Friday, November 21, 2014

To Post or not to Post... that is the question....

Don't you just wonder how many twitter followers William Sheakspear would have if he were writing today? How could he come up with all that literature not having a bunch of "likes" and half a dozen reposts, retweets and shares?  How did he know he was popular, and how did he get people to come and see his plays without creating a Facebook event?
Not only that but we will never know what "William" had for lunch as he was writing "Twelveth Night". We don't know if it took him more than twelve nights to write it if there was no "time line". Would there be selfies of author and cast as the Globe? I would love to see a post like this:

"Bill ...saw Mid Sum Nite Drm yesterday... LOL"     or

"OMG William that clip of Hamlet and the Skull went viral"  or

"Juliette and Romeo both die at the end?????.... WTF"

Likes, Thumbs up, pokes, friends, followers and feeds are just numbers.  The time it takes to click or touch a word on a computer screen is in direct proportion to the depth of sincerity in the act.  It always makes me chuckle at the irony of clicking "like" on a post about the death of a relative or family pet.   "My Father passed away this morning suddenly"....  LIKE!  It has become so thoughtless that Like and Friend have lost all traditional meaning.  Friend has even become a verb.  "I friended him the other day."  of  "I had to unfriend that douche bag."   Like now means... I "clicked".
Why are these "numbers" so important and when did they become so?  I'm asking because I don't know.
What I do know is that in today's world the question asked at Call Back auditions to get an acting part is: "How may Twitter followers and Facebook friends do you have?" When two actors are equal in all other aspects of being right for the part... the one with the most "followers" gets the job. As if these numbers translate into viewers or ticket buyers. In the words of sage and bald Texan Dr. Phil... "How is that working out for you?" Why not skip that acting class or dance school and spend the time working on increasing your "social media" numbers?
There are reasons why this is on my mind today.  Within moments of the Presidents speech last night my Facebook "home" feed displayed some very hateful things about our duly elected Commander in Chief.  I'm okay with differing points of view and civil debate, but this was hateful, ignorant, racist jingoism.  All of these awful things were posted by Facebook Friends.  It was then I realized I don't hang around with people like that in real life and they would certainly not ever be a friend with those feelings.  Every time I saw one of those race bating rants I went to that person's page and unfriended them.  It's not that I only want to associate with people who feel exactly the way I do, No. I am not in total agreement with all the people I know and love, politically, religiously or sometimes even philosophically. But we can enjoy our differences in civil discourse, and lively debate. Friends don't act like yelling screaming political talk show hosts.

As John Cleese and Michael Palin said in a Monty Python sketch...
Michael: "An argument is not the back and forth name calling and repetitive yelling of the words yes and no"
John: "Yes it is"
Michael: "No it's not"

In my younger days I had great admiration for politicians who sat across the aisle from each other with totally different points of view but could work together on a compromise that was generally better than either side could come up with on their own.  Was Sen. Everett Durksen a Republican?  Was Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn a Democrat?  I would have to look it up.  Back then it was just a party affiliation not a lock step group of ignorant followers.  Back then we at least pretended there was respect and democracy. America is not Red or Blue, the Constitution says a true American is colorless.

Today respect has been assassinated and democracy means "we are in charge now" so fuck off.
And it is true from both sides of the aisle.  If our standing in the world has been lowered it is due to the fact that our enemies only have to repeat the hateful things our leaders say about each other. What ugly things could an enemy say about our President that has not already been said about him on the Senate and Congressional floor.
Hey ISIS... If you are looking for people to recruit that spew hate toward our leaders,  hand out some flyer's when the House of Representatives is in session.
I'll quit ranting now so you can go to my page and unfriend me.  However, I am making a conscious effort not to post, print, write, tweet, share, blog or acknowledge hate and his friend fear in my life.
As you were,
Jay

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh, Jay.......I've got to share this ! Perhaps it will circle the country. Excellent, excellent, excellent. Bob, however, would probably disagree.

P. Grecian said...

I have kept my hateful "friends" in the hope of showing them the error of their ways. More fool I. Still have a few I hold onto, in the hope that they might start reevaluating their beliefs. As long as they don't come onto my threads and cause trouble for others, I keep them.

I have recently, however, started quietly eliminating them from my friends list...largely because it ruins my day when I see the horrible things they've written on their own threads.