Facebook Induced Insanity

HOW FB STOLE MY BRAIN:  the plain unvarnished truth as revealed through private diary excerpts:

A Friday in AUGUST:   I love FB, it is filled with such fun and loving activities from my large family. We live all over the country and it pulls us into a close circle. Almost like a group hug.

11:00 pm: who can understand kids? One of the main reasons I joined FB was to keep up with my nieces and nephews.  Blue Niece put something on FB that scared the bejusus out of me, I thought that she was suicidal and I panicked, I didn’t have time to care if I embarrassed her in front of her friends. Then I found out that her post was simply some song lyrics that she liked. Well who would like such morbid downer crap?  Now she is calling me a creeper. I don’t know what that is but I don’t think it is good.

Saturday: Morning coffee, opening FB and Red nephew has posted an old photo of the two of us. Sweet!  I am sure he is trying to make me feel better after the family panic and ripple effect I caused last night. But why don’t kids call their Aunts Aunt anymore?

I love FB, my brother in law grows the most gorgeous flowers that he shares with us all!

Afternoon:   FB is so irritating, the spelling is atrocious and the grammar is offensive.

I am annoyed.  Ms. Obsequious likes everything within 2 seconds of posting. And why is she ‘liking’ something from 4 years ago? It brings the old photo back to the top of the feed. This is not scrapbooking!

Purple Niece thinks a ‘party line’ is where you line up for shots at a party. I need to get Lily Tomlin’s record, “This Is a Recording”, for her but I doubt she has a record player.

I am trying to see if my sister has posted photos of her bike trip and I have to scroll though endless baby and animal posts. Does anyone remember when we actually went weeks without taking a photo?

And Sally Stupinda is a fatuous dunderhead. I cannot believe she does not check her facts before posting. Does she not know she is voting against her own self interests?

And the spelling and grammar, I am disgusted, going to stay off here the rest of the day.

Saturday 5:30: I am only going on to check on my Mom since she has not returned my phone call. I see she is on FB talking about all the genealogy research she did today. That is quite the positive, her finding all those connections. Even if they can’t spell.

Late night: How the hell did my chat get turned ON? I turned it OFF. It is like having to keep a constant vigilance over a naughty child that you have sent to their room and they keep coming back out. FB has no manners.

Sunday:  Last night I happen to know that Ms. Mary Maudlin spent the evening looking at old yearbook photos, glory shots of her youth and yet she posted all kinds of excitement. On FB she lives the life she wants to have instead of the one she has. What bunk.

How can dead people ‘like’ things? And post things? Is FB available in heaven and hell?

Lugubrious Lori has posted 30 depressive MEME’s in a row, blowing up my feed, I am seriously getting off of here.

And supercilious Sally is a dry drunk. Weekends are her worst and TMI, this is not group therapy, people! Mispelled and bad grammar TMI to boot!! Have they no shame?

Monday: Lots of posts today from Paula Poser and Bill Bumptious. It is that old adage of familiarity breeds contempt.

I hate that people I thought I liked are now running around buck naked. They like weird music, they hunt, they watch reality TV, they eat bacon chocolate donuts. I feel like I am watching bad porn.

I think I am getting FB Tourette syndrome, I am itching to make snide comments.

Tuesday: I have made many friends from all over the world that I would like to keep up with.  FB is an easy, auto pilot vehicle for that endeavor. Minimal effort and yet maximum rewards. 6 degrees of separation is now 4 or 3. I am sure FB had a big hand in shrinking our world and this is a positive. Their spelling and grammar mistakes are quite understandable but the rest of you, please, you are driving me crazy.

Tuesday 8:00 PM I googled my brother’s favorite fishing magazine, Honey Hole, to buy him a subscription and now I am getting porn ads on the side of my page. I am hopping mad.

Wednesday: Jeez I have an email from my real life best friend who wants me to give ‘thumbs up’ to his posts. I think he has an abacus for each of his friends.  After a few days he will repost it under his Mother’s FB and I will have to ‘like’ it again. I think his mother would be amazed at her presence on FB.  I told him this is how Norman Bates got started.

I hate FB, they changed my privacy settings again and now my group called “redneck relatives” knows that I came to town and did not call them. And my group called ‘”hanging by a thread” saw my snarky posts that were ‘sorta-kinda’ directed at them. I got defriended by 17 people, maybe that is a Guinness record.

I must escape this Church of FB.  I developed an algorithm to correlate time spent on FB with lost intelligence and I think I could file criminal charges or maybe win a civil suit.

Time stealing is probably only a misdemeanor but I am thinking more like one of those Robin Cook novels where your body parts have been harvested and you are either a walking zombie or in suspended animation. I tried to find a lawyer to take the case but so far can’t find one that is not an addict, a Facebook User, pun intended.

