What do you do with Dead Friends on Facebook?

I realize this is a somewhat macabre topic, but I’ve noticed that a few of my friends are in a different realm these days. I haven’t done an exhaustive search but I have at least 5 maybe 10 friends on Facebook that are now deceased. They range from people I was close with, partied with, or just somehow knew.

I’ve found that adding or subtracting just one person changes the FB algorithm and suddenly I’m seeing posts from someone whose posts I haven’t seen in a long time, even though a quick check of their profile shows they have been active on an almost daily basis.  Since I have pretty much met all the people I’m ever gonna met so the number of new friends is minimal. Hence removing deadweight is the only way to see friends I care about…or tweak my settings and hope Zuckerberg doesn’t screw with them.

This time of year, I tend to cull my friend list a little anyway. I keep a lot of people because of loyalty and whatever but fuck if we don’t interact anyway what is the point? And I know some of this is caused by the Book of Faces not showing you everyone’s status updates in your feed.  I really enjoyed it in the early days as a passive way to let my friends know what narcissistic me was up to, without carpet-bombing their inbox with my self serving emails. But now it has become more isolating.

So do I improve my feed by unfriending people who will never contribute to my feed again, or do I honor our friendship by keeping them in my friends list so that when alien anthropologists explore our post-apocalyptic planet they see that I was friends with some someone who would eventually know someone who was there when the revolution began?

One the one hand, it seems cold to unfriend them because when our AI Overlords take over, I want a message in a bottle that we were once friends or at least connected. On the other hand, the FB algorithms might not be showing me what my living friends are eating for dinner because Barbie has been dead for 6 years but none of her survivors have deactivated her page.

Stay tuned.

****************

Like me, you probably dislike all of the ads on this page. They pop up unexpectedly, sometimes cover text, start playing videos and clutter the post itself. We bloggers have no control over any aspect of the ads (content, form, placement, etc). I am sorry that they have taken over our blogs on ChicagoNow and appreciate your continued support.

Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

What I learned from my impromptu Facebook Diet

Recently I went on a Facebook Diet. I know there are a plethora of blog posts about people giving up Social Media.   Don’t click away… I’m gonna increase the amount of insight, and decrease the amount of self-aggrandizement.  The ratio will be close to perfect.

While the timing overlapped with Lent, it was not something this heathen officially gave up for the Catholic season. I just, more or less, made a conscious effort to limit my Facebook activities about this time. It helped that my day job was so busy that checking Facebook first thing in the morning wasn’t always an option. I don’t commute to work anymore but my mornings are spent getting moose and squirrel ready and off to daycare.  Therefore I no longer engage in my commuter ritual of burying my face in my phone and ignoring all the unwashed masses on the Blue Line.

I still checked FB regularly for the distractions. Working from home, Facebook is my way of keeping up with friends Life Achievements and a poor way of interacting with people on a virtual level. Admittedly it is also the source of the majority of my news.   I still maintain that FB can be an excellent archival tool to remember what you did x years ago and who you did it with.

But I didn’t post as many status updates as I have in the past. By the scientific method of making shit up, I’d say I posted only 10% of what I normally do. I still checked into places, posted pictures of my douche nugget cute kids and tagged friends where appropriate.  Also, I didn’t make it Facebook official by ironically announcing it on any social media platform.

What did I learn? The less you engage with FB, the less it engages with you. One of the few posts I did share during this diet was that one about “if you knew me in high school, ” I got a few comments but not nearly as many as some of my other posts if This Year in Facebook is to be believed.  That is even adjusting for all the people who have hidden or taken a break from me, and vice versa.

I don’t know much about the FB algorithm, other than it is evil and more regressive than the tax code, but it does seem to be based on interaction.

Facebook is a bit like high school in more ways than one. It mirrors my High School experience in that freshmen year we were all equals. Then the cliques formed and people factioned off. By senior year I had a handful of close friends and the rest were classmates that I use to know. On FB I have some friends who have never interacted with me and vice versa. SomedayI might purge them.  Or just leave them in the FB archive, a souvenir to prove to the world we were once friends.

