Cheer up Facebookers, you're bumming us all out

“My life is shit; I hate everything and trust no one.  People will only lie to you and break your heart” – written by anonymous unnamed Facebook user on November 5, 2011

“I couldn’t be happier.  Life is so good right now and I’ve got the best people surrounding me.  I think I’ve found the love of my life.” – written by the same anonymous Facebook user November 7, 2011

“I wish I could just die right now.  So called friends will only stab you in the back.  Don’t trust nobody!!!” –yep, you guessed it same user on November 8, 2011

What I do everytime I read
these statuses

And thus goes the daily soap opera of people who are perhaps a little too honest and naïve on social media sites such as Facebook.  Every single day I guarantee that around 60% of what I read when I sign in to Facebook is about the ups and downs of the love lives of my many social media friends.  I think it’s great when you are feeling hopeful and wonderful about a situation but maybe you should wait a moment before making your bold pronouncements for all to see.  I never know what to say on these people’s statuses because I might see, “OMG!!  I’m so happy, I’ve got the best boyfriend in the world!!” on Tuesday but by the time I log in on Wednesday they will be talking about wanting to cut the penis off of their no good, lying sack of shit boyfriend and feeding it into the wood chipper.  What do you say to that?  “Congrats??”  “Go for it??”  I don’t know maybe tell them to gleefully chop off his penis while telling him that you love him and that he’s the best.  I know that social media is there for us to all communicate what is going on in our daily lives but sometimes I feel that it might get a little personal or at the very least not thought out very well.  And I think that if you are in some whirlwind relationship filled with uncertainty that perhaps you should just e-mail all the people you want to bum out about your jacked up relationship instead of putting it out there for the rest of us to quietly vomit to. 

I know that everything can’t always be rosy, sunshine statuses of cute kitties and rainbows but I also know that you don’t have to put every wrist slitting moment of your grim existence out there either.  I try to take the approach of talking about topics that might illicit a laugh or a conversation.  I don’t want to go login and be instantly depressed.  A group of researchers and psychologists out of Chicago back in March came up with the idea of “Facebook Depression” which basically states that people that have crappy lives filled with counting the carpet fibers on their rugs and crying themselves to sleep at night get more depressed and envious of seeing all the good times being had by their online friends.  Well, I could add to that.  I don’t have the most exciting, thrill seeking, adrenaline junkie lifestyle but when I see nothing but people bitching and moaning about how bad their life sucks, it depresses me.  I’m glad when I see my friends doing well, I might be a little envious but I’m still happy for them. 

I would like to offer my help to all the people in these shitty dead end relationships.  Trust me; I’m an expert in human relations and common sense.  Are you ready?  If you are unhappy or don’t trust the one you are with, THEN MOVE ON!!!  We only get a short time on this spinning rock we call Earth.  Your life is only a nanosecond in the great timeline of history, stop wasting it on douchebaggy cheating boyfriends or cum dumpster slut girlfriends.  Just leave.  If you don’t have kids then there is absolutely nothing holding you back.  Sure it may seem hard but you just have to do it.  You will be happier and find someone else or you could find that you do better all by yourself.  And you know who else this benefits?  All of your friends that you bum out every day with your sad repeated stories of betrayal and heartache.  If you have to question your relationship every day then it’s probably not an actual relationship, it’s what I like to call “relation-shit.”  You are not stuck, get out!!

See doesn't this make you smile?

If you don’t want to follow my advice then I have another solution to brighten up these sad people’s day.  Every time that they post some “blah, blah, blah she cheated on me.  Blah, blah, blah you can’t trust no one” statuses, you should put a smiley face or a kitty playing with yarn or a rainbow in their comments.  Just something that says, “Hey cheer up, you sad person here’s a dancing baby to make you smile!” 

***Footnote*** I should say that this only applies to repeat offenders not people who have just happened to hit a rough spot.  I’m talking about the people that bombard Facebook or Twitter or whatever with sadness all the time.  If your life sucks, get off Facebook for a while and settle your shit.

