bless their hearts

Posted on August 9, 2023 by carla

I have noticed a couple of new tactics with those on social media who always have to challenge things, comment on everything, or look for an argument, where there’s no argument to be found.

Seriously it’s funny.

It starts with over usage of the word, “grace.” They tell you, you are supposed to have grace with everything.

It’s like take your shower with a side of grace. Take out your trash with a side of grace. Beat your wife with grace. Blow your nose with grace. I think, grace, like many other things is earned, has to occur to the individual, and is (again) overused in general as a word. It is truly the favorite go to with the judgemental small minded faux pious on Facebook in particular.

And truthfully, it is as amusing as the people who will say out of one side of their mouth they will pray for you, and out of the other side of their mouth they tell you to F off. I mean bless their hearts, am I right?

Pro Tip: it’s not your place to decide who needs to show grace. Resist the temptation to overuse the word “grace”. Save yourselves from preachified word salads and faux Christian outrage and attempted guilt by finding other pages and posts to ummm….grace.

And then there was like the woman this morning, who essentially said, I was being mean to utility lineman by posting about a tree that was still down blocking a busy road that counts as a state highway. Then there was her pal, who said I was displaying temper because I was suggesting to people that it is OK to follow up after 24 hours with the utility company about things like no power and a downed tree with wires blocking a busy area road.

That my adoring public is the second tactic: to be as passive aggressive as humanly possible.

Yes this is funny because this passive aggressive of it all is the new tactic of the people that usually just flat out bash you for whatever on social media. They actually don’t get that whether they are bashing or being passive aggressive we still see them for who and what they are.

And then there is the whole issue of reading comprehension. It truly makes you wonder what people see when you put up the simplest of statements. However, what is probably closer to what’s happening is they just don’t read it. Or they read a couple of words, interpret, project, and add their own word salad to it as they see fit.

So bless the fuzzy hearts of these people and the jackass horse 🐎 they rode in on. I don’t understand what it is about social media that makes people think they have to comment on every single post they see. It’s like they have a little book and they are collecting gold stars or colorful stamps for every post. (Either that or they’re paying attention to that ridiculous point system that Facebook has put up that no one seems to know what it’s actually for.)

Good golly people, you don’t actually have to comment on every single thing you see on social media. You don’t have to like everything, you don’t have to dislike everything and along those lines, you don’t have to comment on everything. It’s just like in the real world you don’t have to comment on everything. I say real world, because social media really isn’t the real world. In a lot of cases it’s just the reality that people choose to project.

And then there are the people that no matter what they say are bad. Often I fit into that category simply because I am not what these other people on social media know in their own lives. Also possible to be considered is a little bit has to do with the fact that I don’t need to know all of these people, and have no desire to. So that makes me bad merely because I know I am under no obligation to fit into what ever passes as acceptable in their tiny universes.

However, never fear I am here to comment on every oddball thing that strikes my fancy or funny-bone whenever it strikes my fancy here on this blog. And most delightedly, it’s not up to you. It’s up to me.

Judge not that ye not be judged.

Carry on with your bad selves and thanks for giving me the grace of giggles.

life and death.

Posted on August 4, 2023 by carla

There are things that we experience in our lives that we don’t wish on other people because it’s just hard. And it’s sad and it’s a lot of emotions. One of those things I am talking about is hospice.

We lost a family member this week after a very fast dance with terminal cancer. My father in law. The diagnosis took everyone by surprise. And the thing about hospice is you don’t know is if it is going to be fast or is it going to be slow and you have to prepare for both.

The hospice was done in our home. And to be honest, I am still processing how it felt. It’s hard. Your house takes on an unnatural stillness you’re trying to keep everything calm and peaceful for the person on hospice.

People have said to me things like I’m so brave for doing this and what was the other thing? Oh, that I was doing God’s work for having someone here on hospice. I don’t think I deserve those accolades. Hospice was really emotionally difficult for me, right or wrong. Also right or wrong I was terrified through most of it. It’s super stressful.

You are faced with a person who was once completely full of life, fading away, inch by inch hour by hour minute by minute. Watching it is almost indescribable at times. It’s part of the natural cycle of life, but death doesn’t actually come softly. Death let’s itself be known and steals someone from you even if they have lived a long and good life and you are going to miss them.

I am really not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but hospice is complicated, especially emotionally. And you hate seeing anyone in pain. And that’s the hospice patient and the other family members around you. This is why before I go any further in this post, I want to thank the hospice people we had. They were nothing short of amazing. And that’s every nurse, the social worker, and the people delivering and picking up the hospice equipment. The nurses were Amy and Christie and Ashley. The triage nurses on the phone included. Brandy, Kathy, Charlene, and Christa. Betsy was the social worker. And Beth who set it all up.

Who did we use? AseraCare in Eagleview in Exton. We ended up choosing them just by chance. We had called a couple of different people, including Penn Hospice. Everyone we spoke with was lovely, but it was just the timing which had us land with AseraCare in the end.

Hospice workers and hospice nurses I really believe do God’s work on earth. I am in awe of what they do, and have nothing but mad respect and admiration. These women who helped us, helped make it make sense. This was really hard, and I had so many doubts that I could even do this in my own house, because I was just scared. At first, it’s just like having a long-term houseguest, but then the hospital bed gets delivered and it gets very real, very fast.

And then it’s over. It’s a whirlwind, and when it ends the world gets very still, and then peaceful again. And you start to sleep again. Because having someone on hospice in your house is like almost having a new baby, you don’t really sleep because your ears are always open for sounds. It gives a whole new meaning to sleeping with one eye open. Now we also deal with loss. Loss and the complexity of emotions when you lose someone.

In the middle of all this all going on, you still have regular life all around you. For me as a blogger, people continued to message me all hours and leave comments, continued to ask if I could help on things and I accommodated people as best I could. But when you are trying to do regular every day life combined with something somewhat extraordinary and unusual, like hospice, you sit back and you take stock. Among other things , you are just tired.

I find I am increasingly intolerant with the way people act on social media. Everything is an argument, everything is a challenge, and it flows over into the real world. No one can have a conversation anymore. I realize I’ve talked about this before but it really hit home during this time.