 

Like me, you probably dislike all of the ads on this page. They pop up unexpectedly, sometimes cover text, start playing videos and clutter the post itself. We bloggers have no control over any aspect of the ads (content, form, placement, etc). I am sorry that they have taken over our blogs on ChicagoNow and appreciate your continued support.

Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

Cleaning out my Saved Items on Facebook

If you don’t know, Facebook has this feature that lets you save things. Maybe it’s a video you cannot play at the office but want to listen to at home. Or an article you want to share but not from your phone because you want to type a lengthy paragraph that includes your Thinky-thoughts on the subject and a phone keyboard is just too new aged for your multi-decade hands.

I have 99+ items saved. most of them are things I thought would be good fodder for my Mysteries of Life Page. Others are things I wanted to have handy when someone attempts to sum up a complex issue with a MEME.

But there are problems with this feature. For one thing, There is no search feature.  It is very hard to find something unless you just saved it like 5 minutes ago. Organize things into Collections helps, but it is still a mess trying to find anything or scroll to the very end.

Also, UNSAVING is a bit of a challenge. I access Facebook from the website on a laptop, from my FB app on my iPad and from my FB app on my Samsung Phone. All three have slightly different user experiences.  Some of those experiences change weekly.

For instance,  if I’m within a collection, I cannot delete/unsave an item from my phone or via the website.  I have to find it in the general Save Items bucket.  On my iPad, I am able to unsave regardless of where I am, or at least I could last week.  Haven’t tried it in a while.

As I said, I’m trying to clean out my Saved Items.  So the one I have for Easter will be gone soon.  So will the 10 I have for Future Marvel Comics related posts.  Unfortunately, the 14 I have saved for Halloween and Christmas are gonna linger for a few months.  I also have to work through my Read Later bucket, although if I thought it was worthy of reading later, I probably also think it’s worthy of sharing.

I wish there were a way to Select All and delete and start over.  Luckily I will be on a long drive for Easter and can probably just delete them one by one to pass the time, as long as I have good cellular coverage.

Stay tuned.

****************

Like me, you probably dislike all of the ads on this page. They pop up unexpectedly, sometimes cover text, start playing videos and clutter the post itself. We bloggers have no control over any aspect of the ads (content, form, placement, etc). I am sorry that they have taken over our blogs on ChicagoNow and appreciate your continued support.

Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

Letgo is the Tinder of furniture selling apps

In a pre-move effort, or at least an attempt to light a fire under our butts and look for a new house, We have made the decision to start getting rid of the clutter. This was before I had even heard of Marie Kondo and we aren’t getting rid of things that don’t give us joy so much as things that we just don’t want to take up valuable space in a moving truck.

To that end, I’ve started selling things on Letgo and FaceBook MarketPlace. At first, it was kinda a rush because I’d post something and get some immediate responses and sold things within a few days. Then things started to settle down. Maybe it was the oncoming Winter, or maybe it was the junk I was trying to unload.

People will contact you at the strangest hours

It seems that LetGo is Tinder for boring, old people! We have two small children in this house and as such, tend to go to bed early. So in the morning when I wake up (or at 3 am when the Insomnia Fairy strikes) I am astounded by all the late hour messages from different people  Thrift Saling at 1 am, probably coming down from a wine-and-no-dinner or vodka infused evening.

Especially on the weekends! Do these people have a few adult beverages and then start trolling MarketPlace looking for sweet deals on desks, sofas and that elusive Barrister Bookcase?

You will get ghosted

I’ll respond and sometimes the person writes back. But a lot of times they don’t. Even when they contact me during Normal Hours, we will chat for a bit and then suddenly silence. You can usually see it coming. The graceful ones look for an out: what are the measurements? Oh, that’s too big.

People will try to talk you down on your price no matter how low you go

Pricing is more art than science. No one wants your Pottery Barn sofa that you are discounting by $20 when they can just buy a new one that doesn’t have your ass crack residue on it.  At the same time, no one wants to go across town just to pick up an item for $5 unless it is hard to find, or unique in some other way.

Still, there are some people who will try to talk you down even though you are practically giving something away.

