A lot of people have complained about all the ugly political comments and memes coming from their Facebook friends from the left and right. Some days it gets to me, too. But I’m going to take a moment to defend the practice.
Mood music:
[spotify:track:08yfTLT6ei3j15382V1foN]
There are some comments I have no patience for, like when people resort to outright name calling. I unfriended one guy recently for telling another of my friends to “get his head out of his colon” during one political spat. I can’t even remember the topic. What mattered was that the guy was being an asshole. He resorted to all kinds of name calling because my other, more conservative friend dared question a liberal principle.
I unfriended another guy for constant right-wing propaganda. It seemed like he had no other purpose in life than to attack anyone who didn’t share his Republican values.
For those keeping score, no one side or point of gets a free pass.
But extreme cases aside, I don’t think the political posts are such a horrible thing. A vigorous political debate is healthy. It’s American. And it’s more important than ever to discuss the day’s issues. A lot of my conservative friends are annoying my liberal friends by continuing to harp on the terrorist attack in Libya that left one of our ambassadors dead. They have just as much right to question what happened as my liberal friends do to question why Republican candidates keep saying things like rape pregnancies are a gift from God.
Besides, these clashes are a lot more relevant and interesting than a lot of the other posts I see on Facebook every day, such as:
- People who seek sympathy by constantly complaining about their jobs.
- People who seek attention by constantly making statements that lack the context or detail we need to know what they’re talking about.
- People who constantly post pictures of their food.
- People who jam up the news feed with hundreds of memes about a zombie apocalypse.
- People who slather the news feed with love notes to their significant others, including sexual details none of us really need — or want — to know about.
I could go on, but you get the picture. At least with politics, we’re talking about things that matter. Just keep it respectful, folks.
I really like your list of the annoying things people do on Facebook. I agree with all of them… although I obviously have fewer friends who post zombie apocolypse memes. I deactivated my FB because it was really influencing my mood, creating undue anxiety, and kept me in a mindspace of perpetual high school, meaning a popularity constant and the in-group and the out-group. So, I may go back in the future but actually my head is so much clearer. I can learn to build self-confidence instead of constantly doubting myself based on other’s comments and opinions.