An Apple A Day

Every morning on my way to work, I stop at 7-Eleven to get myself coffee and a buttered roll. One morning, I reached the door to go in and I noticed another woman heading out with a coffee cup in each hand. So I held the door open for her. She made eye contact with me and held it for a few seconds. However, she did not say thank you. It was almost like I did something wrong. How dare I hold the door for her!

Now, I didn't want to let some bitch with no manners ruin my day, but at the same time I couldn't help but keep thinking how some people could go throughout life without an ounce of niceness in their body. It started to eat away at me so much that I had to vent to someone. So, I called my mom.

I explained the story to her and told her that these are the reasons why it doesn't pay to be nice. She pointed out that we shouldn't stop being nice to people who appreciate it just because we come across someone once in a while who doesn't. And she's right. Because as I am about to share, there are still nice people in the world.

This past Thursday I went about my normal routine and stopped at 7-Eleven for coffee and a buttered roll. Only this day, I wasn't really in the mood for the roll. As I stood there in front of the donut case trying to decide what to get, a woman came over and told me that the apple fritters are delicious and that I should try one. I'm not a big apple person but they did look really good, totally covered in icing. The woman walked away and I pondered it for a few seconds. I finally decided to go for it.

I got on line to pay and the woman was on line in front of me. She turned around and I told her that I decided to try it. The cashier went to ring her up and she told her to include my apple fritter. I told her she didn't have to do that. She insisted, stating that she talked me into it and if I didn't like it, it would be money wasted. (What she didn't realize was that I had the buttered roll in my hand as backup lol.) I told her that was very sweet of her and thanked her more than once. That small gesture totally made my day.

It's funny how I experienced two completely different personalities at the same place in a matter of weeks. It just goes to show you, no matter how many rotten apples there are in the world, there are still some sweet ones out there. So don't let one bad apple spoil the bunch!

You Probably Think This Post Is About You

For years and years, the songstress Carly Simon was rumored to have written her epic "You're So Vain" about Warren Beatty, after seeing him walk into a party and someone commented, "Well he looks like he just walked onto a yacht."  Now, rumors are rumors, she's apparently only told one person on record about who the song, if anyone, was written about. 

Rumor has it, Beatty himself believed the tune was about him.  There have been some other attachments to it, but the idea is...a person obsessed with vanity thinks the world revolves around them.

What I find funny is that the title itself of the very song says much.  "You're So Vain/You Probably Think This Song Is About You" speaks to the very truth of social media.  Substitute "Facebook status/Tweet/blog post" for "song." 

How many times does one believe that a blog post, a tweet or a Facebook status is about THEM?

I wrote a blog post last week on an item in baseball news.  I was responding, in general, to mainstream media hysteria, which is pretty easy to do.  Yet, someone sent me an email, defending their position. 

Please note: I hadn't called this writer or person out, and at that point, hadn't even read their response on the topic I had written about.  I felt it telling that this writer, someone I respect on so many levels, felt the need to address it. 

When I hadn't even called that person out, personally.

There is truth, of course, to times that I do take issue with someone, and you will know about it.

There's the phenomenon of "subtweeting" that is basically calling someone out on Twitter without calling them out, specifically.  Say, someone is writing about their cat.  Then someone else following that person says something about a cat, without addressing the original tweeter, but definitely undermining or calling them out on something. 

I've certainly done my fair share of subtweeting, but it's usually in reference to several tweeters in general, not just a single person.  Although during the MLB playoffs, I was calling out specific and multiple holier-than-thou tweeters, and someone did respond to me.   Yet, I didn't mind chatting about the topic.  I wouldn't have written about it if I didn't think it was significant (silly or fair).

Then there's the topic of Facebook status, where a vague status is suddenly thought of as "OMG IS THAT ABOUT ME?????!!?!" 

I know a story of someone who had several friends outside of Facebook, and they all interacted there. All of a sudden, many of them weren't speaking to each other.   Why?  Someone had written a vague Facebook status, and one of the parties thought it was about themselves.  It was about a family member, but the damage had been done. 

It makes me wonder, however, what light people seem to think of themselves.  If someone writes something degrading in a post, and someone else thinks it's about them, why is that?  Do they feel like a bad person, or someone who needs to be the center of attention?

Which leads me what I think Mark Zuckerberg's famous social experiment is about: the narcissism and voyeuristic nature of humanity.

We like to watch and stare, and can either covet what others have or be happy for one another.  Then add in a layer of being self-centered and all of a sudden, the "ME" generation thinks everything is about them, even when it could be the furthest thing from the truth.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine before, and we talked about my recent Facebook purge, where I took a break.  I haven't been on in two weeks, and it's been very cleansing.  It frees up a lot of time, and to say I've suffered from burn out would be an understatement.  And yes, my friend, this paragraph WAS about you.

I found that my need to be connected at all times is very tiring, not to mention time-consuming.  But the very thing that draws us to these types of media can sometimes consume us: the need to be around people.  But what draws us away, the narcissism, over-sharing and vanity layer, can wear thin. 

Post No Evil

Practically everyone I know or meet uses Facebook to stay in touch with people and keep up to date on what's going on in their friends' and family's lives. But what I've noticed lately is a change in the way people as a whole are using the social networking site.

When I first joined Facebook in 2008, there wasn't much you could do in terms of posting. You'd update your status or add a picture of your kid's birthday or the baseball game you attended over the weekend. Gradually, Facebook added a plethora of ways to post, including the ability to link to other social networking apps that would do the posting for you. Some of these apps include Twitter, Foursquare, Miso, GetGlue, and Yahoo. Before long, you only needed to be logged in to your Facebook account and your browser would automatically let others know what you were reading or watching in another window. And you could recommend things to your friends with a single click without even having to copy, toggle back to Facebook, and paste. But the latest trend is one of particular interest. And it concerns me for many reasons.

Take a scroll through your newsfeed. Notice anything? How many people actually update their status anymore with a, um, status? How many people actually take the time to write their own words; what they are thinking or feeling or doing?

All you see are pictures that are shared from not even another person, many times, but a page. A page that thousands or millions like just for the purpose of seeing pictures they can share so they don't have to say things themselves. Doesn't anyone have a mind of their own anymore?

Look, I'm guilty of sharing pictures too. Some of them are cute, colorful, funny, or too long and deep to put into a status myself without someone saying "get a blog!" But anyone who knows me knows that I have no reservations about stating my own opinions in my own words too.

Maybe it's not that people don't have a mind of their own. Maybe that was a poor choice of words. Maybe it's that people have been brainwashed and are too afraid to have and express their own opinions. They are worried that if they're not politically correct they might offend someone. But they're forgetting one thing. The First Amendment is not limited to actual speech. We have the freedom to speak our minds in the written form as well. If we choose to use our own Facebook wall as a platform to do that, well then so be it. Unless you're yelling "fire!" in a crowded Facebook room, you're not breaking any laws.

Now, that doesn't mean that it's okay to defame or bully someone on Facebook or any other site. Those actions should be punished accordingly. However, if you run the risk of losing friends simply because your religious, political or life in general views differ from theirs, then they weren't your friend to begin with. I think that while we should be considerate of others, we should not be silenced by them. We should not be taking the easy way out when expressing ourselves.

Not only does this behavior add to the lack of personal interaction but I think that by sharing the photos of generic Facebook pages, people are hiding behind the blame of the controversy caused by those photos. They sort of take on an "I didn't say it" attitude. No, but you shared it. You agree with it. Stop avoiding the issue. Either you stand for something or you don't.