People will not leverage technology

Too often people will reach out to me, ask me about it, and then realize that we are 14568 miles apart. Yet LetGo  and Facebook MarketPlace have built-in mechanisms that will tell you approximately how far someone is from you.  So you don’t have to drive an hour just to pick up some item you could just order off Amazon for $10 more unless you happen to be in that area anyway.

Too often, someone contacts me interested in an item and then they realize we are too far away to make this work.  At the same time, I have sold two large pieces of furniture to people who have driven in from Indiana, so distance isn’t always a factor if you price it right.

****************
Do me a favor? Click my “like” button and join our Facebook community.

You’ll find funny, informative links and interesting pictures.  Don’t worry, your Facebook feed won’t get overwhelmed.

Happy Reading!  Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

Reflections on my 10 year Facebook Anniversary

Facebook told me that it is our 10th anniversary. Apparently I signed up in June of 2008. That sound about right. I had come back from a trip to Europe and sent around my Prague Marathon story. Back then I did my blog posts and status updates the old fashion way: annoying emails that most people deleted without reading.

A friend wrote back, asking if I was on Facebook. I said no but would sign up as soon as I figured out what Facebook was. I figured it was something like MySpace and Friendster and whatever Microsoft was trying at the moment. I created an account and saw that I already had two friends, others who had invited me to join FB. One has since deleted her account.

Like the current commercial, I came for the friends, and stayed for the connections.  I saw Facebook as a place where people post photos of their grandchildren or their pets. They can post any mundane, fabulous, irrelevant, snarky, pointless, heartbreaking or remarkable thing they want to. It is what it is. Don’t overthink Facebook.

These days I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I enjoy seeing updates from friends near and far as they unlock life achievements or simply share an interesting item or anecdote of their day. And of course it helps me as a writer share my stories.  On the other hand, it is annoying to see otherwise intelligent friends share MEMEs that inadequately sum up or oversimplify an issue.

The thing is, your “Friends” have always been this way, you just didn’t realize it. Facebook just shined a light on it. You are likely friends with someone because you shared some time and space together not because you shared the same view of Roe v Wade.

My biggest pet peeve about FB, as with any technology, is that people feel that the way they use it is not only the right way, but the only way to use it.

Whose move is it?

Take the picture above.  What they are talking about isn’t really important.  What is important is that theoretically they are on the same side and want the same thing.  But Person_Who_Posted set their security settings so no one could share it.  Person_Who_Commented probably knows they could cut and paste but that is annoying and cumbersome.  They are perhaps, backhandedly, asking Person_Who_Posted to change security settings because it is easier to hit a button.   Does Person_Who_Posted not know they can change the settings on just the one post or do they have a very good but not obvious reason for not changing the settings?  Who should bend?

One of the Facebook Frustrations is the little realized fact that not everyone in your friends list sees everything you post and vice versa. If all your friends posted at 5pm and you logged in, you’d only see a snapshot of the postings. Part of it is technical but most of it is those lovely Facebook algorithms. Not to mention that what you see varies from device to device and web.

Remember the friend I mentioned above who asked me if I was on Facebook?  She never comments on any of my statuses, rarely wishes me a happy birthday and only reaches out when she needs something.  Still I haven’t unfriended her because….at least she’s not like many of my racist friends who I keep sound because I am fond of the time we spent together in a sleepy little backwater college town. 

It’s hard to predict what the future holds in store for Facebook but I think it’s safe to say Facebook is here to stay in one form or another.  Uncle Google tells me that tin or aluminum is an appropriate 10th anniversary gift.  I’d settle for peace and civility.

 

****************
Thank you for reading and I hope you will comment below. Do me a favor? Click my “like” button and join our Facebook community.

You’ll find funny, informative links and interesting pictures.  Don’t worry, your FB feed won’t get overwhelmed. If you really like this post, please scroll back up to the top and click the “subscribe by email” button. You can sign up to receive an email whenever I publish something new.

No spam, no junk. Just me. Promise.

Need to reach me? Send me an email at therunninggod@gmail.com! Happy Reading!  Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

Can Larry David Walk it back?

Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David sparked some controversy when he joked about trying to get a date at a concentration camp while hosting SNL last Saturday.  The joke starts about 5:40 into the video clip but there is a reference to the recent fusillade of sexual assault allegations in the new at 3:40.

Whenever  controversy du jour like this occurs, I tend to see what my favorite pundits have to say about it.  It seems there are two camps.  The “It’s always too soon” to joke about The Holocaust Camp and the Remember to Add ‘to you’ When you say Something is Offensive Camp.

The Always Too Soon Camp feels that  the victims and the goings on in the camps should be treated with reverence. Making them part of stand up routines is not treating them with dignity.

#ReallyMakesMeCringe when we have people denying the holocaust & Larry David opens the door for them to think it’s fine to joke about it. pic.twitter.com/w8SFjpieTa

— Red T Raccoon (@RedTRaccoon) November 5, 2017

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Larry David’s SNL monologue is another example that “anti-semitism” like “racism” is simply pattern recognition.pic.twitter.com/3cFHDOB6ie

— Will Westcott (@westland_will) November 5, 2017

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The Not Offended Camp think that finding humor is empowering and a way to take back power. That he wasn’t being disrespectful to the people who suffered in the Holocaust. He was finding humor in the situation, not in the suffering, the pain, or the trauma. If he was making fun of anyone, it was himself.

If Larry David isn’t allowed to make holocaust jokes then what is the point of comedy or being Jewish

— Kath Barbadoro (@kathbarbadoro) November 5, 2017

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Oh no. Larry David told an offensive joke. Countless are emotionally scarred. My thoughts and prayers are with all the victims.

— David Rotella (@ninjadave26) November 5, 2017

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

I’m seeing Larry David getting a hard time for a holocaust joke. He’s Jewish. Am I going mental here?

— Limmy (@DaftLimmy) November 5, 2017

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

My warmest condolences to all you non-Jews who were injured by Larry David’s joke at his own expense.

— Bess Kalb (@bessbell) November 5, 2017

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

I don’t think his joke was funny, but I don’t share the outrage everyone else is feeling.  I’m not Jewish (as far as I know) but my grandparents did spend time in a work camp in Germany, long enough for my mother and an aunt to be born there.

Honestly, I don’t know enough on this and addressing this topic right now feels like it would be sticking my head into a hive of angry hornets and why would I want to do that? Instead, my only question is, can he walk this back?

Back in the day, when a comedian told an off-putting joke, people responded by not laughing and the joke was quickly and unceremoniously removed from the routine.  In the Social Media Era of the Internet Age, the offending joke gains a life of its own and goes viral.

Can Larry David walk this back? If so, what is the path to do so?

Do you me a solid and swing by my Facebook page and LIKE it! You’ll find funny, informative links and interesting pictures. Don’t worry, your  feed won’t get overwhelmed.

Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

Facebook Take a Break Feature puts friendships on Life Support

It’s not okay if we agree to disagree on this one

The other night a friend from my College Years posted something on Facebook that could be perceived as racist, if read in a certain light.  Specifically, any light bright enough to read her status post in.

It would be easy to unfriend her and not look back.  In fact, since I am trying to trim down my Facebook friends list, I may one day unfriend her completely.  But for the moment, I decided to use the Take a Break feature instead.

Facebook has a “new” feature called Take a Break.  As far as I can tell this is a more nuanced setting than simply hiding someone and obviously less severe than unfriending or blocking them.  It also appears to be meant for people who were in more intimate relationships that have now cooled but not completely diminished.

In the early years, Facebook had a little known setting called See less of/See More of.   It wasn’t easy to find and I don’t know if many people used it.  The setting has long since been deprecated but I suspect that if you implemented it, the affects are still in use.

The HIDE feature hides the person in question from your feed, but I suspect it also hides you from theirs.  This could be an unintended tell that you hide them when they suddenly stop seeing your cat video posts.

The Take A Break feature lets you chose if you want the “break” to be mutual or one sided.  Apparently you can hide your feed from them, but still see their posts; or vice versa.  I call this last one the narcissistic option.

