, U.S. veterans are not receiving adequate social, psychological, and economical support when they return from overseas, Blake Shelton’s and Gwen Stefani’s duet is being treated like legitimate music..

What to do? In the past I would feel compelled to read and post as many articles on facebook as I could to raise awareness, give as much money as I could spare to causes that fight against these atrocities.. if necessary, I would even duke it out with a complete stranger on my friend’s posts comment section just to make sure those creepily curious but silent Facebook readers were getting my side of the story. But more recently my online presence has consisted of Seinfeld-esque rambles, intermixed with Instagram shares so people don’t forget how adorbs and amazing I am.

What has happened to ol’ Galloswag? Well, to borrow from Hillary Clinton, I’ve ‘evolved’ recently in how I think about my personal involvement in these really huge, disturbing, meta-issues that are plaguing the world. A few points I’ve realized –

Never in any point in history have we had access to so much information. Although it’s great to have the ability to google ‘Sri Lanka government’ and get about 893,000 results in 0.51 seconds, the constant barrage of info is completely overwhelming. Instead of making me a more empathetic, conscious world citizen, it’s numbing me. I simply cannot get worked up about each and every issue. This says nothing about their worthiness of attention, but my own physical and emotional limitations. I would have a mental breakdown if I did.

As a PhD student, I recognize that there are experts in everything now… and almost all true answers are “Maybe/probably, but it’s complicated.” Almost all public knowledge is so dumbed down and distorted by various media sources that it’s almost impossible to know the real truth of the matter – especially when it’s a politically contentious issue. Basically, the “truth” comes down to which news source you like and what sort of assumptions you’re bringing into every issue. Now to borrow from Jeb Bush – although I’m not an expert in world or political affairs, “I know what I don’t know.” I’m not descending into moral relativism – I do believe in absolute truth. But I also believe absolutely that I don’t have the time, resources, and intelligence to diligently research and understand the truth of every issue.

There might not be any worse place to talk about important issues than on social media. No one logs into Facebook so that their world view can be radically altered. Readers are much more likely to misunderstand the content and tone of posts and tweets, and are more likely to respond with hostility instead of understanding. It’s not shocking that whenever I say “if you want to talk about this more, please private message me,” that no one follows up on that offer. It seems that practically no one wants to have a reasonable conversation. They want to share their thoughts and defend their stance publicly, not learn or be challenged.

I can’t speak for everyone, but be honest – are we REALLY ‘grieved’, ‘outraged’, ‘deeply saddened’, etc. about *every* school shooting, racial riot, tsunami, government overthrow , genocide, terrorist attack — or do we just want to make sure everyone knows that we’re socially conscious people and keyed into relevant issues? It’s like we’re all running for office and have to put out a press-release documenting our official response to all trending topics. Why?? Are you actually in a position of power to change those situations? Do you actually have anything new to add to the conversation, and/or can you actually say something more clearly and eloquently that someone who actually is an expert has not already said?

“But Galloswag!”, you protest, “we could always give money toward different causes, right?” Sure.. except do you really have the time to research the integrity and effectiveness of all the organizations you support? I used to think, “I’d rather give money and it be used unwisely than not give money to a worthy cause.” But sometimes throwing money blindly at problems really can cause harm (see Robert Lupton’s Toxic Charity). And not to get all Marxist on y’all, but there are limited resources in the world, which means pouring resources into an ineffective or corrupt organization really is a sort of evil, because you’re stealing from the people, causes, organizations that actually are legit.

Here’s where I’ll pivot somewhat from the bleak and cynical. I’m starting to think that mayyyybbeee we’re given specific skills… put in specific times and places… around specific people… for a reason. Maybe I should focus on helping my lab-mate move to a new apartment, doing good science that actually makes a contribution (however small) to finding a cure for a devastating disease, and supporting local businesses, artists, etc. It’s not that I want to bury my head in the sand and pretend the big scary world doesn’t exist. It’s that I can’t stretch my poor little emotions so thin that I become a self-righteous maniac or a detached psychopath who responds to all evils with a moving fb status update or a disturbingly glib reaction meme, respectively. I’m beginning to think the best way to bring shalom* to my world is a be a good sister, help out in my own community, and save my money, time, and emotional energy for one or two causes/issues that 1) are particularly important to me and 2) are being combated by trustworthy organizations that I’ve taken the time to research.

This is a departure from my usual tongue-in-cheek, bossy-pants posts because I truly don’t know if this is good or right.. but this is where I’m at right now. So I welcome your thoughts. But of course, you can also just silently judge me and I will continue merrily on.

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*Shalom is one of my favorite concepts of all time. It’s a Jewish word that is sort of a synonym for peace, although it’s not just referring to the absence of conflict but the flourishing of a community. ❤