We Can't Get There From Here

A couple of months back I posted my first blog in a long ass time.

It came from a place of frustration, anger, hope, and timid optimism that maybe, just maybe, it might be possible to reclaim our sanity and return to simpler times.

Then, the world fell apart.

We were forced, not by our government, but by a microscopic virus, into our homes where we stayed, frightened at first because of the unknown, and the catastrophic toll it had the potential to wreak and the lives it could take.

But as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, social media was alive with the unrest felt by many.  Fear had given way to anger and skepticism, and finally full out blatant rebellion against, of all things - science.

Americans had taken a pandemic that had proven itself deadly the world over and turned it into a political argument.  Because that's what we do nowadays.  We draw lines in the imaginary sand and bash one another and call names and insult one another's intelligence if we don't see eye to eye.

ESPECIALLY when it comes to our broken, outdated, two party political system.

But moreover, we have a media problem in this country, and hear me when I say it's not the news media that is the problem. If you can't watch the news and think for yourself what makes sense, what doesn't, and what is being sensa!tionalized for highest ratings, I humbly suggest that you review and sharpen your critical thinking skills.  We all should do that, periodically, and the reason why?

Social media.

In case you live under a rock, not everything posted on social media is true.  Not all of it is fact.

"Well, no shit, Sherlock!" you might say.  "I'm not fucking stupid!"

No, neither am I.  But that doesn't mean I haven't been fooled a time or several.  That doesn't mean I've sometimes been too lazy to do my own fact checking and shared something that misled viewers, simply because it aligned with my beliefs and what I felt was true.

Let me say that again.

I have shared things without fact checking simply because they aligned with MY beliefs and I FELT they were true.

That random meme that stirred something in my soul.  That random article that stirred me to outrage.

We don't live in the same world that we used to.  Many of us spend large chunks of time devouring media, whether it be on our phones, tablets, or television screens.  Anyone with an email address and a message can create a profile on any number of platforms and start speaking up whether what they have to say is useful or true.  What's more, and far more damaging - is that social media has become the latest battleground in a virtual war that most people don't even realize they are participating in.

A virtual civil war, in the case of this country, that is threatening to spill over into reality very, very soon.

And whether you are an active participant posting your PRO or ANTI rhetoric in the forms of memes or articles, or a bystander who quietly reacts and leaves an occasional comment, or the person who just scrolls on by and says and does nothing, YOU ARE PLAYING A PART.

I know I keep jumping around from point to point without actually making one, but trust me, I do have one, and this is it:

SOCIAL MEDIA IS DANGEROUS AND IT IS BEING USED TO DESTROY THIS COUNTRY BY UNSEEN, UNKNOWN ENEMIES.

We cannot continue to see one another as JUST a political party, a sexual orientation, a skin color, a religion, a profession, or any other identity assigned to us because that is how we present ourselves or how other people perceive us to be.

In case you didn't know, Facebook sold all of us out years ago and our data has not only been bought and sold the world over, it wasn't just to make sure we were seeing the latest relevant Wish.com advertisement in our newsfeed.  Those quizzes and games that you give access to your profile so you can find out who you were in a past life or what your personality type is or what fruit you are asked for permission to access your profile, your friends list, and god knows what else but you clicked through it without reading eager to find out what kind of potato you are.

And that app or quiz or game scraped all of the data off your profile and in some cases, your friends' profiles, and maybe their friends' profiles.  And then all of that information was fed into a supercomputer owned by a company called Cambridge Analytica who used AI and algorithms to psychologically profile all of the people it had data for.

And then that company sold that data to parties that most decidedly have NOT been using it to sell you cheap leggings and subscription boxes.

Rather, the parties in question used that data to galvanize, polarize, and metastasize people like you and I against one another.  The parties in question are doing it now, with every fake profile and page that they have carefully crafted on every platform available, based on what those psychological profiles told them about people who use social media.

The moral of the story?

Stop perpetuating the division.  It's okay to believe in something or someone and show your support by sharing it and speaking out about it.  It is NOT okay to attack, belittle, or bully someone either directly or indirectly simply because they disagree or choose to live a different lifestyle or their truth is different than yours.  YOU are in the wrong.

And I am guilty of being in the wrong too.

This is a call to everyone to start taking responsibility for what you post, what you share, and how you interact with EVERYONE online.  The universe doesn't revolve around you, or me, or the political figure or celebrity that represents what you or I agree or disagree with.  A keyboard and a screen and whatever amount of virtual distance separating us as individuals does not make us right.

Remember, we live in what is supposed to be a civilized, free, and democratic society.  We have a responsibility to act accordingly and not let fanaticism and radicalism steer us into ruin.  If our leaders won't set an example for us, it us up to us to do so.

Start now.

Before it's too late.