Social Media

Social Media is everywhere these days. Whether you facebook or tweet or follow the feeds of blogs or sites you use...you can't escape it. That got me wondering...what would life be like if you actually lived it by Social Media's rules and how will social media impact how children today grow up.

When I was younger you went outside and rode bikes or played kickball, or something with your friends...you didn't play online games and chat with them. So...what would life be like if you lived by Social Media's rules?

You would have 100's of friends to keep up with on a regular basis...you could approve or deny new friends by the click of your mouse. You could block people and not have to deal with them again...instead of getting to the heart of the problem, having a conversation and perhaps salvaging a friend. Your thoughts and ideas and random musings are public for everyone to experience. Your living room would suddenly be full to capacity and over-flowing as you watch your favourite TV show or awards ceremony with thousands of other people...all talking about what's happening. You would know and talk to celebrity's all the time. Pass them in the hallways even and shout "I loved last night's episode" and they would actually stop and respond to you and say thanks for the support. There would be no boundaries. Following a "star" while walking down the street and seeing into the intimate details of their life isn't considered stalking anymore...it's the norm.

Every time you had a new thought or musing, you would automatically find new friends with whom you immediately identify and create lasting bonds with. You share more about your life than you might in person and never ask, wait, did I just say that out loud? Friends from all over the world and still feel like they are sitting right next to you. If you see something interesting you merely snap a picture and everyone else you know automatically sees it too, and then shares it with everyone they know, in a matter of seconds and all of a sudden, you have more friends at your disposal. Bullies from High School would like things you have to say...as there are no longer any boundaries separating you anymore. All of that is in the past.

When you travel to new cities you automatically have a social network and friends to go have drinks and dinner with...no more awkwardly standing at a bar waiting to be talked to...conversely...everyone you meet becomes your new friend, thus increasing the size of your Arc...

wait...why is Social Media bad again? Oh...right...because in all of the good that can happen with Social Media...and all of the positives it has...if you don't know how to disconnect from it and have a real and legitimate conversation with your real peeps it means absolutely nothing. I don't care how many friends you have on Facebook or how many people follow you on Twitter...if you can't actually find the time to have dinner with me after tweeting that you have plans with X, Y, Z and each of their cousins over the next few days then social media does me no good.

I love that I can keep folks updated on everything I do...I love the some friends get to travel through me every time I take a trip for work. I love that I can watch my nephews grow up in real time when pictures are posted...and see that one turned 2 months old and looks more adorable every day and another wore crazy socks to school...I love all of the bonuses that social media can bring your life...but I also know that I can step away from it and have conversations over dinner with real friends...or coffee...or go to the movies and not have to live tweet throughout the entire event.

For all the ways that social media brings us together...I wonder how much further it pushes us apart...just something to think about.

bullying...

it seems like there's been a lot of talk about bullying and the effect it can have on people. There are whole campaigns that are dedicated to eradicating it from schools...the work place...public. Bullying serves no real or legit purpose. There is no real upside to bullying...whether done on the schoolyard or in the world of international politics. In the end, the bullies are exposed for what they truly are...

I've seen and felt the effects of bullying first hand...but the thing is, despite having been bullied throughout my childhood...I survived. That doesn't mean I want anyone else to have to go through what I went through. I don't anyone to feel that their teachers let it happen...or that their classmates teasing is warranted. I know that there is a contingent out there for whom this just represents growing pains. It doesn't and it isn't! When you are being picked on or bullied about something that you have no control over, it is not about growing pains. When you are being singled out based on perceived sexual orientation and teachers and administrators stay silent and tacitly let the taunting to continue, it sends a message. When the teachers actually contribute to the taunting, it sends a very powerful message! Growing pains it is not!

I'm not angry (anymore) and I was never one that considered ending it all because of the bullying (thankfully), but so many do. In a world with as many differences as there are, why does bullying need to continue? Why does it continue? Simple, because children learn from their parents and the adults around them. When they see an adult arguing hatefully against same sex marriage, they learn to bully. When they see teachers that emphasize that the terrorists were Muslim and participate in the wink, wink, nudge, nudge that all terrorists are Muslim, they learn to bully. When children hear their parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, etc speak ill about a certain group of people, for no other reason than perceived difference - they learn to bully. And they learn that bullying will make them feel better because they are putting others down/in their place.

When you learn to rise above your place, and fight back...you quickly learn what the bullies are made of...empty rhetoric and more often than not, old and antiquated stereotypes that have been proven time and time again to be false. I'm reminded often of the scene at the end of Revenge of the Nerds...when Louis asks anyone who's ever been called a nerd, and picked on, put down, etc. to join him on the field. Pretty soon we see almost everyone out on the field and the bullies standing with their heads hung, perhaps in shame.

