With Facebook, you deal with crazy family (and friends) all year

Every December holiday season, people journey home to be with family.  Though it feels like a duty at first, it can be a pleasure to spend time with relatives.  The only problem with the family assemblies is the crazy relative (every family has at least one) with views so different from the rest of the family that conversation is either stopped dead by their comments or turns into a brawl.  Many a meal has been consumed in grim silence after a wild comment from Uncle Walter or Aunt Mary.  Whether the comments were about religion, politics, or a combination of the two, families suffered through the holiday in the past, knowing they only had to endure the strange views for a day or two, then hug everyone goodbye and return to normal life.

That has changed with the growth of Facebook.  Everyone wants to connect with friends and family online, but there's a catch.  Those crazy relatives you patiently endured for one day per year before tend to post their crazy fringe conservative or liberal comments every day on Facebook.  The same is true for people you were friends with in the past that you happily nostalgically reconnected with.  If it isn't a daily update on what's for dinner, it's how the conservatives/liberals are destroying life as we know it.

Now I know there are settings on Facebook which can reduce the traffic from folk, though I find everything someone posts tends to be "important", so it is really an all or nothing choice.  With old friends or acquaintances, it feels ok to turn off the daily cooking updates or scornful screeds.  If you really like them you can still call or email (yeah, right).  But to TURN OFF family on Facebook feels like you're turning your back on your heritage, trodding on family graves or throwing away cards from grandma.

So, to sign on to Facebook to find the latest test (Are you an Elf, an INFP, Thomas Jefferson, Captain Kirk, or Severus Snape?) or The 35 Best Buzzfeed Pictures of Squirrels, you have to suck it up and see what Uncle Bruce is saying about the Catholics or Lesbians or Obama or Bigots.  If Mark Zuckerberg had peered into the future and seen that the future of his baby was his crazy relatives and friends, I suppose he may have been kind to humanity and just created a snazzy porn server instead (unless he was the crazy relative or friend and wanted a future soapbox).  And imagine how many more books we think we'd be reading or writing if we weren't reading Facebook posts and taking quizzes.


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