After pondering during this time in my family’s life , I have decided I’m doing a little simplifying. Instead of being worried about the feelings of others, even though I know quite realistically I am not responsible for the feelings of others, I’ve decided it’s time to put myself first. I am just not going to be the whipping girl for those who don’t like my opinion any longer. Whether it’s overt or passive aggressive, I just am done. It’s human nature that you don’t want to disappoint people, but I’ve decided I can’t take that on as a mantle. It’s not my responsibility.

People can either be polite, even if they don’t agree with me, or they can simply not be in my space. This is why there are a few of you this week have found yourself on the outside. I have just decided life is simply too short. No one is ever forcing anyone to read Chester County Ramblings or be in a Facebook group I run. I have never expected everyone to agree with everything I write because that’s not humanly possible we’re all individuals. But I’m done with the behavior which I don’t feel is acceptable. You might think it’s fine. It might be fine someplace else, but perhaps not so fine with me. And how I feel actually matters.

So that’s it for me. Our world is a study in life and death. As humans, we don’t have time for BS.

Peace.

living life out loud

Posted on May 6, 2023 by carla

I am struck once again by how much people live life on social media. They live too much life on social media. Social media may help keep us all connected, but it’s not the real world.

And while social media keeps us connected, it’s not a justification for bad manners and lack of boundaries. And it’s the lack of boundaries that in part bothers me.

This week I had an extremely unpleasant experience with someone who is an employee of a service provider. They crossed professional boundaries that leaves me disturbed.

When I realized who they were and their comments were even leaving me uncomfortable, I quietly removed them from my page. I was actually trying to do them a favor. Not all employers like controversy. Especially in today’s hyper charged social media world. They started messaging. I quietly blocked that. Then they made the ultimate presumption and started messaging my private messenger rather combatively. That is a boundary that should not be crossed because then it is a professional breach of conduct since they work for a service provider I have a relationship with. I blocked them again but now I am left with a very bad taste in my mouth. They didn’t get that there are things in life that are just not appropriate.

Then we leap to the politics of it all. Should politicians respond to questions? Yes. But sometimes it is all about how you ask. One of the problems with social media is the lack of conversation. It can’t always be whomever gets all of the toys wins. And people seem to forget that all of their issues and things they champion personally, or not necessarily going to be yours. Or that you, as an individual might support them, but not so fervently for lack of a better description and that doesn’t make people bad, it just makes them different and we do have to allow for differences. Isn’t that what we fight for for real?

The lack of boundaries and decorum is something I feel is very much lacking in today’s world. And it has a place.

And in general people think we all should available to them 24/7/365. I am not. I have a life of my own and it’s off of social media. People don’t seem to realize that all of us have things to do and things going on in our lives. And that’s not necessarily bad or hysterically busy things, it’s just our life. And I find a lot, that sadly this isn’t respected by people because they expect you to respond to them immediately. A lot of people also simply don’t want to interact on social media.

It’s a big wide world out there and it really takes place off of Facebook and whichever social media platform you favor.

Go outside. Enjoy the world in real time interact with people face-to-face have an actual conversation. Live life in your own moments. Real moments. Not ones engineered with social media prompts.

Am I Miss Manners? No. But I think we all could use reminders now and again.

Ciao.

you like tomato (/təˈmeɪtoʊ/) and i like tomato (/təˈmɑːtoʊ/)

Posted on February 25, 2023 by carla

More in the category of social media manners matter.

Recently, a friend of mine posted their experience at an upscale restaurant in a closed group that is supposed to be about restaurant reviews and more. They weren’t nasty. They loved the food, but there were other parts of the overall restaurant experience outside of the food that bothered them.

Things like driving some distance to a restaurant that said they had valet parking only they did not really. Apparently around the corner, there was a valet guy, but he wasn’t particularly pleasant. A restaurant should not offer valet, if they cannot offer valet and it’s all right to tell people they don’t have enough staff for valet or whatever the case may be. And if someone has called in a reservation and leaves their phone number or they email a restaurant, why can’t a restaurant let the customer know that valet staff might be limited, here are the self-parking options? When people are prepared ahead of time, a problem isn’t necessarily a problem is it? Or if life happens and people don’t show up to work, just take a little more time with your customers when they arrive.

Other things like where your table is located. No one wants to be in restaurants Siberia, which to me is right by the kitchen door, having a go fwack, fwack. Or a table immediately opposite a bathroom. I mean who wants to hear flushing toilets as part of their expensive dining experience? It doesn’t lend to the ambience of a place. Which is why a lot of restaurants will have partitions going to the bathrooms so you don’t hear them or down a little hallway so you don’t hear them, see them, smell them. Some restaurants are small and should consider maybe a couple of less tables.

Also on the topic of tables would be specific requests. If a customer calls and says to the hostess or whomever when they are making the reservation that they would really love a table in a certain spot and can they be accommodated, don’t say yes, you can accommodate them if you actually cannot. It’s OK to politely say no I wish we could do that but we’re all booked or whatever. No one wants to lose a customer in this economy, but a quicker way to lose a customer is to say you will do some thing and then when they arrive, it’s not that at all.

Little bits of conversation with a potential customer, especially if they might have a special need goes miles in keeping customers. For example, a friend of mine said to me just recently that now because of health concerns, they have a very specific diet and they were super impressed with the new restaurant out near us, who took the time to steer them on the menu before they came in, to make sure that health related dietary restrictions could be kept. that is very cool customer service. I have food allergies and sometimes I ask questions ahead of time and I’ve had people be annoyed with me for asking questions. Personally, I think if one of my allergies caused a medical emergency in the middle of their dining room floor, that would be a lot worse but what do I know?

And that’s just the real world of it all. The not so real world of it all occurs when people leave an honest review of a restaurant within a closed group that is about restaurant reviews. No one wants to see a restaurant unnecessarily slammed, but if someone is thoughtful in their reply, and they show balance of what they loved, and what they liked and what they didn’t really care for how is that a bad thing? But we’re not talking about a review on the restaurant’s website or a Google review or a Yelp, we’re talking about a conversation you should be able to have within a closed group that is about the topic of local dining or travel, or whatever. Or even just a local group where you live that’s more generalist in nature, but contains things like this.

