The Facebook Issue

I probably should leave Facebook. 

I mean, I would never go to, say, Chik-Fil-A or Home Depot. Our family didn't eat a single grape or head of iceberg lettuce between 1965 and 1971. Not one. I've never crossed a picket line, never voted Republican, never ate Welch's grape jelly, never went to Knott's Berry Farm and I have never, ever, not looked for the union label. 

I've only had one La Croix soda since recently learning that they are right-wing reactionaries, and that was only because it was at a party and I was so thirsty from all the chips and I wasn't, technically, giving La Croix my money.

Also, afterwards I felt really bad about it.

And as I've always told my kids, the important thing is that you feel bad. 

Feeling bad about ourselves is what makes us know we are good.

At least that's how it works for Jews and Catholics. The rest of you, I have no idea. I do not understand the sanguine ways of your people. You, who post, "Life Is Good" memes on FB. Really, what IS the fuck with you?

So, Facebook. What to do?

If I exit Facebook to express my disagreement with their politics, then how do I express my disagreement with the politics of people who are on Facebook? 

I sure as fuck am not going to start calling people on the phone. I haven't avoided answering my phone for all these many years just to have to depend on it for human contact. I once had an outgoing message on my machine that said, "Hi, I'm home now so please just leave a message and hang up."

Must I go door to door, asking people their opinions and then, I don't know, circle their porch three times  waving a mozzarella cheese stick, saying, "I block thee, I block thee, I block thee" if they think the problem with America is too many immigrants taking our jobs?

It could be satisfying, I suppose, doing my little ritualistic excommunications everywhere I go. And I do love cheese.

The grand gesture, however, is not my thing. I'm not the type to fling my cape around my shoulders and exit stage left in a huff.

I'm more the type to eat a whole box of Wheat Thins and get diarrhea.

I blocked someone on FB yesterday. She had an opinion that vexed me, and I was in a shitty mood on account of the sun being out and I had to be indoors, and so I just blocked her entitled ass.

It felt so good.

A cheese stick could not possibly give me the same high. 

So for now, I'm not leaving Facebook.

But I feel really bad about it. 

Which is the important thing.

 

Comments

[Jo-Ann Moss]

Touche. (I don't know how to do that accent.) Your writing is as brilliant as always, Ann.

[Stu]

I left over two years ago. I had to, they are just too indecent of a company. It was really hard but the longer I'm away the more clear it became that it was the right choice.