Thursday: I was probably over reacting yesterday. Today’s posts are very uplifting and intelligent, lots of food for thought from my very intellectual friends. Maybe a few MEME’s that I have seen 100 times before but no biggie.

Noon: My Mother wrote on the WALL a blow by blow depiction of my sister’s hysterectomy. She said her uterus was bigger than a baby head.

When questioned she said she thought that she had put it on the PRIVATE Wall which is what she calls messaging we think. Although she thinks her cellphone is FB so I am not certain.

I just had a long conference call with my sisters trying to set up a schedule to take turns monitoring Mom’s Facebook activity. 3 sisters, so the list of complaints is long: TMI, religion and politics are NO-NO’s, why does she share (steal) our photos and add her own braggadocious narratives?  How do we stop her revisionist history posts, why does she not understand that the WALL is public domain? The list is exhausting and the task of monitoring daunting.

Friday: Mom is on FB having a ‘private’ argument with my sister-in-law on the WALL about her Yoga addiction. She said her grandson is in danger of having pretzel shaped bones by his exposure. Not sure what that means but it is not my turn to monitor her. Smiley face.

Pink niece posted, her day is ruined, her 5^th hair color this month did not come out right. When I was young a ruined day was when you tried to swim faster than the water moccasin next to you in the creek and didn’t make it.

Saturday morning: Need to get moving, have a weekend at the lake planned. Slightly annoyed, I must check FB first because I will have no service at the lake and need to make sure I don’t miss anyone’s birthday.

Saturday afternoon, feeling FOMO. Not liking my ‘no service at the lake’ and need to walk up the hill to get a signal and make sure I’m not missing anything. I think people secretly like it when I take the time to point out their spelling errors and correct their grammar.

Sunday morning: Volunteered to drive to get ice since I knew I would have a signal and could check up on some simmering sagas on FB. Annoyed as I had to scroll through so many PP’s (prolific posters who think they are so profound). READ: Bumptious Buffoons who can’t even spell. Back to boat with half melted ice, what a time slaughterhouse!

Sunday afternoon: I am happy that dark clouds are rolling in as it gives us an excuse to leave the lake early.  Once we get into a service area my FB alert chime seems to be blowing up so I know something must have happened.

OMG, I am annoyed . I did not ‘like’ a family member’s status and drama is flying. In fariness I did not see it but when I went back to look I see it is just the 23^rd photo this week of her kid winning the MVP on his Tee Ball team. I spent 20 minutes pulled over on the side of the road searching for it so I could like it and call off the family heat but just as I was about to write an obsequious comment I got a phone call. After I hung up I went back to it only to find that I am ‘defriended’. Well good riddance, she was the worst spelling and grammar offender anyway.

2 weeks later I had a friend request from same said family member who defriended me. She says she has no idea how we could have been ‘knocked off’ each other’s FB. I’m going to make her wait a bit before I accept the refriend.

I refriended Ms. Touchy Tammy and tried to set up a special alert so that I will not miss any of her posts. I tried to pay my 10 year old Green niece who can make apps to make me one that will ‘like’ her stuff automatically without my having to look at it but I could not afford her.

SEPTEMBER: I am learning how to make ‘apps’ myself so haven’t had much time for this diary. I am trying make the app that will automatically ‘like’ the things I like plus all family members. So far the glitches are numerous and people might be getting suspicious since I ‘liked’a photo of Cheney and Rove hunting.  I have to work on the parameters.

OCTOBER: I live to ‘like’.  Likewise I am sustained by ‘likes’.  I think I have a pretty good system of never missing any ‘likes’– the giving or getting. And to think I once signed a petition to put a ‘dislike’ button on FB. How silly of me. I am not going to reveal my system  here until I have secured the patent. Which I will do as soon as I winnow the daily application hours to under 18.

NOVEMBER: I have not had any time for this diary, the ‘Never Miss a Like’ patent is going full steam ahead and now I am working on the ‘sub likes’.  Or some way to ‘like’ that someone liked your like.  It is so much easier just to ‘like’.  Whiners are as unattractive as bad spellers.

DECEMBER 26^th How I spent Christmas: it was truly divine, my secret diary! An Italian pick plate, wassail, jammies, African hair oil treatment, Perry Mason marathon– but I can’t put that, instead I post that we woke up with a roaring fire (started by elves I presume), mistletoe and perfect kisses, then a huge perfectly cooked dinner with family, joyous caroling and hot toddies, and in between I fed the homeless, rang the salvation army bell, and ended the evening contemplating Angelina Jolie goodness over a game of monopoly with similarly minded friends.

My New Year’s resolution is going to be making an app that corrects all spelling and grammar.