I am someone who knows a few restaurant owners, and a few chefs. One literally said to me yesterday when we were talking about this very topic that even if they do not want to hear it, they really want to hear it. Because sometimes they don’t know because they are so close to the topic. This person said to me they like to hear about a total experience, not just the food because it is something that could be a simple fix or improvement. To this friend, it’s simple: if they don’t know they can’t address and/or potentially improve the situation.

The flipside of this is, I have seen plenty of people who were just nasty to be nasty about a place. And I have seen restaurant owners and chefs be so incredibly gracious to these people to try to address their concerns.

I am someone who was totally slammed by a restaurant owner because I gave a mixed review one time. I wasn’t even negative. I praised to the heavens everything I liked, and was honest, but not mean about what I didn’t like. As a result of the way I was treated I will never be a return customer. Maybe that doesn’t matter to some people, but the restaurant owners and chefs I know really want to do the best by their customers whenever possible. And when this happened to me, it wasn’t in person, it wasn’t in a phone call, it was on social media. So when I see this happening to someone else for whatever reason, it gives me pause, especially when it’s from another member of the community.

Then there are the people that don’t like the terminology you use. If you use waiter or waitress instead of server. if you say janitor instead of custodian. Or my favorite is, you could never refer to a secretary as an administrative assistant. Some secretaries prefer to be referred to as a secretary. These words aren’t pejorative terms, they are alternate terms for a similar job description. But people get so hung up on being the online political correctness police that they go on and on and on about this completely missing the point of what somebody was trying to say, and being rather rude while they were at it.

Do I take offense if somebody just calmly kind of says to me, have you considered using a different term? I’m actually kind of OK with that even if I don’t agree with them, but the whole heavy-handed approach of the keyboard warriors leaves a lot to be desired. Keyboard warriors or typing tigers have room only for what their perspective is, not anyone else’s. And when you’re in a group setting or a guest on someone’s page, how is that even appropriate or helpful?

I belong to social media groups like ones that tell you about restaurants and different places to go and visit because I’m genuinely interested. But I also appreciate people who will say what their experience was honestly without being mean because I think you should be able to discuss things. And I think that is the biggest problem with so many people on social media today is that you cannot discuss anything.

There are some groups, even some which I belong to, that you’re never allowed to really be completely honest if anything is negative that you have to say. You cannot write it even if you are balancing with several positives. You’re just not allowed to say it. I understand wanting to keep a balance and keeping a group membership happy, but when did we lose the ability to be honest with one another, without tearing each other to bits?

When it comes to dining out or traveling, I appreciate the feedback of others, who aren’t just publicists or members of some marketing team for a restaurant or a resort, but people who have actually done what you’re thinking of doing or visited where you’re thinking of visiting or dined where you want to dine. That’s why I’m not a compensated blogger. I chose that because when I voice my opinion, or give a review, it’s because I am just like everybody else, a customer.

And while on the topic, I appreciate actual writers who write a review who are not being compensated by the business to do so, it’s their job to review things. And I also appreciate the reviews of people in a comparable industry, who tell you what it was like for them to go somewhere. I don’t necessarily have to agree with any of these things that others are writing, but I appreciate the time they took to be honest.

Anyway, sorry to have another post on a similar topic, but these things keep cropping up and honestly? My opinion is people can be better and do better. I don’t pretend to be perfect, by any stretch of the imagination but I do not get why people join groups to share experiences, only they’re not allowed to open their mouths if their experience is less than glowing. After all, not all unicorns fart rainbows, some are just regular unicorns.

Have a great afternoon.

manners (or lack thereof.)

Posted on February 23, 2023 by carla

People seem to be lacking in basic manners online. Especially on social media platforms. As a blogger, I seem to get a lot of the various forms of lack of manners directed at me. People are no longer able to agree to disagree, or even have what resembles a sane conversation about opposing views.

In this me, me, me world that exists on social media platforms, that whole phrase of “worthy opposition” no longer exists. As a matter of fact if you try to mention that to most people you get the social media equivalent of blank stares because people just do not understand much of anything these days, and have little intellectual curiosity to seek things out.

We are going deaf. We worry about political polarization, the rise of the radical right and so on, but there’s a deafness afoot that is pre-political and dangerous not only to democracy but to living with the other seven billion people on the planet.

We are losing sight of the “worthy opponent,” the person or party you disagree with but whom you see as a legitimate member of the body politic. We are forgetting how to learn how “the other side” sees things, and hammer out workable compromise—keeping in mind that a good compromise is where no one gets everything they want.
~The “Worthy Opposition”: Learning to Learn
By Marcia Pally

Yes that pretty much is the perfect quote for what I am attempting to discuss.

I am growing increasingly intolerant of those who cannot disagree and have a reasonable conversation. And I am saying so, which in the limited world of some on the Internet and social media whose comfort levels never rise much above whatever they are saying or pink fuzzy bunnies, it’s tragically akin to heresy.

The come backs on their part usually start with I can’t take criticism. Well, umm have you met humans? I have never met a single person who likes criticism, but that’s not why I am sick of what some think are acceptable comments. I am sick of the way people think it is ok to treat others on social media. There is no online conversation, it’s be like they want you to be samey same like them or you are bad. You can’t disagree, because if you do, you’re bad.

It’s not about agreeing or disagreeing with me, it’s about being respectful. If you can’t state another perspective as part of a conversation then I can and will remove comments and people. I’m not your punching bags, and yes it is up to me because it is my page and blog. If people don’t like it when I say “my page” or “my blog”, so sorry did you think it was yours?

I have started to remove comments and people. From my blog, from my bog’s social media outlets. If people don’t like it, too bad. If you can’t be civil, have a conversation, I am over it. People can think what they want, but I find today there is a particular lack of decorum in discourse. Even on pages where you think this wouldn’t happen. There is a great deal of misplaced sense of entitlement going around these days.

Yesterday I was musing about the cyclist who was struck and killed by a police officer. All I said was it would essentially be helpful to know all of the facts before rushing to judgement. I said this after speaking to avid cyclists I know who said flat out that was a damn odd place to be on a bicycle. I wondered why the guy was there and I still wonder if his judgement was impaired in any way?

When it comes to cyclists, there are good cyclists and not so good cyclists who do not pay attention to the rules of the road and make up their own. I don’t know any motorist who gets up one day and says “today I will hit someone on a bicycle with my car.”

