What Do You Do After You Lift The Flat Rock?

Or in this case, what do you do after someone makes a particularly inappropriate political posting on a social media site?

Conventional manners suggest that you just ignore it. Sex, politics, and religion being the topics that are socially awkward at parties, they are avoided by the polite. But social media is sometimes occupied by the less-than-polite. The horrifying thing is when you discover that someone you  invited as a Facebook friend was willing to bring crass propaganda posts in and plaster them up. it’s like seeing fascist or communist banners unfurled at a cocktail party.

I may have done the wrong thing in the heat of the moment by responding with a comment that jeered at the propaganda. This might result in the original poster taking umbrage and cutting the connection. Awkward – it is a person I will see in the future at social events. I predict chilly atmospheres a’coming.

Well, so be it. I need no preaching or teaching from the marxists or the fascists. I can lead my own social revolution with the BGA. We do not march in the streets but we do lurk on street corners and spit into the gutter.

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Why Don’t You Want To See This Ad?

Facebook asks me this question twenty times a day as I hide advertisements but only provides a limited number of possible responses. Let me correct this by supplying the real reasons the ads were turned off:

a. There are too bloody many of them. Whatever shit is being shilled, the fact that one cannot goggle over the love life of friends or look at cat videos is the real irritant. Reduce them to one an hour… and I’ll let you know which hour.

b. They are blatant and/or sneaky. Either way, they are trying to sell something to someone who is trying not to buy.

c. If I wanted to read an advertisement I would google up the product I fancied, in the sure knowledge that I would be inundated with the spiels. I read Facebook for gossip, not commerce.

d. Who engages you to press debt upon us? We are fighting like cats to repel it – you do yourself no good by trying it on. We know how it fits already.

I realise that you have purchased my profile from Google, who sees everything I do and that you are on-selling it to the people who want my money. This is basic piracy and I respect that. But how can you get it so very wrong? I want model airplanes and hot rods and Chinese camera lenses and pin-up girls. You must have some somewhere – why try me out with cruises to tropical hell-holes or on-trend shoes? If you must pester me, pester me with the stuff I want…not the dreck that other people choose.

 

Sex-Shaped Glasses – Sex-Tuned Ears

Wow. Just wow.

I have just read a rather funny post on Facebook by someone who’s been out Christmas shopping. For some this is fun – for some torture. I get going early and use the intervals that have few other shoppers to do my purchasing in – so my experience is positive.

The Facebook friend was commenting about the number of times she had been approached by the store staff while just standing there trying to gather her thoughts. ” Hi Guys, How Can I Help You ” being the general gist of the thing. I know her concern – I find hovering by service staff in shops and restaurants to be a disturbing thing after a while. If you went into multiple shops and had it happen everywhere…well…

” Go Away! If I want Hovering I’ll call Sikorski! ”

A little brusque, but you get the idea.

However, one of her readers took it as entirely a different posting  – she complained that all the sales interaction was male-oriented…the language, you see…

I wear eyeglasses. They are not new ones, and may need fresh lenses, but they still let me see the world in a reasonable perspective. Not every human interaction is about sex. Some of the good ones are, and I treasure the memories, but some are just conversations. I’m tempted…

” Go Away! If I want Sex Arguments I’ll call Mae West! “

The Guild Guide To Social Signalling

The BGA has always taken an interest in social behaviour. If that interest sometimes led to sirens in the night and lifelong enmities it must be remembered that you cannot make an omlette without cracking eggs. The trick to a really good omelette is not to crack the pan either…

Social signalling is a popular topic right now – the forms of communication that we see on the internet in forums, social pages, websites, and columns such as this one. Each has its own special format and in some cases the purpose of the signal can be quite different. Here are some examples:

a. The virtue signal – this is a posting on a social site or a column written to draw attention to the goodness of the writer – to their virtue. The world abounds in evil and misery, and the virtue signaller has a wide choice of topics they can discuss – to make themselves look good.

No-one can pretend that murder is a good thing. So the virtue signaller comes out with a passionate cry that murder is not good – confident that everyone will have to agree with them. They appear a good person for decrying a bad thing.

It becomes a little fraught when they mix politics, religion, sex, and commerce into this cry of virtue. They tend to give off hints of their own prejudices, bigotry, malevolence, and cupidity even as they wave the banner of goodness.

Some people have asked what the best response should be to a virtue signal. The Guild feels that you must either preserve a dignified silence or respond with wholehearted enthusiastic agreement. Whichever course you adopt, attune it to the level of virtue that the original signaller has tried; if they are modest, be modest in your silence – if they are flamboyant, be the same with your stonewall. Likewise, if you pretend to agree with them let it be either a modest social tail wagging or a complete public leg-hump.

b. The vague signal – this is the social post that starts with air and ends with clouds. No part of it is either intelligent or intelligible. You are lucky to see it on Facebook or Twitter -if it came to your email account your ISP would spam-can it staunchly.

Well, a signal is a signal, and this one indicates that the signaller wants you to make earnest and sympathetic enquiries about them. This is so that they can tell you their troubles and, if possible, blame you. This may not be convenient.

The Hearty English Major approach is best here:

” For God’s sake buck yourself up and stop whining! ” is a comfort for many in this situation. Not for the signaller, of course, but for you. Try to snort as you type – it comes through in the punctuation.

c. The outrage signal – this is sometimes linked to the virtue signal but may be a separate thing. In the purest cases it is a reaction to some horrid world event. The signaller foams and imprecates, threatens and howls, finally throwing themselves into a corner in tears. Most of the targets of their anger are far away and untouchable, and nothing ever comes of it.

