Facebook, to use the proper clinical term, is driving me “mother-effing bananas.” And not for the usual reasons like it’s Russian-purcahsed ads potentially swayed the election in several key battleground states veering us as close as we’ve ever come to liberty-abridging totalitarianism. Okay, maybe a little peeved about that, too.
More to the point, I’ve become unbearably annoyed with lots of people on Facebook. And even more to that point, which had already added to the previous one, it’s the world that’s currently driving me berserk. But social media is exacerbating my feelings of rage and hopelessness, not serving as a mitigating or calming force, which believe it or not, it once did. I swear.
Yes, there was once a time when Facebook and Twitter and even Pinterest was a force for good in my life. I used it to post lists of my favorite British Invasion songs and pictures of hot dogs from the San Fernando Valley in 1976. Really important stuff.
But then Trump happened. And not just him, but his millions of aiders and abetters. Even then (or especially then) social media gave me a platform to express my feelings. It provided me a place to put my psychic pain. It gave me a community of often likeminded folks. It allowed me to potentially put into words what others were already feeling. It offered me a chance to flip political undecideds with my estimable powers of persuasion. (That was a joke, even if it wasn’t in joke form). And it made me feel far less alone in my mounting frustration with our nation’s rightward drift and seeming government-sanctioned acceptance and promotion of racism, sexism, homophobia and even that old chestnut, anti-semitism.
Plus, there are the “likes.” Which, kind of nice for a second’s boost of artificial self-worth, are really fleeting if you’re looking to them as a source of spiritual nourishment or long-term happiness. None of which has stopped my political posting. I don’t know who else shares this modern (post 2016) ritual. But every day I wake up. I see what boneheaded comments our boneheaded leader has made. I post angry or “witty” rejoinders. I hope the dopamine rush outweighs the venom that reading his comments has caused. It hasn’t. So binge eat chocolate chip bagels and post some more.
Mind you, I’ve always suffered from a little free-floating anxiety. If you grew up half-Sephardic, half-Ashkenazi in a success-driven household, I’d like to see your therapy bill. But this feels different. Every day, I awaken with existential dread and disgust unlike any I’ve felt in almost 52 years. It’s gotten so bad, that I just admitted my age in Hollywood. Over the past decade, I had lost 64 pounds. Mazel tov to me! Except that I’ve gained 65 pounds back. I’m not morbidly obese. Yet. But I am pricing burial piano cases just to be prepared.
Is this healthy? I literally dream almost every night that I am trying to escape from a desolate post-apocalyptic dreamscape where all civil liberties have been curtailed. Then when I wake up, I feel even worse. For a point of reference, when Barack Obama was President, I’d occasionally dream that I had to re-take the SATs.
Last week, I told my Israeli therapist that perhaps I tweet for the same reasons Trump does, because I’m bored and angry. Additionally, like Trump, all my posts are about Trump. Which sent me spiraling into an Escher painting of logic and my fifty minutes were up. I confused both of us so thoroughly, I think I offered her a second co-payment as a form of hazard pay.
But specifically, what’s bugging me about Facebook? I’m tempting to just say “people” and leave it at that. But for kicks, I’ll try to get incrementally more specific. I post lots of political viewpoints. And frankly, I don’t care if people disagree. Sure it makes me like them less, but I do not begrudge their right to share their opinion. Even if it’s a clearly indefensible defense of Orange Hitler.
There are, however, two things that this dude won’t abide. And not coincidentally, both always seem to echo that day’s Breitbartish talking points, verbatim, no matter how much my Facebook “friends” insist that they’re just “expressing their opinion.” The first are the folks who think they’re entitled when it is or isn’t appropriate for me to post political commentary on my wall. Ironically, this talking point invariably, like always, immediately follows any effort to push for more sensible gun laws in the wake of a mass shooting. Here was my most recent response to those trying to squelch discussion:
So, yes, I get mildly agitated (break out the defibrillator paddles-agitated) by people telling me what not to talk about. But arguably, even more annoying to me are those people, so arrogant and self-righteous, that they attempt to dictate to me what topics I’m somehow required to talk about. I try to remind them that I’m not a news outlet. I’m just a private citizen with a Facebook page. There are thousand of topics I haven’t posted about. My “silence” on those thousands of topics, as some have clearly insinuated, doesn’t mean I am offering tacit consent or approval. It might just mean I didn’t feel I had anything new or interesting to add to everyone’s else’s parade of posts on the same topic.
Like I said, I don’t mind people with well-reasoned dissenting opinions. I horribly mind people telling me what I have to speak about. I’m not a bar mitzvah DJ taking shitty requests. If it’s imperative that you need to hear Pitbull, find yourself another party.
I find it particularly distasteful when people use their “suggestions” for topics as a form of what-aboutism. A topic I addressed more in depth here:
For fuck’s sake. These people made me so angry that I even began a post with “for fuck’s sake.” I realize it’s likely not recommended in the NY Times style handbook. But it was either that or write an entire post in frowny-face emojis.
Maybe I need a vacation from social media or edibles card from my doctor or newfound addictions to red wine or Oreo cheesecake. Maybe I need better Facebook friends, you know, people Ive actually met before. Maybe I can just go back to posting fun-hearted pictures of obscure Brady Bunch characters and defunct hot dog chains from the 70’s. But frankly, that feels like I’m capitulating to the haters.
Well, I do know one thing that is guaranteed to make me feel better, but it’s largely out of my control. That said, Robert Mueller, it’s your move.