I remember years ago when I used to take windy and hilly Conshohocken State Road back and forth to work every day, there were several days a week when I would hold my breath because of cyclists. There used to be these groups of cyclists who would weave and bob in and out of traffic, sometimes nearly taking over both sides of the road during the morning rush hours…oh and not keeping up with the flow of traffic, instead creating their own rules. As a driver of a car, it was terrifying some mornings. You know that you have share the road and cyclists like motorists have rights, but no one has ever adequately explained to me did their rights include putting everyone else at risk? On that road, I also saw a cyclist hit once through no fault of their own and we found out later they were a hit and run victim.

My thoughts about this fatality a few days ago weren’t crazy, there are lots of questions about this. From the angle of the victim, and the person who hit the man who is also in law enforcement. But people hopped all over me that I was a horrible person and when I responded to them, I couldn’t take criticism and I was verbally barraged again. And one woman was particularly amusing because she took umbrage to my response as I found her particularly rude and made some comment about having agreed with me on something in the past. Umm, so that means you can just be terrible to me when you disagree and I am supposed to say “thank you, may I have some more, please”? In this same vein was the guy who is a firefighter in Chester County who was also upset that I reminded people it was my page. Well it is, and distilled down most simply is when you are on someone’s page, you are their guest. They create the rules and like it or not, if we don’t like their rules, we don’t have to be there.

Have I been removed from Facebook pages and/or groups? Sure (and there are so many I just wouldn’t bother with period.) And I haven’t lost sleep over it. What amused me in those instances is I wasn’t actually rude to anyone. But hey, it’s their party, not mine. Sorry not sorry that I didn’t agree with a mother in a parenting group who thought it was ok to put household bleach in a bath for a child with allergies. Yes, really. Objecting to what actually could be considered child abuse had me removed once from a parenting social media group. But usually I am simply barred from a Facebook page because I am a blogger, kind of like what the Chester County Republican Page did. And I have yet to actually comment on THEIR page. I comment elsewhere about what they have on their page. Or the Fauxblicist who runs around in the terrifying bunny suit on occasion. I never commented on her page either, just laughed hilariously at the idiocy others shared from it. She bans me from commenting, but why would I comment on her page? I wouldn’t.

And then there was the Facebook group I was removed from because I blocked NOT an admin/moderator/page owner, but instead just some random women in said group who I did not care for. They complained to the woman who runs the group and she said back then I could not be in the group if I blocked others in the group, and did not grasp the concept that I was managing my personal privacy settings and it had nothing to to with her or the people who ran the group. It was merely done to avoid online flame wars with people I will never agree with who are in fact, mean. I am still endlessly amused that she would tell someone to change their privacy setting to accommodate bullies. It was also ironically a group where I rarely commented. Did I care about not being in that group? Nope. Haven’t missed in in a decade.

And then there is Twitter. Yesterday on Twitter a person decided he didn’t agree with me. That would have been fine if he hadn’t called me a bitch and not in an amusing “oh bitch please” satirical way. It was as in it had absolutely no place in the conversation, zero decorum kind of way. His excuse for said behavior was he wasn’t a very kind person on social media and he wasn’t going to go away unless I muted or blocked him. Very mature. He didn’t get that we could have had the entire conversation if he hadn’t decided to be offensive. So I chose mute.

Decorum is not something that exists on social media. Maybe it should? All I know is just because I am a blogger or have a different opinion it doesn’t mean I am going to sit and be their punching bag. After all if I am so terrible why are they reading my blog and why are they on my blog’s Facebook page?

Of course the ultimate irony regarding these keyboard tigers is how they are in real time if you see them off of the Internet, not hiding behind screens, keyboards, and false bravado.

Manners should be a thing online and in real life. We don’t have to all agree, and we shouldn’t all agree, but the first response of people to attack I think is wrong. And yes that means I will mute or remove someone and delete their comments. Life is too short.

If you don’t like my blog, my blog’s Facebook page or my comments or thoughts, it’s a great big Internet out there. Feel free to discover it. Life is not a cheerocracy. And you all seem to think it’s just me who feels this way. It’s not. People are just miserable to the non-controversial as well.

Oh and one last point. Everything is not about a skewed perception of class warfare.

#byebyebye

Rant over.

why are you connected to people on social media?

Posted on October 11, 2022 by carla

Why people connect with each other on social media is something I always find sociologically fascinating. So why do you connect?

Take Facebook and Instagram. I connect primarily to maintain relationships with friends and family I don’t necessarily see as often as we did when were younger. Even former teachers. And friends of my parents and other relatives I am connected to.

In addition to the school and familial ties, there are the other friendships and relationships I have made along the way. Friends I have made as an adult, former work colleagues, neighbors, and people in the communities in which I have lived past and present.

I am not connected to people because of what they can do for me. I connect with people I like or feel a personal connection to. Sometimes that means the extended friends of friends.

When I like a business and follow their “pages”, mostly it’s because I am a customer. I will like a friend’s business page because they are my friend. That’s not the same as saying I’m promoting their business because they are my friend, because I don’t really promote businesses. If I put my blogging hat on, I’m not a compensated blogger so I like to stay out of gray areas.

When I speak about a business, it’s because I am a customer. Mostly it’s when I am a happy customer. But not all of the time. Sometimes I speak about a business to ask people if they’ve used it or gone to a specific restaurant, for example.

Sometimes when I speak of a business on social media, it has been when I didn’t feel valued as a customer or had a truly negative experience. Sometimes the business is a big business or a utility company. But when customer service is truly lacking, sometimes that is your only option to get things made right, isn’t it?

But what I don’t do is the whole disingenuous of it all. I don’t connect with people on social media because of what they can do for me. So maybe that makes folks with an emphasis on marketing confused, or makes them wish to have their heads spin around, but I actually do try to keep it real.

Facebook and Instagram is also where I follow things that connect to my interests. Traveling, although I don’t do much of that. Gardening, cooking, movies, TV or streaming shows, vintage and antique items like Christmas ornaments. Also things like decorating. I love to see what some of them do with rooms. It’s interesting. Especially if they don’t decorate for a beige, beige world.

