A while back I wrote an article called Why I’m quitting Facebook…sort of. I wrote then about EdgeRank, the algorithm that Facebook uses to control what you see on your timeline. What I’ve come to realize since I wrote the article is that Facebook basically is just a bunch of drama. Drama that I do not find necessary so much in my life. And so for that reason my intention is to spend a lot less time on Facebook and have a lot less clutter on my Facebook page. A lot less clutter and a lot less drama.
I have had people say on a couple of occasions recently that all I do is post stuff on Facebook to brag and just show off all the different things that I do and how successful I am. They say “Oh you go to all of these shows and events and go out to fancy dinners all of the time and you get a new car and all you do is post on Facebook and rub it in our face.” I can not believe that I hear this sort of stuff. People have no idea how many sacrifices I have made over the years to be able to do the things that I do now. And even more so than that is the amount of sacrifices Brenna has made. I chose not to have children for a reason. I have chosen to work crappy jobs and crappy hours over the years as stepping stones to something better these days. It is not my fault if someone else has kids or is too old or too tired or whatever other reason they have for not enjoying their life. People see us posting pictures of a vacation that we go on. But what they do not realize is that vacation was provided to us by the hotel. Yes that’s true. The hotel gave us their ‘Super Suite’ and gave us a meal and some spending money in exchange for us posting on social media about how cool the hotel was. Yes, that is part of the deal. What people don’t see is that on that particular vacation, Brenna was working online in our room at 1AM to make one of her deadlines. People do not see the fact that I have so many friends in the entertainment industry that a lot of times they will give me tickets to their show in exchange for helping to promote the show on different social media sites. Yes, free tickets in exchange for promotion.
When I first moved to Las Vegas, a girl told me that the town is run on comps and compliments. A comp is a complementary item such as a ticket to a show or event or a drink or a meal given to someone in exchange for something of value in the future. Casinos give out comp drinks to anybody gambling in exchange for that person to stay there and gamble longer. Casinos often give us free show tickets in the expectation that we will tell everybody what a great time we had at the show. Hotels give people free rooms from time to time. So a lot of the things that you see me do are things that I don’t even pay for. As well there are certain organizations that you can buy memberships to and as a benefit of the membership they will give out tickets to shows for seats that need to be filled in the audience. This is a really great deal in that you can pay a small up front fee and get tickets to many different events during the course of the year. Yet people see this as me just showing off.
I had two people ask to borrow money recently and when I refused I had one of them tell me how selfish I was and how I have more than enough that a few bucks would not kill me. Thing is I don’t lend anything to anyone. Especially money. It is in my manifesto.
It is not like I don’t have problems of my own. I just choose not to post them all over Facebook and other social media sites. I get how that may give the impression that everything is hunky-dory and some may see it as dishonest or such but really, who wants to hear about this or that problem of mine? It is more fun to write about fun stuff. If someone sees that as bragging or showing off, well, I can not help them.
Then there are people that post things on my Facebook page that are sort of offensive and I can’t be having that either. Brenna always says, “Is that the brand that you want people to think you represent?” Coming straight from the mouth of a Graphic Designer
I also find my Facebook page filled with people that I have “collected” over the years. Just because you and I may have gone to school together or our paths crossed sometime back in 2009 does not necessarily make us friends.
So for this and other reasons, I have decided to take a big step back from Facebook. I would really like to quit it entirely except for the fact that the whole world is basically on Facebook. I do spend a lot more time on Twitter and I’m starting to spend more time on Instagram as well. And I’m trying to figure out if Google+ is a viable option and worth my time. But since I am not 100% interested to step away entirely from Facebook what I am going to do for the time being is dramatically cut back my posting on Facebook. Some will say “Oh well, if people do not like what they see then they can just stop looking at your page.” Problem is they will keep looking and since I can not control the little voices in their heads… I just do not see the point in adding fuel to the fire. So I will stop posting pictures of concerts and shows and dinners and outing and all the fun stuff I do. If you were living vicariously through me, sorry. Get out of the house and make your own fun. I will however continue to post the Question of the Day and stuff that I think is interesting like news about Solar City and Space X. So if you are into that sort of stuff feel free to stick around my drama free zone.
As of this writing I have close to 400 “friends” on Facebook. Many of which I have not spoken to in ages. Occasionally I will spy someone on my friends list and I do not even know who they are. Why are they even there? I have no clue. There are people in my friends list that I only communicate with through Facebook so another reason I need to stay on Facebook is to stay in touch with those folks. So, I’m going to go through and delete a large number of individuals. During that process I may accidentally delete someone that I shouldn’t have. If you feel like I have possibly accidentally deleted you, please do not be offended. Save the drama for your momma. Just send me a friends request. It was probably a mistake. Facebook does not make it all that easy to delete people and although I have found a loop hole that makes it easier, I still may delete someone by mistake.
So we’ll see how this works out and we’ll go from there.
We can all use a lot less drama in our lives right?
What are you doing to avoid or lessen the amount of drama in your life?
Let me know in the comments. Would love to hear about what you are doing.
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