Think about it...for all of us that have been bullied...if we all stood together to put an end to it...what a force we could all be. Who out there hasn't been bullied at one point in time or another?

better...

When I was younger, my family owned a few sporting goods stores, it started as my Grandfathers (paternal) and then my Dad and Uncle after Pop-Pop passed. When I was a kid, I used to spend time at the store, in Pop-Pop's office (or my Dads...the memory is fuzzy) coloring. There are things I remember about my Pop-Pop, who died when I was 8, that I take with me as lessons still today.

Always carry a pen - you never know when you're going to need it. It's true - you don't know when you might and to this day, there is always a pen in my bag at all times. My notebook at work has a pen loop - and one always rests there so I can grab and go.

If you look busy, people will assume that you are - aka carry a clipboard and walk with a purpose. Well...I have given up carrying the clipboard (does anyone outside of a school use those anymore?) but I do walk with a purpose, which definitely tends to give the appearance of being busy and confident.

The last lesson is one that my Dad and Uncle also stressed as I got older and really started working at the store...we have to be better than everyone else. Not in the snobby, noses up kind of way. But in the sense that everyone assumed that I had a job there because of the family connection, so I had to be better at my job than the rest of the staff, just to prove I was supposed to be there.

That last lesson, about being better has really stuck with me. I know that it has rung true in other areas of my life too. When you are a minority (let's face it...I might be white...but there's no way I'm passing as anything close to straight...the boys in high school were right...I just didn't have it figured out) you have to be better than others just to prove your worth. You have to participate and vote - most of the time for self preservation and so your rights aren't taken away by a landslide majority. You have to be better when you get married and your marriages are held up to so much more scrutiny. You have to be better parents...where again you are held to more scrutiny than the average parents...

you have to be better...something I try and live up to every day...sometimes I succeed...and sometimes it comes off as snobby...but never my intent. I'm just trying to be better...so that someday, hopefully, there will be far less scrutiny and need to feel like you have to be...just to be the same as everyone else.

Intent...

so...let's just get this out of the way up front. when I decided to blog, I wasn't sure where it was going to go, and I still don't know where it might. All I know, right now, is that this is a place where I can come to just vocalize anything that it going on in my life...without having to ever censor myself. I don't ever call anyone I know personally out in any of my posts. I would never. My intent isn't to embarrass or call a friend out...this is my space (albeit, public) to just let loose with my thoughts and do a bit of free association within my own head. If I write about something that you feel applies to you, maybe it does, but maybe, and more than likely it won't...maybe you have a guilty conscience. I don't know...like I said...this isn't about anyone but me...these are my thoughts...my feelings and my emotions and I am not going to censor them here...

for me...sometimes just getting them out is catharsis enough. I'm not writing this to call anyone out on their shit...except for me on my own. Enough said?

RIP Mr. Nice Guy...

I'm letting him die...letting him go...and it's giving me no pause. I'm sick to death of not speaking my mind when friends say bigoted things or when that act the ass and then beg forgiveness after the fact. I'm sick of being concerned about everyone's needs but my own at times. I'm sick of not speaking up for myself when I feel like I need to. I'm sick of the feeling of getting stepped on and over. I need to figure out how to make it stop. I need to figure out how to be ME again. I need to make sure that I feel like I let my voice be heard. I'm not saying it's going to be an easy journey...but it is one I need to take, now, for me.

Disappointment

There's a great line in the movie The American President that I absolutely love. It comes as Annette Bening's character is searching frantically for a sweater that is her sister's that she thought she's left at the White House. After searching and not finding it she utters:
"Oh, fuck the sweater! She'll have to learn to live with disappointment!"

I'm feeling a bit disappointed these days. New York is on the verge of voting on a bill that would give gay couples the right to marry. Marriage Equality is a big fight. I am on the side that says, we should all have the right to be married. I don't have a partner, I don't even have a boyfriend...I don't know that I would want to get married right now if I did, but I HATE being told I don't have the right to based purely on my sexual orientation. I pay taxes just like every other citizen of New York. I don't pay any less based on the rights I don't have. I pay the same amount as any other male NY'er that makes my salary and happens to be straight. I am denied over 1100 rights, that he gets just by signing a marriage license. A license that is state issued - not issued by the church. I am not asking for ANY church or religion to sanctify gay marriage. But churches and religions are not the ones issuing marriage licenses, the state does that. I AM asking the state to recognize me and treat me as an equal.