I also will use Facebook and Instagram to keep up with nonprofits I like, and organizations I belong to which are nonprofits. Or magazines, blogs, and newspapers I read. Social issues. Local issues. Sometimes beauty products, but that doesn’t mean I will post about everything I like or buy. And you have to be careful with things like beauty products because suddenly they will show up in your feeds everywhere as ads, even if you didn’t invite them.

When it comes to a platform liked LinkedIn, to an extent that is kind of a mystery. I have never been particularly sure of the value of the platform. It has some crossover with other platforms, but in the sense of a lot of the same people I am connected to elsewhere. It’s a platform where I always find it amusing on who is “looking at me.” And that usually is linked to something I have written – people connected to politicians, developers, utility companies, people from companies that shouldn’t be utility companies and so on.

It’s not like some one wants to reach out via LinkedIn and offer me a dream job or gig or give me a million dollars. LinkedIn is where a lot of people go to spy, looking for that “gotcha” moment or dirt. You know, much how people view Facebook?

Twitter is something I discovered in the platform’s early days vis-à-vis community activism. I have kept up with it as a way to keep track of issues and the news, but it’s also a platform where some of my long term friends are found who shun Facebook and Instagram. It’s also a place where I keep up with gardening and cooking.

Sometimes I don’t go on Twitter very often. Like during the years a certain person was president. I found the site much more palatable after they removed him. However it doesn’t mean that his children of the corn don’t lurk and spread their vitriol and misinformation, so sometimes I pass Twitter by because of that.

Twitter is one of those places where I don’t get overly personal kind of like LinkedIn , but I observe when people use it as their outlet. I don’t even know who a lot of them are in reality, it’s just their place to express themselves.

Like everyone else on the planet, there are days where I spend far too much time on social media. But it’s not my sole thing. And I don’t use it to portray a life that doesn’t exist, either. I don’t use it as a tool to be a social climber. It’s just sort of an appendage to the modern world.

I think sometimes we all need to lose the appendage of social media and live in real time. Disconnect. Connect with other human beings more meaningfully.

And yes there are lots of other platforms I didn’t mention. But if I don’t belong to them, how do I have a basis of knowledge to comment about them intelligently. Or there are others I belong to that I use so rarely, they don’t warrant discussion.

Why did I write this post? I’m not really sure. It just sort of popped into my head this morning.

Have a great day!

a real or false sense of community?

Posted on January 17, 2021 by carla

When you look up “community” or a “sense of community” you find:

“A sense of community is the feeling that members have of belonging, the feeling that the members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that their needs will be met through their commitment to be together.”

So when you join social media groups in your community, you go there hopeful there is an actual sense of community. A lot of times you find that, but other times you find groups that make you shake your head.

Some local groups that have made me shake my head in the past about what they allow to be posted. So given what we have seen unfold in this country lately, especially the assault on the United States Capitol, do admins of said groups have a greater responsibility to say keep the peace? And will platforms like Facebook take greater steps to address preexisting issues like stalking, bullying, and harassment?

Recent events have opened up conversations about First Amendment Rights in groups on social media platforms run by private companies. It’s not so difficult to comprehend the nuances unless you are being deliberately argumentative or obtuse.

Yes we have First Amendment rights, but we are on platforms hosted by others. If these others have rules, it’s their platform, not ours. We do not have inalienable rights to disregard their parameters. It’s their site, they just allow us to be on it.

Same thing for say closed groups on Facebook. They almost all have rules and they are governed by the rules Facebook tells folks setting up closed groups.

To me the whole argument of “well I can say whatever I want in Joe Schmoe’s group” is as ludicrous as the billboard company owner who used to say they had a First Amendment right to erect giant billboards which always begged the mental visual of them up there with a giant sharpie scribbling away, didn’t it?

I think social media groups have to be cognizant of what gets posted and keep an eye on it. And not just violence, undue profanity, and crazy political. Let’s not forget fake medical advice posts. One of my favorites came from a mom group advocating for bleach baths for kids with skin issues and doesn’t that actually constitute child abuse?

Being an admin to social media groups is like adult babysitting and you learn quickly that there are keyboard tigers who will argue about anything and everything. And then there is the online mob mentality which in my opinion since the onset of COVID19 has also spilled over more and more into the real world. Because social media and living online is not and will never be the real world.

The longer people spend solely on social media and online in general, the less their grip on acceptable social boundaries. You see that with professional and personal relationships.

Fostering a sense of community is a wonderful thing, but we need to keep it real. And we have an obligation to not tolerate sheer ugliness. We have an obligation to shut down online bullying as well, and that has not gotten better, it has gotten worse.

We can do a lot of genuine good. We can pay it forward for positive change in communities. We all just have to try.

Have a peaceful Sunday.

sometimes people should just stop picking at other people. this is one of those times.

Posted on March 25, 2020 by carla

I swear there is a meme for everything and this one is pretty much perfect. Why am I posting this? Because some people just floor me on social media. Facebook especially.

Backstory: a few years ago when I had my first knee surgery, I was literally just home from the hospital and practically still drooling from the anesthesia. Sitting in a daze in bed, I was mindlessly looking through social media on my tablet. I noticed this one woman posting comments on my Facebook timeline that I just didn’t want to deal with. So I didn’t say anything, I just deleted the comments. After all, your personal Facebook page is like your virtual house, right?

So the woman whose comment I had removed posted another comment in the same vein. There I was practically drooling like you can do after surgery and anesthesia and I wondered what alternate reality I was living in that this woman wouldn’t just get I probably didn’t want to deal with this? I made a decision. I deleted the new comment and quietly unfriended the woman and went to sleep.

Unfriending this person was not something I wanted to do. But when I was still sitting in bed the next day scrolling through Facebook still somewhat dazed post surgery, I knew it was the right decision. Why? Because she took the argument of the deleted comments and moved them essentially to another woman’s Facebook page (whom I also knew – ironically I introduced them to one and other) and sat there talking about me like I couldn’t see it. Kind of like they were talking on the phone only it was all playing out on Facebook. It was crazy and I decided, sanity and maturity should prevail, and I just blocked both of them so I wouldn’t have to see their online brand of crazy in the future.

