The Three R's: 'Real' Reality Rant

Do YOU know...  
How unbelievably and obnoxiously annoying you are? Is it just me or do you get fed up with the deluge of automated emails vomited out en masse to in-boxes everywhere by the social media giants? Do you know this person? How about this one? Wait! Here are 27 more people, just in case. I would say I appreciate the thought (self-serving though it may be), but I'd be telling a whopper for sure because I DON'T. I have to admit that whoever coined the term "the web" really knew what they were doing. As much as I appreciate and even [almost] enjoy technology, (when I'm not yelling at my screen, that is ;o) sometimes I think social media's sole purpose is to lure you in until you become hopelessly entangled in the virtual reality black hole. *Bangs head on desk.*

Case in point: I got on Pinterest over the holidays looking for some easy recipes, and got sidetracked by a cute crochet pattern pinned by a friend. Two hours and 2,000 Oh, look how cute!'s later, however, I was furious with myself for wasting so much time basically doing nothing (particularly since I had completely forgotten my original purpose). Recipes, ohhh yeah. *Facepalm* Yikes. It's a supernova turned black hole into which large quantities of time are sucked daily, I'm telling ya. Then there's the inevitability of the interface update; about the time I think I have a handle on a site, sweeping changes are announced and nothing looks like it did. Like the all new Facebook Timeline. Wait... What? Hold on, where the heck did everything go? Why are you tracking me on a big scary map? Cut it out, it's creepy. Hello?!? That's not even ME people; it's someone else with the same name and a smarter phone that lives in the next town. Oh, hey I got it: subterfuge. Okay that one could be good. I'm getting more like the horses every day; gimme a nice predictable rut. It may be boring, but at least I know what the heck's going on. *grin*

Now I'll confess to laughing hysterically at the Toyota commercial featuring the girl in her room mocking her "lame" parents for only having 17 sorry friends on Facebook compared to her own 600+ virtually vivacious pals. Of course her parents were out having fun with their real friends, while she sat home alone all night staring at a screen. I suppose it could be argued that technologically speaking she was with her friends (but that perspective just creeps me out completely, and move over Max Headroom). In honesty, the only reason I even joined Facebook in the first place was to create a Fan Page for Epic Farms (one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time). It was almost fun for about 20 minutes, too, but I think it was the never-ending barrage of Little Green Patches and Farmville requests that totally killed it for me. Let's not forget the added drama that spills over into the school day from Facebook; superfun, that. Never mind the fact that you're supposed to be 18 either; nobody cares, believe me. I will say that DD was 20 or 21 before she signed up for Facebook, (and I dimly recall asking her what that giant whooshing noise was; it was the sound of her getting sucked into the virtual void *sigh*).

Do I appreciate the convenience? Sure I do. It's nice to be able to catch up with things at 4a.m., which is generally the only time I have a few extra minutes to spare. It's handy too, when something major (like a surgery) is going on - it's a great way to let everyone know an update all at once. But where's the line? Do I need to know that 12 people I do not know 'liked' what someone else posted that I didn't read? Nope, and I pretty much don't care either (sorry). I signed up with Twitter to promote my Etsy shops (you know, the ones that were stuck in vacation mode for the past year) and announce new blog posts but I rarely remember to tweet either one. I totally forgot to announce the Epic Farms Etsy shop was open again too - my bad. For some reason, Twitter grates on my nerves too. I'm mostly sure I don't need to know what you're doing every minute of every day. Saw a tweet one time that someone had just finished scrubbing the toilet, and was getting ready to jump in the shower; talk about TMI. Who on earth get's that bored? Oy. For a little while, I was interjecting one-liners just to break the monotony of all those self-serving monologuistic tweets. 

Then I joined BlogFrog and four or five other promote-your-blog-here sites (that I don't even remember). All that did for me was generate still more friend requests/followers from people in places I've never even heard of and whose profiles basically scare me. I couldn't even tell you why I joined LinkedIn (although I'm fairly certain I had a reason at the time). Truth be told, that was the catalyst that led to today's posterior-exposing post (SO not explaining that one if you missed it ;o) A whatEVER request (friend? circle? group? clique? groupie? network? follower? stalker?) from some random real estate person that I've never heard of who works halfway across the country in some state I've never seen. Hitting the online white pages for the entire US of online A these days are we? There just seems to come a time when the harassing and haranguing overrides said convenience and becomes one more set of overwhelming obligations on that never ending gotta get "tuit" list. I'm going back to my virtual beginnings and see how many of these online onuses I can start ditching to cut down on my bit... Er, as much as I enjoy the occasional rhyming game, perhaps we'd just better not go there (we are rated G don'tcha know ;o)
Wow. That was a lot. Hope I didn't hurt anybody; seems I've been saving up *grin*. Somehow, I'm betting there are at least a few of you that have the same love/loathe relationship with technology. Or is it just me? I'll have a Sarabear update next time and the upside of technological advances. For now though, I'm sending you a happy smile and a virtual hug. BTW: have you noticed that we are up to 114 Facebook Likes? How exciting *bounce*bounce*bounce*. So feel free to Like us, tweet this, link to it, pin it, Digg it, Stumble it...  
Oh, ACK!