This is so, so true – if you define ‘Internet’ as ‘social media.’ God knows that there’s an AOL profile or two that I’m glad has long since died the True Death:
The best thing about being over 40 is that we did all our stupid stuff before the invention of the Internet, so there’s no proof.
Continue reading Quote of the Day, Thank God There Was No Social Media in 1994 edition.
Traffic’s down here, which is ironic because traffic is going well for me on RedState right now. Which is great, but if this site has to permanently go into full no-politics mode later this year it’s also irrelevant. I may need to start cross-posting again; I’ve already switched back on the site’s auto-population of my Twitter account, which might help. I should really read a book on this topic, or something…
Found here. Short version? Kids should get off of social media. We eat people alive. And we feel no shame.
Most recent example:
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (Jan. 4, 2015) – A woman suffered a heart attack during a New Year’s Eve celebration at a downtown Indianapolis bar, but a customer’s complaint about the response fueled a social media firestorm.
Via Memeorandum. I actually feel mildly bad about the customer who complained. She comes across as an unmitigated jackass, of course, but I feel slightly bad anyway. Mostly because it’s close enough to Christmas that I still get to be uncomfortably aware that Jesus probably wouldn’t want me to join a digital torch-bearing mob.
Anyway, moral of the story: if you can’t control what you say on social media, don’t communicate via social media. This gig ain’t for the reckless. …Or the timid, either.
Couple of interesting passages here. One on shame, from Megan McArdle…
Like many people who have been writing on the Internet for a long time, I find that the minute you make human contact with someone, they often get rather sheepish and apologetic about the terrible things they’ve said. A polite note written back to an intemperate diatribe, or an in-person encounter, often elicits sheepish apologies that all run along the same lines: They weren’t really thinking of you as a person much like them, whose back aches in the evening and who worries about the price of breakfast cereal, but as a sort of cartoon figure of great and malevolent influence.
…and one on social media, from Terry Teachout (H/T: @MZHemingway)
By the time I started writing regularly for the national media, I’d long since learned that there are things you simply don’t say in public, many of which would be innocuous in a better-regulated world but are nonetheless far more controversial than they really ought to be. In addition, I started blogging in 2003, three years before Twitter came along and sufficiently ahead of the curve to permit me to fully internalize the inescapable but easily forgotten fact that you own everything you post on the social media, now and forevermore.
Continue reading Some thoughts on shame and social media in the political sphere.
But if they did my answer would be “Knowing when to delete a Tweet, comment, and/or post, instead of publishing it.” It’s really easy to do, too. Basically, if you ever find yourself saying Should I hit the Publish button on this? then the answer should always be Heck, no. Trust that little voice that wants you to never have any fun. That voice will keep you out of trouble.
Now watch. The clock is no doubt counting down on my next social media disaster.
As my readers may remember, yesterday the Democratic party managed to get itself put in a bad place by its own social media squad over ‘ethnic cleansing’ (basically, said squad turned a talk radio caller into the Voice of the Republican Party, because we’ve relentlessly given the Democratic party nothing better to work with this cycle). The Daily Caller covered this as well: it contained the phrase ‘no member of Congress from either party has made that claim or threat.’ When I read that last night, I assumed at first that it was a rhetorical trap, because decided that it wasn’t. Surely nobody on the Democrats’ side would be stupid enough to try to keep arguing that a call-in comment on a radio talk show was actually a statement made by a federal Representative or Senator.
Well, those social media geniuses over at Team Democrat managed to double down on stupid. Here’s Derek Hunter’s update to his post:
One flack said of [Kansas Secretary of State Kris] Kobach, “who as you know is a prominent voice in the GOP.” In all honesty, I had to look up who he was, so “prominent voice” is open to interpretation. [*] Finally, the words “no Member of Congress” precede what they’re complaining about. Last time I checked the Secretary of State of Kansas, or any other state, is not a Member of Congress. The DNC asked for an update to this post, so here is their update.
I thank God every day that I don’t have to produce this kind of masturbatory fodder for my political party. ‘Ethnic cleansing.’ Ye gods and little fishes…
Continue reading Democrats’ vaunted social media team embarrasses its own party, again.
Because I’ll be the guy who will get you off of social media. If only the Patriots had hired me (don’t click through to the Deadspin article while you are at work):
anyone interested in the upcoming job opening on the patriots’ social media team? RT @dylanlscott: holy shit http://t.co/sjbiBdeYOq
— andy levy (@andylevy) November 14, 2014
…I would have had them non-interactive months ago.
Perhaps I am simply old. But I am with Sonny Bunch on this:
HEED MY ADVICE. RT @FreeBeacon: #realtalk: @SonnyBunch: “don’t take pictures of your genitals.” http://t.co/Oqfy8lVrWy
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) June 24, 2014
…I do not understand what is accomplished by taking a picture of your penis and then showing that picture to a woman. I am certain that if this was an infallible way to make that woman engage in sexual congress with you then this practice would have been popularized in the first days of daguerreotypes. In fact, I am trying to think of a situation where things would be improved with a good round of Hey, let me show you this photo of my junk, and failing.
Again, I must be just getting old.
Moe Lane
PS: Forget my lawn: you kids GET OFF OF SOCIAL MEDIA. It’s just messing up your lives.