Old People on Facebook

My children were flabbergasted when they found their mother was on Facebook. I don’t remember when I first logged on, but I’ve been on it for quite a number of years. You see, before FB there was something called “myspace.com” which began in 2003. Teenagers and college kids were jumping on that and posting absolutely horrific things about themselves. It was a good place to check out whom your college-age children were dating. They all seemed to be introducing themselves with some kind of horrible questionnaire asking how many tattoos they had, how many people they’d had sex with, and if they’d ever had an STD. Seriously? Who were those disgusting people and why would they want to publish such terrible information about themselves? Eeeeuuuuuuw!

So, when Facebook started in 2008 and began catching on, it seemed to be much more civilized and useful. I mean, you didn’t have to be some kind of a pervert or criminal to jump on board. Even though it began as a platform for college students to get to know each other, it didn’t take long to spread beyond Harvard to other campuses and well beyond.

I’m not certain how it happened, but I’m sure the youngsters felt invaded when the older generations started jumping on board. It really did perform a valuable service for people like me who had spent their lifetimes moving around and were seeking ways to find and reconnect with old friends. Yes, militarybrats.com and classmates.com were also helpful, but FB seemed to provide a place to post and react to photos, events, and facts of interest.

I think most of us were pretty pleased with it, for the most part. After all, we could share photos and stories with our friends, children, and grandchildren without paying to develop and mail photographs or hand-write letters. Imagine the postage that we saved! And responses were sometimes almost immediate!

On the other hand, there were some drawbacks that many folks were slow to catch on to, like, don’t post everything about your current trip online while you’re still gone. It serves to target your house and belongings for burglaries. Duh! And don’t publish all of your personal information there for everyone to see or you might find your identity stolen and your house suddenly belonging to someone else who sold it out from under you. Oh, and what about the creeps pretending to be someone else to gain your confidence for who knows what reason? There are middle-aged men pretending to be hot young women to prey on lonely men in search of a soulmate, or guys pretending to be teenagers to lure naïve young girls into nefarious situations. Even now, not a week goes by without some unknown guy asking to be my “friend,” posting pictures of flowers, puppies, and medical or service insignia all over his otherwise unpopulated FB pages, (and if you dig into his information, he is following a host of women). I must have blocked 200 of them (or maybe it’s all the same guy desperately pirating other men’s online photos over and over again). These are very dangerous aspects, but if you can learn to enjoy friends without publishing every private key of your life, FB can be good.

Now, why did they have to ruin it by jumping into political biases? This wonderful platform for sharing joy, news, opinions, and information had been established only to be completely tarnished by an ultra-ultra left-wing bias with unknown, unseen, uncredited “fact-checkers” and censors who need only to disagree with your opinions, your politics, or your data to limit or completely stop your ability to communicate. Who are they to declare scientific  or historic fact as “dangerous disinformation?”

Many people in my generation became overcome with disgust and left the platform. Still, a number of us have stayed on because we keep finding ways to work around the disingenuous Orwellian Thought Police that constantly patrol our FB pages. With enough of us defiantly flooding the pages with questions and/or the truth, they cannot keep up with us and it has become a strategic game to continuously outwit the hateful little ignorant pinheads. Educated people understand that “opinion” and “fact” are not synonyms. They understand that “hyperbole” and “tongue-in-cheek” will continue to be utilized and are expected to be recognized for what they are. They also realize that they can correct their own misconceptions if a convincing, factual argument (not name-calling) is offered, thereby improving life for everybody. Perhaps a major difference between the generations is that most oldies pay no heed to self-defined “Influencers,” and instead can do actual investigative research (with footnotes if needed) that we pass on to those who care enough to seek the truth.

These guys who seek to rewrite history and redefine civilization will have to kill off waaaaay more truth purveyors than they can imagine (more than the 20 fingers and toes that they can count). Our aim is to guarantee that truth is passed along to as many of the younger generations as is humanly possible so that when we die, critical thinking, the importance of questioning, and the truth will not be lost or buried.

Meanwhile, we like to share pictures of our grandchildren graduating and our dogs swimming with the geese. How sweet is that?