I have always lived my life so that I am not a disappointment to my parents...I tried very hard not to be. I don't believe, deep down that I am, but I do know that I disappointed them. I know that as the first born there was an expectation for grandchildren...that they got later thanks to my brother and now sister. I know that having a gay son is not what was on their list of expectations - but it's the hand they got dealt. I know that I am loved and that they are not fundamentally disappointed in me. I know that my father would rather change the liberal democrat in me than the gay...these are things that I should be really happy about. I'm disappointed though because I can't get my father to see me as an equal citizen. I can't get my father to understand that by not having marriage rights, I am, in fact sitting at the back of the bus. I don't know what else to do to help him understand that, and I'm at a loss to proceed. I am disappointed about that. I wonder, since I can't even get my father to understand this, how do I get politicians? I am disappointed that if this were my sister and she were fighting for the right to marry her husband and the law said they couldn't because they were not the same race, my father would be out there leading the charge on her behalf...I am disappointed that he doesn't see the parallel.

I am disappointed that a state as large as NY does not already have Marriage Equality. I am disappointed that the Republican Senate is holding the vote hostage. I am disappointed that when I called and asked why a vote had not be scheduled, I was told that if I were going to be argumentative the conversation would be ended, simply for asking why a vote on marriage equality had not been scheduled this session. No more, no less. A thoughtful and appropriate question, asked in a polite and dignified manner, yet considered argumentative by the office manager of NY Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Disappointed that said Office Manager let his bias and prejudice dictate his response to my legitimate question rather than treat me like a human being and not a second class citizen who's opinion didn't matter.

Fuck it...I guess I'll just have to learn to live with disappointment.

The Modern Hypocrisy Problem

That is not to say that Hypocrisy is a new problem, or even a modern one. I dare say its as old as time itself. It just has new ramifications in modern society, ones that it didn't have even 10 or 15 years ago.

It used to be you made a public statement, it got reported and we moved on to a different news story. Years later, when you were running for public office, someone in your opponents camp would have to remember your former statement - know it could be used against you and then be able to commit to doing the leg work to find said statement in back copies of the newspaper - and be able to find it. That took work, and a good memory for details.

Now, you make a statement and its in the public record, in sound bytes and 30 second clips on news websites and on the blogosphere. There is no forgetting it, and there is no trouble tracking it down. A quick Google search and you can yield amazing results. I think that people tend to forget that. Because they're not used to the modern age, don't use modern technology, or just think that they can spin anything at a later date.

Let's take the Marriage Equality issue as an example. Maggie Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage frequently say that marriage is only between a man and a woman, because, in essence, marriage is for procreation purposes only. So, Maggie, only married couples can reproduce? I am not a straight man, but I do remember my biology, and nowhere in biology class when we discussed procreation was there a caveat that you can only reproduce if you're in a marriage. In fact, if that were the case, wouldn't the abortion rate in this country be lower than it is? That would no longer be a wedge issue.

More importantly Maggie Gallagher, if you truly believe the words you speak, how come your own son was born out of wedlock? How come you have sinned and been divorced twice? More importantly, your current marriage wouldn't have been legal without Civil Rights decisions from eons past as you're currently married to a man that is not the same race as you.

Where were you to protest the wedding of Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris?. CLEARLY this was not a union that would produce children, which as you've cited time and tired time again is the only reason for marriage and why marriage can only be between a man and a woman. You didn't offer one word of condemnation at this un-holy union and how it would clearly violate the sanctity of marriage and threaten your own marriage. Things you claim that Marriage Equality will do.

The real problem with modern hypocrisy is that it comes back to bite you in the ass. You can't have it both ways Maggie, and since marriage is only for the procreation of children you should have been out in public loudly shouting and protesting Hef's wedding at the top of your lungs for the same reasons you're protesting Gay Marriage. The problem is that you don't care if Hef gets married to someone 40 years younger, as long as he's marrying a woman. You don't care that it goes against the same tenets you claim to hold dear. Why? Because you don't believe any of them truly. You just hate the LGBT community and will do anything to keep them second class citizens.

Here's where your hypocrisy bites you in your sizable ass Maggie. Until you start shouting at the top of your lungs against marriages that take place in retirement homes (clearly low chance of procreation there) or marriages that have produced no offspring (the sole reason for marriage, as you claim, remember) you can't possibly hope to be taken seriously. If you're going to spout facts, bring it. Realize that you are going to be accountable, and now, more than ever before in history it is really easy to find out which side you fall on. The rights you so take for granted, to be able to marry the man you love, for example, are the rights you are shouting at the top of your lungs to deny others. Hypocrite much? Let's not even get into the finance issues that surround NOM and where you get your funding.

Get the F*$K out of my state, go home to your husband and enjoy the fact that it's legal for you to marry him and love him openly and publicly. That you have over 1100 rights just by signing your marriage license with him. 1100+ rights you are trying to deny other loving couples, purely because they are different from you! I wonder where you would stand on this issue if we were in the 1960's and you were fighting for the right to marry the man you love. HMMMM, don't have a good answer for that one, do you hypocrite?