The Veil Between Worlds: Internet and Meatspace Edition

You’d think I would have learned something from that three day break in Internet service I endured in August, but...yeah, it’s an old story. Let’s see if I can tease a fresh lesson from this.

Of all the things that could go wrong, this was optimal. Whatever node in my router that connects to the Internet burned out. We still had printer and scanner functions across our home network, but no Facebook, e-mail, etc. None of that evil, evil social media we’re told is so evil by the news media posting links in our social media. 

I don’t understand the hate, myself. As we used to say Down South to complaining people complaining once again (or when someone simply wanted to be dismissive), “Sounds like a personal problem to me.” My Facebook page is the very occasional, very surface-personal update (“It’s a beautiful morning! The writing went well last night! It’s an anniversary! Happy Birthday to you!”) interspersed with recycled memes that are PG-13 at worst, and, with very few exceptions that are often later deleted, studiously avoid “current events” as defined by the mass media, among other controversies.

I will go out of my way to make things as cheery as possible, with just enough humor, some mildly dark, but mostly silly, to keep it funny. As I see it, there are plenty of other places to go if you’re in need of feeling angry and sad. 

For the same reason, I dial back on the profanity. As much as I cuss in real life (it’s an extraordinarily difficult habit to break), it seems 90% of everyone who posts to the Weird World Web writes like a precocious 11-year-old girl who just saw her first Quentin Tarrantino movie and naturally mistakes the nonstop verbal coarseness for toughness and sophistication. This cohort includes content creators for major news media outlets, in which the “reporters” seem especially anxious to let their readers know they’re “down,” as in, “really cool, Daddy-O. Check me out, a fresh-faced, soft-handed child of the upper-middle class talking like an urban lumpenproletariat.”

Which is all to say, most people would probably hate my Facebook page, and I honestly count on the mainstream media never taking notice of what I do. I don’t write for most people, and if you look around at the more successful writers, musicians, and artists, the best ones never did. They created for themselves, and people either got it or didn’t. Sometimes it took time to catch on. The story of the artist Van Gogh, who was famously unappreciated in his lifetime, comes to mind.

Everything is a niche, and thank God. What I look to do is build an audience who as tired of all the ugliness as I am, but smart enough to know not to complain too loudly about it. No, what we’ll do is build our own little oases of like-minded folk and take it from there.

Don’t drink and Internet, kids.

Every now and then I wonder why I bother posting on Facebook. I’ve noticed a lot of people have fallen away over the years. (At least half a dozen were rude enough to die on me.) It’s just me and the silly memes and the occasional update. 

I just like too many of the people on my Friends list. There are a few whose Likes I actively court, because I like to think I made them smile. A reaction from them makes me feel like I’ve done something good. I’m weird like that.

Anyway, once I got back online it turns out that not only was I not missed, I didn’t miss anything.

It’s just as well. This is the point in which most authors crow about all the work they got done, but, again, I’m not most authors. I caught up on some reading on my tablet, though. I’ve been putting away entire rows of e-novels this summer.

The bottom line is I’ve had to rethink what the heck I’m doing on social media. I can’t see giving it up—it’s too handy for keeping up with the people I care about on there—but I’m wondering if I shouldn’t flex my opinions more. Take a few stands.

I feel a day is coming when I will have no choice but to take a stand on something. So I’ll just have to keep thinking about it, then. Maybe make a few minor moves. I’d like to do this on my own, on my own time, than be forced into  it.

My favorite vendor’s table from the Potato Festival on 7 September this year. 

It’s even worse with Twitter. As much as I enjoy reading the threads in the snobs-vs.-the-slobs Twitter wars—I’m proud to say I was following GamerGate since the Zoe Post got people asking questions—the bulk of my own Twitter experience is spent retweeting other people’s Tweets promoting their latest video, blogpost, book, etc. On a really good day, I’ve got a blogpost of my own to promote. My traffic from Twitter is zero to negligible, but I feel like I should stay in the habit in case this changes.

I smile and shake my head to read about people losing their jobs for posts they made on Twitter when they were in high school. The kindergarten tattletale culture of the New Secular Inquisition looking for bad opinions and bad attitudes and bad words and “hate speech,” etc., over years of social media posts is a hateful thing, but, c’mon. You went to kindergarten. You remember that ugly, smirking fatso following other kids around looking to catch them in something so she could go tell the teacher and get them in trouble. Social media gave them a vector with which to expand their careers.

So don’t give them anything to catch you with. Go to the chan boards if you feel the need to express yourself in a manner most “edgy.” Be sure to get yourself a VPN first, if you’re crazy enough to post. 

I’m content to lurk, myself. It’s one of my favorite diversions. My audience, for the most part, though, are even more blessedly sheltered than I am. I still wouldn’t know how to explain what GamerGate was to them, or chan board culture, and who needs to know that badly, anyway?

Ironically, my core online audience is closer to the normies in meatspace going about their business than those whose entire life is spent in cyberspace, fighting the latest war of attitudes. I love irony in my diet, so it works for everyone.

And that’s all I’ve got until next time. Here’s a photo of a kitten sleeping next to my wife’s homemade witch broom on the table on our porch, which makes more sense than anything I’ve just written so far here.