“Hey look, we’re having a snow squall!”

“You can’t say that about the weather! How can you say that about the weather you horrible human being!”

The above sounds silly doesn’t it? Sadly it happens every day, especially on social media.

There are people who blather on, including on other blogs, about “civility.” Quite truthfully, they wouldn’t know civility if it bit them on the ass.

In today’s world, civility, really only truly exists if you are agreeing with someone else’s point of view 100%. And it has to be an approved point of view and if any of the great unwashed hordes on the Internet are not comfortable with your opinion, look out.

As a blogger, I have this happen to me a lot. You either are with them, or if you don’t agree with them, you’re against them.… and verbally you will be beaten to a pulp as soon as they are able to get to their keyboard or to their phone, etc.

It’s ridiculous.

Truly.

Usually it’s the Stepford Bobbleheads of Klanned Karenhood, but not always. There are people who just lack basic reading comprehension. Then there are people who just don’t like it because your opinion is different from theirs, or you said something out loud that people think. Or expressing an individual opinion makes them uncomfortable.

Recently, it’s because I have said a bar called the Brickette Lounge on Pottstown Pike in West Whiteland and West Goshen is being a bad neighbor under it’s new ownership. And the funny thing about that is there are plenty of neighbors saying the same thing, but I am the one who is targeted. So is that by design and are people being sent to harass me? It’s not actually paranoia it’s a reasonable question and general curiosity.

I will note AGAIN that no one is asking for them to close. All neighbors want is for them and their patrons to be considerate and not put neighbors or themselves at risk with the crazy parking and post bar behaviors.

The Brickette could actually do all sorts of things to help with the parking issues:

(1) They could obtain use of a satellite parking lot and operate a shuttle to get overflow patrons back-and-forth.

(2) They could do ticketed events on Eventbrite and it’s not because they’re charging a cover charge per se. It’s a means of crowd control and when they sell the number of tickets that meets their occupancy inside for guests, they stop selling tickets.

(3) Along with asking people to carpool and Uber, if people can prove this, they offer them a little incentive for doing so. Like a percentage off a meal or something.

(4) They have folks at the door right? Are they counting the number of people coming in and stopping when occupancy is reached?

But no, I am completely un-American because I’m daring to talk about this. And the more I’m targeted, the more I’ll talk about it because that says to me that there actually is a problem to be fixed. Someone actually rolled up on my blog’s Facebook page and tried to insert an argument literally on the price of eggs into this. I still don’t have the answer to my question which is what does the price of eggs have to do with this issue?

I mean, if I’m wrong, just prove me wrong, right? It’s a simple enough thing prove that everything is being done to try to make sure the neighbors aren’t detrimentally affected, right ? And apparently the only ones who are trying their best are the people at West Whiteland Township. And the funny thing is where this is located, part of the property is also in West Goshen Township so given the number of cars stretching down Pottstown Pike, and into these neighborhoods where is West Goshen on this or don’t they care? Because they generally speaking adopt an attitude of most things where they don’t answer questions and they don’t care, right?

And I’m sure I will take grief for saying that as well. Basically it seems like anything I say is wrong it’s literally like whichever way the wind is blowing is wrong.

So tell me again about all these people who are so concerned about “civility?”

I don’t think people know how to be civil anymore. It’s really hard to have a conversation that’s normal outside your immediate circle, and even inside your immediate circle it’s not necessarily good.

I was speaking to a friend who had to have an uncomfortable conversation with someone, and that person could not listen or be an adult in the conversation and they basically had to flip out and curse. So my friend subsequently said that just makes it simple and she doesn’t want to be around people who behave like that. I actually concur.

When nonsense starts these days, I find myself less and less wishing to try to speak with someone and talk and discuss something rationally. For the most part, when these people come in guns, a blazing, I don’t want to have a reasonable conversation, so there’s no point. So I don’t.

I run a gifting group on Facebook. The gifting group came up in another group, and someone who had been removed from the gifting group chimed in. I basically said to that person they have no personal accountability. They were in the group twice and removed twice. And they weren’t even removed by me.

Next this person goes on this whole mini tantrum about I have to show them when and where exactly and I am looking at what they’re writing and thinking this was almost two years ago and they’re still hung up on it? Just wow.

And it’s funny you try to not react to these things and respond, rationally and levelly. But most of the time it doesn’t matter because sometimes I feel like the more calm and explanatory you are, the more these people just want to argue. so I find myself utilizing one of the best things that you’re given as a tool on social media: blocking. It’s sanity control.

But blocking presents its own issues. I remember a bunch of years ago I was in this community group where I used to live, and when I joined Facebook, there were people I know in the real world that I simply did not care for so when I joined Facebook, I just blocked them because that way we didn’t have to interact with each other.

So there I am in this group, and it was a group I wasn’t super participatory in. Mostly I just read stuff but there was literally this one post someone asking for a plumber, so I added a comment. The next thing I know I have this admin/group page owner contacting me that people are complaining because I blocked them in the group. I laughed, and I said they’re not admins or a group and page owner, I blocked them when I joined Facebook because I chose not to interact with them because I know we don’t get along in the real world.

Well, the woman who runs this group says to me you can’t block people in my group. And I said I am not blocking the people who run the group, I am blocking people I don’t wish to interact with because it’s always negative, and I learned that not from social media, but from encountering them in the real world. Her reply? They’re giving her a hard time so I can’t be in the group if I am going to block them. I just laughed at her with the absurdity of it, and that was the end of my participation in that group, and I haven’t missed it for a decade. And I still block those original people that I blocked when I joined Facebook.

And that brings me full circle to people on social media. There are so many people that think you should just have a conversation with them whether it’s via comments or they are messaging you or trying to call you. These people in a lot of cases have zero boundaries.

Sociologically, this is fascinating. There are people that I have blocked on one social media outlet who will try every single other outlet to try to connect with me. And why do they have to even connect with me? We have no commonality and we don’t need to be friends.

Remember the good old days before social media when you could just choose to pretend people weren’t around, and they weren’t in your world and that was fine and everybody went about their business?

And don’t get me started on creepy “influencers.” I am not talking about the Bravolebrity tarts or rejects from Batchelor / Batchelorette Island who are being paid to post something they probably don’t actually use is marvelous, I am talking about these people who are hangers on often on the fringes of our communities who do this all of the time. And a lot of the times I don’t even understand why they would be considered an influencer and what exactly is an influencer?

Aren’t we all influencers in our own right based upon what we like and don’t like? Or are we not allowed to say unless some company is paying us for our perspective or we have a gizillion followers that may or may not be purchased?

It’s a very weird world we live in, and then there’s the Internet and social media. Maybe we were better off before in some regards in spite of all the things that are helpful about the Internet and social media?

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But what I do know is somebody somewhere will have a problem with this post.

Have a great evening!