LOOKING TO THE BRIGHT SIDE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

 

Or

TRYING TO

 

It’s easy to note the negatives of this thing we group under “Social Media,” (SM for short 😈) because it’s plain to see: take-downs, foul language aimed at strangers from others who can hide under made-up identities, and so much more.

 

I decided to articulate here how my reluctance and negative impressions turned into positive aspects for the sites I have some presence on. I came to the Internet with trepidation, being told it was necessary if I considered approaching publishing professionals. That was some years ago. I stayed and even thrived on a couple of the SS.

So I am articulating my personal journey from trembling to sunbathing for the ones I have experienced. I know all SS harvest my data; they’re welcome to it for the service they provide. I am aware at all times that nothing on SS is truly private no matter how many “privacy protections” they claim.

This is my own journey in SM-land. It’s different for each person.

In the order of (my) preference:

 

PERSONAL WEBSITE: The very thought of it hurt my insides, and then I got used to it the way one gets used to a nose ring or a wristwatch. They become a part of self that is barely felt. Today I kind of like it, because I control what’s on it. It’s the virtual calling card of the 19^th century and the business card of the 20^th century. In the 21^st century we deal with this and occasionally fiddle with the aesthetic to make ourselves feel better about it.

BLOGGER: Came to it with a heavy heart feeling that 1. It’s a burden to have to write posts regularly; 2. Who cares what I think; and 3. My publisher’s urging made it something I had to try. Turns out I like the discipline of posting and I like having a place to publish thoughts, mostly about publishing. Hey, if you’re reading this--we’re both here. My blogger is not for selling; it’s a small hangout that I actually wound up liking.

 

FACEBOOK: I joined because DD was on it and parenting advice said parents should know what their kids are up to. That part turned out to be moot, because kids are not sharing what they don’t want grownups to see and they have left this SS when parents joined. But it is the place to find long-lost friends and acquaintances, find fantastic groups of interest, and Messenger is a marvel for free chats both video and text with no upfront charge. It is where I have more “friends” (i.e., Facebook friends) and more virtual socializing than any other.

 

TWITTER: It feels like walking into a party where everyone knows everyone and you’re ignored, because they are the cool crowd. After so many years of nominal participation, it still feels like that. But I’m beginning to not dislike it when an occasional link is illuminating or an image elicits a faint smile. There’s hope.

 

INSTAGRAM: I set it up as a way to albumize photos of a beloved cat who upped and disappeared one day. I haven’t changed it since. It’s a story of one lost cat. When I’m ready to let go and make other uses, I will. Not quite there yet.

 

Then there’s Tumblr (I follow about five blogs on it now and then) and LinkedIn (on it, but no idea why) and jacketflap (Who remembers why I ever set that one?) and TikTok (where young’uns hang out, but oldies like me don’t).

 

And before this one posts, there will be many (MANY) more.

 

All useful, but proceed with awareness. It’s part of the world we inhabit.

INTERNET TROLLS and OTHER PESTS

 

For the one percent who do not know what a troll is, there are two definitions.

1.      (In folklore) An ugly creature depicted as either a giant or a dwarf. 

1.      A person who intentionally antagonizes others online by posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content. In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word "troll" to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities.—

Neither is pretty, but the first have use in fairytales while the second are as useless as can be.

 

It’s tempting to engage with #2 trolls. Here’s my way: NEVER-EVER do that. This is precisely what these dark tormented souls want us to do. We can’t fix them. We can block them on sites we control, but they will pop up on others. They don’t change/reform/see the light from thoughtful responses.

 

Putting on my psychologist hat, I understand the online trolling impulse comes from the need for attention. If they can’t get it constructively, they get it any which way. It’s a misunderstanding of the notion of “being somebody.” To these poor souls, any attention is better than being ignored.

 

My prescription: IGNORE.

Can Someone Explain the JOY OF TWITTER?

PLEASE

I took a while (an understatement) to appreciate the connective powers of Facebook. I mean, the first few years I had a page, I looked at it so rarely that my daughter gasped at the un-answered friend requests accumulating on my notification bar.

“Mom, these people will think you don’t like them!”

Who knew that a number next to an icon meant there were messages I was supposed to click on? It wasn’t on the manual. For that matter, I don’t recall being handed a manual for how to facebook in the first place.

But I learned. Slowly but surely, Facebook became a place I check regularly. Facebook groups are water-coolers of surprising high quality. Messenger turned out to be the great connector for one whose phone is not smart.

But Twitter’s charms elude me. The hashtags and twit-speak feel strangely affected, like valley-girl speak of the 1980s. When I post there, I’m in a jungle where I have nary a chirp of evidence the forest animals heard me. You know the old question: if a tree fell in the forest and no one heard it fall, did it make a noise?

Back in the days when my kids thought Facebook was cool, (apparently, since our kind has joined it isn’t so much anymore) they also explained to me that Twitter only makes sense for celebrities. The rest are just riff-raff hangers on, and really, Twitter was for old people. In kid-speak that's professionals in their thirties.

I was not a celeb, and my thirties had passed. But at someone else’s urging, I finally dipped my toes and joined.

And to this day, I’m there but never really there. If anyone cares to explain to me the country called Twitter and how I might like visiting it more, I’m open. Please.

PITCHING

Despite the season, this is not about baseball.

Pitching is also what writers do. Writers pitch to agents and agents then pitch to editors. Editors pitch to acquisition committees. Once acquired, publishers pitch to booksellers. Lots of pitching goes on in the world of literature.

A pitch must be pithy and strong. Think of it as a strategic punch. It’s a craft all its own, and many a  good writer feels like a cow in a strange barn leaning to do it. But as wordsmiths who must use evocative language, it isn’t as far from our skillset as it feels.

Although I have a twitter account, I must confess I haven’t enjoyed it much. But it occurred to me that the site has prepared much of tweeting humanity for pitching. There are also pitching wars that go on regularly.

Check out #PitMad (next coming live 9/5/19, and also 12/5/19) for examples of energetic pitching. Read about it here https://pitchwars.org/pitmad/

[Disclosure: I’ve never done that^, but I have successfully pitched to editors and later to agents.]

 I now come up with a pitch for every story I write. I do it for my own clarity and because I’ve gotten to like it.

Have fun going to bat!

A House Divided

You won’t find me making many, or any, political statements. Once I passed my younger youth, I no longer found sustenance in that arena, nor much deep wisdom in political discourse.  I’d go as far as to say that I watched good people become unkind and even senseless when they took to the barricades.

Unless you count love of country, you won’t get me clicking on likes or re-tweeting statements from politicos. They’ll have to have their revolutions without me.

But this is the season here in the U.S.A. So my one forage into the minefields is to suggest the absurdity of a statement I keep hearing variation of from many directions: “The country had never been more divided.”

HEHHH? We had a civil war, people!

In the Civil War of the 1860s-- 2% of Americans died. That would be the equivalent of six and a half million people today. That’s not counting the maimed, or the homes destroyed and the fields burned.

 

And the vitriol that is hurled with regularity every election cycle has, even in recent times, been more pungent. I suffer from many things, but amnesia isn’t one of them.

My only antidote is, in my personal and public conduct, to affect and maybe effect calm thoughtfulness.

We may have to wait until December for the next wave to pass.