Posts tagged facebook

I don’t take criticism well. At all. Now that I am really focusing on the freelance stuff, I am submitting to tonnes of publications and finding my work scrutinized by various editors from various backgrounds. Leo that I am, I bask in the accolades and spit venom at those who dare question me. I know that if I’m going to put myself out there, I have to learn suck it up, but some days sucking it up, well, sucks.

On the other hand, what if everyone just started sucking it up? Really just sucking the crap out of it. Everyone could say whatever they wanted all the time with no repercussions. Think how much more entertaining life could be.

As an aside, freedom of speech is a real thing. Threatening violence against women is frowned upon. Look into it.

I deactivated my Facebook account last Friday. A bold move, I know, but I need this cleansing time.

I knew what I was signing up for when I clicked that little blue link oh-so-many moons ago. An obsessive snoop like myself couldn’t help but feel a sense of gluttonous glee when I realised I was getting a one-stop peepshow into all of my friends’ (read: ex-boyfriends’) lives. And, since the advent of broadband, I have always been one to neurotically comb the internet for new and exciting info (read: morbid stories of terrible world events) six thousand times a day, so Facebook was a perfect fit. Suddenly I was privy, in real time no less, to all the terrible and morbid things that were happening to people I actually knew.

I guess my relationship with Facebook started to get dicey when I realised the peepshow features a two-way mirror. Unflattering pictures from my youth began to surface, unsavoury characters from my past were poking me at every turn. But once that initial wave of mass-befriending subsided, Facebook and I settled into a rather comfortable ebb and flow of information exchanging and I reconnected with people I thought I’d never hear from again. That was a golden time.

The next crack in the Facebook facade arrived in the form of what I like to call seepage. Facebook seepage is when things (read: grudges and rifts) that happen on that virtual plane begin to carry over into the real world, the world where people have actual bodies not just profile pics. Seepage most often happens when you “friend” the people you already have regular contact with in the real world. And it sucks.

But instead of letting it get me down, I decided to embrace the seepage as another form of entertainment that Facebook could bring, egging those nosy cyber-peepers on at every turn, especially those self-centred enough to take my every status update as aimed directly at them.

So what was the clincher? What finally drove me to the drastic act of deactivation?

It was my freakin’ birthday and I didn’t want people reminding me how bloody old I am getting on my special day. Simple as that.

And what was the result of this brazen act?

My most ferocious cyber-peeper (read: mother-in-law) assumed that I only removed myself from her “cyber-family” and has now  banished me from her real world family. My reaction? Damn, if Facebook isn’t the most entertaining application ever invented! If I didn’t need this break from compulsive profile combing to get some actual work done, I’d reactivate today. As it stands, this exiled princess will be on “FB” hiatus until at least September 1st. Then I have some cyber-baby shower planning to do!

It’s too damn hot to bake, so I’m doing naughty things instead. I like this blog: http://myparentsjoinedfacebook.com/. And I like it because I live it. So, I submitted—have fodder, will feed. Will I make it on this epic site? Only time will tell. And then I will tell, tell my a-hole relatives to lay off!

Recipe for delicious rice cooker chili to come…