This is the part where I justify not unfriending my little racist friend.  I really don’t have a good reason other than nostalgia or loyalty for keeping her around.  While I have not talked to this person IRL in decades, I am fond of the time we spent together in a sleepy little backwater college town.  I don’t think she realizes her racism overprivilege and I like to think that by staying connected to her, somehow I may influence her to reevaluate her outlook at social issues and inequality in America.  Now who’s being narcissistic.

Do you me a solid and swing by my Facebook page and LIKE it! You’ll find funny, informative links and interesting pictures. Don’t worry, your  feed won’t get overwhelmed.

Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

 

What would you do with a Time Machine?

I posited the following question on my FB the other day:

If you had a time machine, describe your first trip…what time period would you visit, what would you do?

Some of my friends played along and came up with interesting things like “witness the Resurrection of Jesus” or “see Einstein and Eddington prove relativity.  Others were a little more subdued, wishing to spend more time with their kids when they were toddlers or go back far enough to place lucrative sports bets.

Many suggested going back and picking different forks of roads they they long ago traversed. Some hinted at bad decisions, others described them in specific details, clearly still haunted by the Spectres of the Past.

and of course someone pointed out the time travel paradoxes.

Photo curtesy of Rodger Evans

Time Continuum Theories and Paradoxes

Purist believe that any change, ever so slight, will change the future. i.e. you go back in time to when you meet a friend for a drink but this time you order white wine instead of red. BOOM: 9/11 didn’t happen.

Then there is the Destiny Strives to Reassert Itself camp. you go back in time to when you meet a friend for a drink but this time you order white wine instead of red. BOOM: 9/11 still happens regardless. Dune author Frank Herbert believed that individuals do not significantly impact or change the direction of  civilization.  A  Pearl Harbor or 9/11 is going to happens it just becomes a question of when and not if.

I’ve always liked to believe that minor things would cancel each other out, for good or bad.  I’d also like to think that I could go back and mitigate, alleviate and outright avoid many of the pitfalls and painful events that Life threw my way and I’d still end up where I am today with regards to my wife and kids.   Like if I avoided all those playground fights, would I really not have toddler twins today?

What would you do with a Time Machine?  Passively witness an Historical Event or change your past?   Tell me about it here in the comments, then swing by my Facebook page and LIKE it! You’ll find funny, informative links and interesting pictures. Don’t worry, your FB feed won’t get overwhelmed.

 

If you enjoyed reading this post, please share it to help others find it! enter your email address below click the “subscribe by email” button. You can sign up to receive an email whenever I publish something new.

 

Type your email address in the box and click the “create subscription” button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

Happy Reading! Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

Bathroom Stalls are not Parking Spaces

This post was inspired by Christine Wolf’s Bloggin’ When I Got Nothin’ suggestion and two unrelated ChicagoNow posts that got my attention yesterday because they shared a theme: thinking of others before or at least in addition to yourself.

Kim Z Dale wrote about accepting a drink voucher if you are not going to use them. I commented that it certainly seemed odd. Trying to come up with plausible explanations, maybe he was collecting them for his next flight (either a connecting flight or a longer upcoming one)?  Or maybe he jumped at the free thing not realizing that he didn’t want/couldn’t use it and didn’t know how to walk it back?

Mary Ellen Smolinski wrote about using the handicapped stall in the bathroom when other stalls are available.  What we don’t know is if this person simply wasn’t paying attention or wouldn’t have bothered even if Ms. Smolinski had been able to communicate in time: “hey I really need to use that type of bathroom stall because of my physical disabilities.”

I cannot speak for Ms. Smolinski but I suspect she used a strong headline to get everyone’s attention and she fathoms the various nuanced scenarios involved in her ask, and doesn’t expect everyone to avoid the Handicap Stall ALL of the TIME.   In software and systems engineering, there is this concept of a Use Case.  She cited a particular Use Case where someone could have performed the desired action but did not.  If you check the comment pond under her post, you’ll find many Internet Justice Warriors quick to point out other Use Cases where this is perfectly acceptable.