If the targets are not far away – if they are local persons, firms, and events – it becomes a little more interesting. Publishing a rant doesn’t constitute defamation in many cases but borders on it for others. Responding to a rant as a disinterested third party is a temptation but you really don’t want to include yourself in the ring. If you feel the need to press something, press the emoji button and claim later that it was just your knuckle brushing the keyboard.

A Source Of Pride And Comfort

Looking for something in your life that you can be proud of and that can console you for the little heartaches can be difficult – it is hard to judge things that have no measurable number. You can tot up your score in Bridge or at a firing range, but it is hard to post a personal best in contentment.

Still, I have to say I am feeling good about my recent activities on Facebook…

a. I cancelled out a dozen suggested posts and advertisements without telling the auto-bot why. This means I am still a vague target. Oh, it won’t stop the cycle from happening again, and there will be a new spate of probing shots, but they will all fall dead to the ground.

Moral? Tell ’em nothing, ask ’em nothing.

b. I allowed a most foolish posting from a most foolish friend to pass with no reaction – realising that it was nothing more than a product of extraneous time squeezed through a limited imagination. When things get busy for them, this sort of thing dries up.

c. I ignored the coarsest of political re-posts. Why comment on a third-hand thought that was no good to start with? One would not pick up a discarded half-chewed sandwich from the gutter for any purpose, so why do it with anything else?

d. I refrained from showing wounds, prizes, precocious children, or pets. There was a brief temptation to include a video of a working digestion system but I resisted. If people want to look at that sort of thing they can get a bowl of soup and a mirror and make their own experiments.

e. I refrained from mysticism…because the spirits told me so.

f. I didn’t not correct no-one’s grammar or spelinge.

g. I went to bed at a reasonable hour. Drunk, mind, but in my own bed. Well, it’s a start, isn’t it? I’ll change the sheets tomorrow. Before they set solid.

 

 

It’s Not A Blog…

It’s a weblog column. Something that comes out regularly and has a complete set of thoughts in it. My thoughts.

It is not a poem, though there have been times when I’ve written it in poetry.

It’s not a novel. Nothing novel at all. Indeed, there are some very old things in it.

It’s not a connected story – it bounces around as new things are discovered. People say things in the street that eventually become columns here. Wait until you read ” Hey! Bring back my purse! Police! Police! “. ( Good purse but there was nothing of much value in there. Still, it goes with my tan shoes.)

It’s not a rant. One of my columns is a commercial one advertising for a shop and the IT specialist who set it up characterized it in the sidebar as a ” rant “. That actually offends me, but since they do nothing to remedy the situation I merely raise my rates for the jobs I am asked to do. The extra money assuages my injured soul.

So what is it? This one’s a daily essay based upon observation and humour. One of the others is a similar thing devoted to photographic matters – a third revolves around scale models and toys of all sorts. I am happily long retired from my first profession and need not write about teeth and jaws.

Who are my readers? You, for one. And many more, though I cannot exactly figure out how many are constant. I suspect many of the ones that notify me that they like a certain post are using their own weblogs as commercial enterprises and may have automatic programs to throw out electronic grappling hooks. I don’t mind – I do read their connection emails  at least once and have actually added four of them to my daily reading. A couple more seem to have dried up – I mourn that as they had interesting things to read.

Why do I write these columns?

a. It lets me speak freely. That’s not possible on many social media platforms.

b. It lets me crystallize thoughts and memories. If I remember it, I write it, and vice versa. At 70, any mental agility is welcome.

c. I can debunk the myths I have invented for myself and finally be a plain person. That’s hard – even the Amish have to work like devils to be angelic. I need to look at me, and reading what I write helps me to do it. Unfortunately I find others looking over my shoulder and I am aware that no admission ever really vanishes from the internet. But as long as the authorities do not find out about the incident with the chicken necks and the tax inspector I should be fine.

d. It lets me play a part that real life would condemn. The Backstabbers Guild of Australia is a wonderful haven of vile behaviour. The BGA doesn’t have a Speaker of the Senate or a Pauline, but we do have horrid practices nevertheless.

 

I Shall Be Happy To Support You…

If you are worthy of my support.

This means that the meme you have copied and thrust into my face on Facebook ( Is that where the name comes from? ) will have to be moral and intelligent as well as smarmy. Oh, I like smarmy all right…talk to me after four beers and we can trade smarm…but I am unwilling to sacrifice my good sense, patriotism, or moral principles to gratify you. I am perfectly happy to like your kitten pictures but please keep cheap politics or baiting people  off the page.

I shall also back you to the hilt if you are supporting a good cause that has the primary aim of actually being good. If your cause is selling oleander oil, time-share apartments in Queensland, or the racial vilification of Asians, you are wasting time touting it. In fact you may be opening yourself to the kind of contumely that you are least able to bear. I do laugh readily, and it can be at as well as with you. I can write well enough to set others a’laughing as well.

Please do not regard me as an enemy – I am not. I wish to love you long time, and am dismayed when your actions make this impossible. Help me. Be reasonable. Do not ask me to march up the street screaming against your imagined enemies.

Let me do it against you. I know you. We’re friends…