Here’s the deal, people: I’m sick and tired of logging into Facebook to see all of you bickering about issues I’ve already made up my mind about. If you are screaming someone down in a way that doesn’t line up with my own list of scream-downable offenses, I will straight-up unfriend your incorrect ass. Got it?
I just don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.
Before you all get up in arms, let me say that I’m not telling you that you’re not allowed to think differently; I’m simply saying that I shouldn’t be forced to look at your different viewpoints on a place like Facebook. This is not a place for bickering, unless I’m bickering about things I personally disagree with. Can’t we try and have a civil discussion for once?
In my day, statuses were basically glorified away messages meant to be respectfully acknowledged and left alone. Believe me when I tell you that Facebook was never meant to be a platform for social change! It was created in order to help people further insulate themselves by creating exclusive communities in which they could freely share their every inane thought and mundane daily habits in exchange for positive feedback. Remember, there is no Dislike button on Facebook—even though there should be, when it comes to things I don’t like!
Posts on Facebook should be things that unite us all separately into our like-minded communities—baby pictures (for new parents), #foodporn (for Brooklyn hipsters who brunch), memes of Kermit the frog sipping tea (for people who enjoy Muppet-related humor), and, of course, political posts that completely reinforce the belief system I already have and never plan to alter.
Is that so much to ask?
If you’re one of those people who frequently posts politically charged cartoons, articles, and memes without first considering whether or not the content is in line with my personal moral compass, I ask you now: what is your end game? Do you want to ruin my day by making me really angry by exposing a worldview that conflicts with my own? Are you trying to destroy my faith in our country? Or is your goal simply to prove, with the help of your radical agenda, that mankind is legitimately doomed because not everyone sees the world from my own, the one true and infallible, perspective?
Now, over a decade after Facebook began, it falls to people like me to keep the true intent of this social media platform alive. You want to have a “discussion” about “things that matter”? Discussions should be kept in-person, with specific people I deliberately choose to interact with. Facebook is for lighthearted discussion of only things with which I agree.
Any questions?