While I would hope to have enough presence of mind to not beat out a person who really needs that type of stall more than I do, I have no qualms about using it even if any of the other stalls are available.  If I walk into a bathroom and all or most of all the stalls are available, I’m going to take the cleanest one I can find.  Sometimes that also means the Handicapped one because it has more space.  Also these days I’m rarely doing my business alone and the Handicapped Stall is the one with the baby changing station.

Here’s the thing….bathroom stalls are not the same thing as parking spaces.  They really aren’t.  Maybe they should be, but in the world today, they aren’t.The turnover in the bathroom is probably faster than that of a parking spot. A car can be parked for hours and hours. People usually are  on the toilet for a relatively briefly fraction of that time (one would hope).

In the world today, if you get caught parking in a handicapped parking spot, you get a ticket.  If you use the handicapped stall, you get a little more leg room.

Tying this all back to the aforementioned common theme, Kim and Mary Ellen have reminded me that we all need to be more woke (as the kids say) of what’s going on around us and think beyond our own wants and needs.  I’m still going to use the best stall available, but I will make more of an effort to avoid using the handicap one if I can.
**************
Would you wait to use a regular bathroom stall when the Handicap one is available? Tell me about it here in the comments, then swing by my Facebook page and LIKE it! You’ll find funny, informative links and interesting pictures. Don’t worry, your FB feed won’t get overwhelmed.

If you really like this post, please enter your email address below click the “subscribe by email” button. You can sign up to receive an email whenever I publish something new.

Happy Reading! Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.

Type your email address in the box and click the “create subscription” button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.

You can show Empathy, Outrage and Restraint all at the same time

Hey, did you hear about that Thing That Happened just recently moments ago?  It’s all over the Twittersphere and my Facebook feed has gone nutzo with everyone posting the same headline that totally and accurately Sums Up Everything That Happened.

Now the story has just come out, but of course we know everything about it because we are experts.  On EVERYTHING.  Let’s all board the Outrage Train.  Wait a minute…this just in.  New Information that totally turns the story around on its head.  Quick cue the backlash.  Now the backlash against the backlash.

Oh and look, now come the Johnny Come Lately friends who are sharing older versions of the story versus the Johnny on the Spots who share every new tidbit of info even if it later turns out to be untrue.  And of course the Mimes sharing Memes.

Oh let’s not forget clueless bloggers trying to ride the waves for page views (looks in mirror.)

Finally it devolves into a My Belief System versus Your Belief System.  Because if two people have a difference of opinion, it has to because of influence from the right or left, not just thinking for oneself.

Here’s a picture of some cute kids obviously up to no good.

If you are reading this on the date this post was published, I’m likely talking about the incident on United flight 3411 where an Asian doctor was forcefully removed from his seat.  But I could be talking about the Pepsi Commercial fiasco or anything that happens day and day, week after week in our Immediate News Cycle and Instant Gratification Society.

This is a paraphrase of I wrote in a private FB group when the story first came to my attention:

This is one of those Viral Outrage stories that always seem to follow a pattern. Look for some “additional” info that might justify the actions. then the back lash against the back lash. wash. rinse repeat.  I was speaking generically about the pattern of event like this: something happens, it looks like X, then more info is revealed, suddenly it’s less clear cut. In this particular instance agreed it would be hard pressed to justify dragging and injuring a passenger.

I wrote it too quickly and should have added that there is nothing I can think that would justify how this guy was treated. However, the pattern still remains: event | outrage | new info | back lash | backlash against backlash.

I got a little pushback from another CN blogger who implied I was Tone Policing:  “when someone has been victimized in any context, the demand to hear the other side because there must be more to the story is VERY hurtful to people who have already suffered very publicly.”

 I think her assessment was a bit strong but I apologize I came off that way.  I’m not saying the outrage is never justified. I’m just saying it’s okay to wait 5, 10, minutes or so to gather all the facts.  And sometimes I think the knee-jerk response seems to be more outrage than sincere empathy.

Thank you for reading and I hope you will comment below. 

Follow Mysteries of Life on Twitter (@MysteriesOLife), Facebook or subscribe via email.