The Context of "Dirty" Words

Someone or some group at some point in history decided what were deemed “dirty” or “vulgar” words.  Somebody decided that “shit” was an improper way to say “poop”.   There was probably an uptight English woman who ran a Proper Ladies Society who stated that “fuck” was a dirty, vulgar word for coitus (sex).  I don’t know who decided what words were suitable and which weren’t.  I like to envision that it was a committee of uptight Brits sipping tea and eating crumpets that decided what was okay to say with the head chairperson wearing a powdered wig and those little round eyeglasses and was referred to as “your honorable chairman Sissywig”.  Each member of the committee had prepared a list of words that they would each submit to Chairman Sissywig and they would all discuss it with Sissywig making the final decision.

Uptight British Woman:  Honorable Chairman Sissywig, I would like to submit the word “teabag” as it is offensive when my husband refers to his deviant act of placing his testicles upon my head as teabagging.

Chairman Sissywig:  So be it, from this day forth the word “teabag” can only be referred to when speaking of making delicious Earl Grey tea and will be unacceptable to say when referring to the act of defiling one’s wife with one’s scrotal sack. 

I don’t know if this is how it all went down but I like to imagine it this way, it’s just more fun.  If we step back and think about it all “dirty” words are just words.  We should be able to choose how we react to them.  I could easily say that from this day forth “lol” is an obscenity.  Why?  Because I said so, it bothers me and offends my delicate sensibilities.  Most people don’t actually laugh out loud when looking at or reading content on the internet.  You might smile or chuckle to yourself but you’re probably not laughing out loud to the point that you are rolling on the floor and your ass falls off.  But see, it seems silly if I want to ban a word or deem it inappropriate to say because I am offended.  Words themselves should not offend people; it should be the context in which those words are used that should offend people.  In general it takes a lot to offend me, I don’t like child rape, blatant mean spirited bigotry, uninformed hateful homophobia, and that’s really about it. 

Take the word “fag” or “faggot” for instance.  If two buddies are sitting around playing a video game and one of the guys screws up and loses the game and the other says “Dude, you’re a fag.”  He doesn’t mean, “Sir, I find your actions to be that of a homosexual and I find it despicable.”  He means “Dude, you screwed up, asshole.”  It’s just a word and it’s just two buddies busting each other’s balls and having fun.  However, if those same if a guy passes a gay pride parade and says to his friend, “Look at those faggots.  They’re all prancing around in their faggotry.  Makes me sick.”  Well, that is when it’s hateful homophobia.  Unfortunately the fine line can be hard for some to distinguish and thus the word itself has been deemed unusable in an acceptable society.  The word carries so much power and evokes so many hard feelings because too many people have used it the way I illustrated it in my second example.  The first example shouldn’t offend anyone because in the context it’s just two guys joking around, but the word has been granted so much power that it’s become impossible to ignore or use. 

I think that we grant too much power to words themselves.  The FCC and other like organizations have over politically corrected every word.  They have left little to no wiggle room for their use.  Doesn’t it seem silly when you see a theatrically released movie play on TBS and you hear the cop say, “Listen here mothertrucker, I’m going to beat the spit out you if you don’t tell me where the gosh darn hostage is!!”?  In your mind you already know what is really being said because for one, no one talks like that, and two, you can read lips.  So the actual words have already been placed in your head regardless of whatever bad overdubbing the network attempts to do.  I understand that we don’t really want our kids hearing these words but that’s why you step up and be a parent and check out what your kids are watching.  The parents that complain to the FCC are more responsible for what their kids see then the FCC.  The FCC puts little “warning labels” at the top of every TV show and you should be grown up enough to see when it says TV-MA that your kid probably shouldn’t watch it.  If you choose to let your kid watch that then you have no right getting upset at anyone other than yourself.  People have complained about shows such as “Breaking Bad” and “Sons of Anarchy” with their use of language.  Well, you know what?  Those shows are what they are and if you don’t like “dirty” words, then don’t watch them.  Don’t ruin it for everyone else, the rest of us are adults and understand that the language lends to the reality of the story.  These shows are not for kids.  When my wife and I watch shows like that, we send the kids to the other TV room and let them watch a cartoon or we wait until they are in bed because we have brains.  We know that there are “dirty” words and that the kids shouldn’t watch it.

My overall point is that everyone needs to stop getting so upset and take these “dirty” words in context and quit getting offended just for the sake of gaining attention for yourself.  You can start getting offended when you hear Spongebob tell Patrick to “Eat shit and die, starfish.”