Still part of me felt bad. I had known the one woman for many years. But knowing her was sometimes exhausting. The other woman was always just kind of sad always striving to belong. Also exhausting. I sent both women a note explaining why I had decided to distance. I figured I’d make one last attempt at salvaging the relationships. I explained to them I just had surgery and I didn’t want to deal with any of this right now. But if they wanted to talk about it, explain what they didn’t understand, and I would try to listen. Need list to say, that didn’t happen never heard from either, and I went on about my life. I wish I could say I missed either woman, but I don’t.

I especially don’t miss people who act like this while experiencing a global pandemic. Life is kind of stressful enough right now. What I didn’t expect was that they would do this again to someone else. I sadly thought this behavior was because of me. But it’s just them.

A very nice woman who is a very close friend has literally just had a similar experience with these two over the past couple of days. My friend had posted on HER Facebook timeline that it really bothered her that people including the President keep referring to COVID19 as the “Chinese Virus.” She said she found it offensive. In my opinion she’s not wrong.

No matter what your opinion is, my friend said it on her timeline. It’s kind of like when a lot of us don’t judge the women in menopause posting the Nametest things all of the time that says they wish they were pregnant again or what movie star they think they look like. Their thing, not ours.

To be clear, viruses do not know borders and even the CDC Director Robert Redfield agrees with this point. To keep saying that over and over puts Chinese Americans and other Asians in Jeopardy much like what happened with the Italians and Japanese during World War II and the internment camps in this country. Or the Irish need not apply campaigns and signs you would see in shop windows in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s kind of like referring to the influenza pandemic of the early 20th century as the “Spanish flu”. The virus didn’t actually originate in Spain that might’ve been one of the first places that documented it in newspapers. The COVID19 virus exploded in China, but there is no absolute that it is the true country of origin for the virus.

Well the woman I removed from my timeline a few years ago, of course had to argue with my friend. My friend politely asked her to kind of stop, and sadly that didn’t happen. So my friend just quietly unfriended her and blocked her and removed the comments. Below is the comment that finally made my friend have enough.

Now you would think that would have been the end of it. But sadly no, the other woman I had removed from my circle of friends a few years ago for chiming in where it wasn’t her concern did so again. Seriously:

So my friend unfriended and blocked the other one too. I truly am stunned at how pig ignorant people can be. It’s like these women have this whole tag team of nastiness, which is truly sad. I wonder if either one of them gets it yet that more and more people distance themselves from these two all of the time. They are having social distancing practiced on them as a matter of keeping one’s sanity.

My friend wasn’t “slamming” the President. She was specifically referring to a term in this whole coronavirus world we live in that she found offensive.

Given the times we currently live in and everything that everyone is going through, wouldn’t you think that these two women would have better things to do than to argue and spread vitriol? What do they gain with these little Facebook games?

I am really sorry that this happened to my friend too. I remember how upsetting I found it briefly at the time. It’s like this whole sense of betrayal when people are so nasty. Then you realize no one is worth that crap.

Look, OK, we probably all have a more than small dose of cabin fever at this point. We are living our lives in a way we’ve never had to live them before. But when I look at what those who live through World War II have to say it just sort of gives you a whole new perspective.

I can’t make people be kinder to one another. And I’m sure some will have comments about what I have written today. It’s just one of the many things I am thinking about because face it, we all have so much time to think right now. And perhaps that is part of the problem. I don’t think some people are comfortable with their thoughts.

But I don’t understand with all that we have to deal with why these two women persist in doing this? All they are doing is isolating themselves further from people within their community and showing the world how unhappy they are. And that’s the thing that we are also discovering through all of this staying at home and self isolation: we are not islands unto ourselves after all. Humans need human contact and community, and it takes a global pandemic to realize it. So try being nicer, right?

I have always maintained that social media is both a blessing and a curse. It would be nice if right now with our every day lives up-ended indefinitely if we could try to make it more of a blessing than a curse.

If something annoys you or you don’t agree with it, you don’t have to leave a comment every time. Sometimes you can just scroll past it. That way people don’t fight and friendships remain intact during a very difficult time.

Try to be kind today.

social media: it’s enough to make one anti-social….

Posted on July 24, 2019 by carla

Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.
~ Oprah Winfrey

So why don’t we do that? It’s a question I asked myself recently and am going to strive to do better in the future.

When social media first started it was “What a great idea and what fun!” Today? Today I often wonder. It seems to be more and more the virtual play ground where the idiots you choose not to associate with in real life congregate.

As a blogger, I accept I am an acquired taste. I am fine with that. As a human being off the screen in the real world I am also an acquired taste. But if we were all identical carbon copies of one and other the world would literally be overrun with Stepford Wives.

As a blogger, I am not a compensated blogger. When I write up a business I visited, or a restaurant I ate at, or a non-profit event I attended it is because I paid to do those things just like everyone else. Well maybe not like everyone else because there are bloggers and social media “influencers” who are…. well… compensated. In other words their good opinion is paid for in some fashion.

When I write, it’s my own experience, good or bad. I bought the goods, ate in the restaurant, bought a ticket to the non-profit event, used the paid services of a company. There are people out there who do not. They expect goods and services and even fees to write something up. Sometimes businesses are afraid to NOT slide them stuff because of what they might write or say on social media.

There are even people who take money for supposedly all sorts of services but it is really just about getting free stuff and then moving on to the next business? I have a lot of friends with small businesses of all kinds, so that really bothers me. From a moral compass standpoint, it also bothers me. It’s like blackmail, isn’t it? How do you live with yourself? How do you take the proverbial food off of someone else’s table?

Now onto the more personal side of social media. Why are the keyboard tigers allowed to roam freely and wreak havoc?

I am an admin of several Facebook groups. I have strong opinions so I do not mind strong opinions. But I do mind people who harass, badger, curse a lot (so ugly to see in writing) or who are just mean spirited to be mean spirited. Or love to be super passive aggressive while just simply trying to stir the pot.

Recently I just quietly deleted the comment of a man who was just being an ass. To me. For no reason. I had never spoken with him or even interacted with him online. The comment was essentially abusive. I chose NOT to respond which would have started an online flame war.

What is a flame war? This is what a flame war is:

In online forums and other online discussion spaces, a flame war is a series of flame posts or messages in a thread that are considered derogatory in nature or are completely off-topic. Often these flames are posted for the sole purpose of offending or upsetting other users. The flame becomes a flame war when other users respond to the thread with their own flame message.

