The Facebook Culture And This Blog

Not my blog

Every now and then, some newcomer leaves some snarky message or other.

Then, being a newcomer, and imagining this is a news service working full time for the gratification of his ego, writes another – outright insulting – message mocking me for “deleting” his message.

Perhaps these people think I work full time – for nothing – for the gratification of their little ego impulses.

Sadly for them, it is not so.

More sadly – for them – I am not interested in such people being part of the conversation.

This is a private effort, cared for when I have time for it, and any message anyone posts may have to wait one, two, or even three days for my perusal. After which, if I think the message is not appropriate, or obnoxious, or propagating ideas and fantasies I don’t want to be spread through my blog, I might well decide not to publish it.

This is, as I have already stated many times, my living room. It is not the street, and it’s not an online forum. It is, also, not a place for constant bickering in the style of Twitter or Facebook. I invest time in this, and I don’t want to also get angered every time I read the comments. Also, I don’t care for clicks or viewer figures, which is why my comments are strictly vetted.

I think the obnoxious behaviour I observe is to do with the Twitter and Facebook culture. Adrenalines all the time, and an expectation of snarky online confrontation at every step. This is, however, so different from real life, where if you enter my living room and start being offensive I will ask you to leave on the spot, and will never allow you back.

You won’t have a second occasion to make a first good impression, and I might delete a comment that I find inappropriate, or redundant, or rehashing things already discussed, or suited to spread heresies and fantasies like Bennyvacantism (the favourite fantasy nowadays, with all these conclave-in-one commenters deciding who is the Pope). Still, even the Bennyvacantists get through, rarely, when I want to make a point. Then it ends there, because *I make it end there*.

But the *first* insulting comment – not the second, or the third – that you write to me because your comment wasn’t online half an hour after you wrote it will get you banned. In fact, any insulting comment you write to me for whatever reason will get you banned.

Life’s too short for the Facebook crowd.

Sheesh.

That I have to write such obvious stuff.

The “facebook culture” really has done a lot of damage.