I chose to be an adult and admin for the greater good. I never said anything, just removed the comment and took advantage of Facebook’s mute feature which is a handy tool if used properly to cool off a situation. Well, the person who commented then decided to start private messaging me.

Note the use of your over you’re. Up until this point I had not removed the person from the group. Just muted them for flaming comments. Who they are is immaterial to the conversation. They were a stranger with a case of keyboard cowboyism. After sitting on the interaction and pondering it with other admins, we decided they would be happier elsewhere.

One of the groups I admin is a gardening group. It is large and popular and has grown from local to regional to national and international membership. I wanted a place where people could come from all levels of expertise and even professionals.

My group is blessed to have not only regular people but gardening professionals and growers who freely share their knowledge and expertise. A good portion of them are paid for their expertise handsomely so I think we are really lucky. I am a rabid gardener but I don’t know everything so I like to learn and share information.

Sometimes even in a gardening group people get like the Sharks versus The Jets. Yes, a theater reference. West Side Story — an award-winning decades old adaptation of the classic romantic tragedy, “Romeo and Juliet”. The feuding families become two warring New York City gangs. And that is what people get like on social media.

There was this thing happening in the gardening group that really was so ridiculous. This divisiveness between organic based gardeners versus everyone else. Someone who was a professional posted about their own HOME garden with a helpful tip. A person I had had problems with before started challenging them. The professional never lost their cool and answered all questions gracefully.

But the aggressor, who had demonstrated a similar pattern with others in the past, wouldn’t let it go. It turned from a conversation of opposing points of view to badgering. It was unpleasant. This person doing the haranguing hadn’t learned from the comments other admins had removed, so this time I muted them. And told them I was doing it and why.

They never said anything, but their supporters then started. It was unfair and they should basically be allowed to turn a nice group into a place where many felt uncomfortable. One of the champions of this person started messaging me. They literally messaged me yesterday at 9:32 AM. I did not see the message until 10:04 AM or maybe a few minutes later, because hello I was having an actual life. Do you live on the Internet? I don’t live on the Internet. I spend far too much time on it some days and I am making an effort to NOT be that way. But when you are an admin of Facebook groups especially, people seem to have boundary issues.

So this person who messaged me was responded to. But that wasn’t good enough. They had to then try to start a passive aggressive situation of their own on the gardening group page. They wondered if they were “safe to post” like a pack of rabid dogs was suddenly going to appear on their doorstep and rip their keyboard, phone, or tablet from their hands. As an admin that is a post that will escalate tensions that may exist.

I messaged the person and asked WHY they had to post that when I had actually taken the time to respond to them. My description of the timing was different she says. Ok she lives in my area is there a different time zone I am not aware of?

Then she says:

Not sure where the disconnect here is coming from, but blessed are the peacemakers.
Peace.

BTW, the word “ramblings” implies a kind of laid back, relaxed enjoyment of gardening. So, maybe chill out.

She goes on to say how she is just “speaking her truth” and she’s a “stream mom” and so on and so forth. And how I was wrong to mute the person who had been badgering people about…gardening.

No honey, I am not perfect and I get tired of being a babysitter. And with a couple of thousand people to manage virtually, some days it is exhausting. One gets tired of being a babysitter and a referee of adults who should all know better. But for some reason when it comes to social media they lose their manners and inhibitions….. social norms and acceptable public behavior flies out of the window. It is crazy. And face it, we have all seen people go off the rails. Not naming names but look at a certain elected official on Twitter, right?

Having had enough of this back and forth, I blocked that person on messenger and removed them and the admins had to create a new rule so people got it:

New Group Rule as people seem confused: aggressive or passive aggressive comments towards gardeners for their decision to use biological (organic) or non-organic chemical controls in their garden will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be removed.

It’s a gardening group folks, not an environmental activist group. No one should be chastised for their gardening methods on their own property.

We all do not have to agree but just because someone chooses organic vs. non-organic or vice-versa does not make them a bad person.

Babysitting. Babysitting I do not get paid for and toddlers are better behaved at times.

It’s the love hate relationship with social media.

Then there are the people who capitulate to the whims of the social media haters and badgerers.

Years ago (as in 2013) I was part of a closed Facebook group still from where I used to live. I was still new enough to Chester County that I wanted to keep up with where I had lived essentially most of my life. Moving to a place as an adult over 25 is very different than when you are young and starting out. It is not as easy to meet and get to know people and although I had already fallen in love with Chester County, I sometimes still missed where I used to be because I missed a lot of my friends.

I did not, however, miss the BS of the Main Line. And long before I moved west, back in the early days of Facebook I decided that some people I did not wish to interact with on social media because they were horrible to me in real life, even in public. You see, that was a drawback of being a blogger and a sort of social activist.

There were literally people who would eviscerate me in public and in letters to the editor of the local paper at the time as well as leave comments on local and regional media website articles that were truly horrible. They weren’t just being Internet trolls, they were bullying and harassing me. They wanted to tear me down because at the end of the day I did not see things exactly the way they did and the way they told their minions to think.

It was a great sociological study. It was taking the theory of bullying in the middle school lunch room to a whole new level. And these were also the people who would holler like stuck pigs if kids were bullied in school or on the playground. And I would just watch and wonder why they didn’t get where the kids were learning the unpleasant behaviors from?

So when I joined Facebook, I decided rather than risk further interaction with some fo these people, I would take the high road and just pretend they weren’t there and preemptively block them. I wasn’t talking about them, I just wanted to limit their access to me personally. I am not a public official and wasn’t then either. I was just a woman they didn’t like very much. I could live with that. Not seeing them around on Facebook was very peaceful. Of course, that is why Facebook has privacy settings, right?

Lo and behold the admin of this community group from where I used to live messages me. How she was going to have to remove me from the group. Not for anything I had actually posted (which by 2013 was literally a couple of banal things like recommending a plumber), but because I had chosen to block these people who were miserable to me in the real world when I joined Facebook.

Say what??

I tried to explain to her that was to keep the peace, I wasn’t blocking her as an admin and group page owner. I was being responsible in an effort to avoid unnecessary online confrontations. But oh no, her definition of community was she chose to capitulate to literally adult mean girls and they had the right in community groups to see everyone. I tried to explain I chose not to do that because I did not wish to have them have a window into my life.

Truthfully, I did not care about her group and belonging at that point. I really didn’t need it, I was fine in my new life and her actions made me realize that. But it was the principle of the thing. How can you self-profess to be a good person by demanding they open themselves up to unpleasant people in a social media group? (But this is a person who wants everyone to love them and needs to feel as if they belong, so in a weird way it made sense, didn’t it?)

The rules of social media groups in general include you can’t block the admins and moderators. But you CAN block people you don’t get along with or who make you feel uncomfortable for whatever reason. It is WHY privacy settings exist.

A couple of years ago, I decided to quietly unfriend this person on Facebook. We really were never truly friends, maybe short term acquaintances. So I decided to let her and some others go. Lives change, people change right? I never commented on it, I just let go.

Then yesterday, someone asked me about the garden group this person had. They lived down closer to where this person lived so I said sure, I will send them the link I used to belong to it. Only I could not find the group. So I asked someone else and they sent me the link. They also told me I was no longer in the group.

A real WTF moment because it is a gardening group. Not politics, not activism. Gardening. As in what I spend a lot of time doing. And I hadn’t been in the group, had never really posted in it ever and truthfully had never used the group much to begin with because to be honest I never learned anything from it. It was too basic for my knowledge base, and well, my group was better. But for whatever reason this person removed me and blocked me.

Oh social media Groundhog Day. So I will admit I did message her about my discovery and how I discovered it. I also said I really didn’t care that she did it, but the principles of hypocrisy is what bothered me. So I said to be equally fair I was removing her from my gardening group. Sorry not sorry, you don’t get to benefit from my hard work and the expertise of those who post there and not share. Not being able to share when it comes to gardening is just one of those things I find wrong.

Much to my amusement, when I went to look at the message I sent I saw that she had blocked me. I still have her home address, I should really send her a thank you note. I do not need people like that in my life on any level, even peripherally. Kind of like the woman who made a point of telling me that she couldn’t invite me to her Christmas party because other people wouldn’t come if I was there. Yes, that is true. Crazy, but true. And I didn’t ask to be invited in the first place.

Also crazy but true? Legitimate cyber bullies and cyber stalkers. Social media is a kaleidoscope of crazy at times.

And that is the thing about social media. So many people need it to feel good about themselves. Or feel popular. Or even powerful. But it’s all virtual. I have come to the conclusion that I will more and more narrow my focus. I have my writing, activism , love of historic preservation and things like gardening and cooking and photography. I also have my true friends and I don’t need a huge collection of faux friends to fawn all over me. I don’t need or want the self-proclaimed power brokers of people online, and those who take advantage…do you? (Think about it.)

Another thing that is getting to me on social media are the essentially social media based networking organizations you have to pay for. Women are especially drawn to them and I have had friends who have belonged to these groups.

Women don’t realize they don’t have to pay these groups to raise their own business profiles and make friends (which exist mostly on social media – I can’t truly define it as camaraderie in real life can you ?) And no one I know ever grew their business out of these groups but instead remarked on the cliquishness and time wasting of it all…and that these groups are expensive. You pay to join a group, you get let into their Facebook pages, then you are expected to pay to attend events, right? And what do they do for you? Who is making the money here and aren’t the chapters of these things like, if not actual franchises?

Social media is a weird, weird place getting weirder every year. And I say that having been in it and on things like Twitter practically since inception (I joined in 2008, Twitter launched in 2006).

I started blogging back in the dark ages. I was once part of this amazing site called Philly Futures which started in 1999. I joined it at some point after 2002, and was part of it for a few years. It was lots of different bloggers and was activism-centric. They used to do things I thought were cool like Missing Monday which focused on missing persons. Philly Futures was an early voice in the genre of “citizen journalism.” It wasn’t a mommy blog or a monetized blog, it was a lot of good writing and interesting topics. I miss it.

Sometimes I think social media has morphed into the land of the shallow. And everything has to be light, happy, and airy fairy where unicorns fart only pastel rainbows. What I liked about the early blogosphere in the dawn of social media is it was real, and you could be real without chronic online castigation.

Look around at Facebook, Instagram, whatever your poison. How can all those people have those perfect lives, really? What happens if we pull the curtain back? And the photos. Do some not realize that occasionally their personal photos are well photos that are better off left offline? To be enjoyed privately?

I am a blogger, yes, but I am still a fairly private person. I like enjoying my family and friends offline. You can’t grow a garden online. You can’t cook a meal online. You can’t go barn picking online. We can’t spend all of our lives online. Maybe it’s time to liberate ourselves somewhat from social media. We used to exist fine without it, after all.

Think about it, when is the last time you wrote an actual letter? I am going to hang out in my garden and commune with nature and check out butterflies. I will leave you after this rambling post with an online article about types of Facebook posters. It’s very funny.

10+ Types of Facebook Posters

RobinB Creative

Apr 25, 2018

Humorous Caricatures of Social Media Users
Social media has existed since the earliest times.
Imagine, if you will:

An early, nomadic hominid, scratching an image onto the wall of her cave-shelter. Picture her wonder, joy, and surprise when she returns, a season later, to find an image left by an unknown “other”.

There, on the cave wall, is an “answering image” — with splashes of colour. She has no idea who “commented on her wall post”, but she knows she’s not alone. There has been a response to her unintended friend request. She is experiencing shared humanity and kinship, beyond the immediate circle of her tribe.

Over the years, they may have gone on to share information. I imagine them sharing hunting stories, food storage ideas, and even recipes. I see them inspiring each other to greater creativity by means of their developing art. Maybe, they even shared some personal details.

Did other people, passing through, add to the story on “her wall”?

Basically, humanity has been obsessed with “social media” ever since.

As cultures and technology developed over millennia, so did long-range social interaction. Passed messages, and formal mail services replaced cave paintings. Books spread thoughts and information to larger numbers. Telegraph, telephone, newspapers, and radio, further widened global information sharing.

….Social media, of various kinds — for good or bad — has become integral to our society. For people in my age-group (50s — plus or minus), that usually means Facebook.

I’ve isolated ten different caricatures of Facebook posters — although the first does have four sub-types. [CLICK HERE TO READ FURTHER AND YOU WILL BE GLAD YOU DID]

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10+ Types of Facebook Posters

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