The Dark Side of the Social Media

In the past few weeks I have discovered, and fallen in love with, Pinterest. Seriously it's as if someone wrapped up a present and said "here Jessica, here is a web sight that will allow you to waste huge amounts of time while feeling like you are wasting absolutely no time. Unwrap this and do what you will." And oh boy have I. I am a pinning fiend. It really is a great. And the best part is that people like my pins, and repin my pins, and make me feel like I am just as cool as I think I am. This morning, however, I discovered that pinterest has a dark side. Let me explain.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm filled with a delightful jubilee of oddities. By that I mean that there are certain things that drive me crazy and make me want to hit something, and other things that just make me want to vomit, but you know, in a fun way. There isn't a good reason behind it, that's just the way it is. So, on pinterest I created a board that would allow me to show the world all the things that bug me. Because if I'm willing to admit my social ineptitudes that makes them ok. One of the peculiar things that bothers me is naked pregnant bellies, especially in picture form. I just think its gross and weird. I mean normally, and not in a"these are art shots" situation you hire a photographer and you get cute. You wear adorable clothing, that covers all the major parts of you. So why, when you have a huge belly and stretch marks do you take off clothes for the photographer? It doesn't not make sense to me. I don't think it's classy and it kinda disturbs me. And of course because I'm me, and don't think people really pay attention to anything I do on any social medium, I find some pictures of naked pregnant bellies and post them with pithy captions like "why do people do this, it's just gross" and "please do us all a favor and cover up your bulging belly." And apparently a bunch of people were not ok with this personal decision. Seriously I woke in the morning with a text from my cousin explaining what was going on, and an apology for having commented. Her exact phrase was "it won't end, they're out for you." I thought she must have been joking, or exaggerating. She was not. A bunch of people I don't know in any way had gotten on and basically ripped me a new one because I had the audacity to not appreciate the beautiful pregnant human form in all it's glory. People called me ignorant and repressed and wrong and all this stuff. It was kind of ridiculous.

This brings me to the first problem that I have with social media. It makes it so easy for people to be rude. It is so much easier to say blunt, unkind things via facebook or twitter than it is to say them face to face. These people who were commenting on my blog didn't know me. They are never going to see me, or meet me, or listen to my thoughts on what makes a sandwich perfect (it's all in the ratios). They are free to declare their opinions on my opinions in any way they choose with no consequences. Facebook is the same way. You can rip someone's status apart just like that, but it would probably be a lot harder to say it to their face. We all do it too. I can get super snarky on facebook and twitter. I blog about things that I would never have the balls to say to someone's face. I guess that's what anonymity does. It makes common courtesy and politeness go out the window, and replaces them with rudeness and unchecked anger. That saddens me. I wish we could go back to a day where you had to sit down and talk to someone about there opinion. For days when you couldn't just blurt out your thoughts, post them, and then be done with them. My new goal is to try not to say anything on a social medium that I wouldn't say in real life. I probably won't succeed, especially not in my blog, but I'm going to try.

I eventually deleted the offensive prego pictures. But I almost didn't. All morning as I was getting ready I kept thinking to myself, "they don't have to like it. It's my pinterest and I'll do what I want. Its my opinion who cares what they think?" Those pictures were all about me. My rights to post what my opinions however I want. If other people don't like it then they don't have to look. So there ha!

This brings me to my second issue with social media. It is makes everyone terribly self-centered. What you post is all about you. I bet most of us don't even pause before posting a crass status, or an embarrassing photo. It's my facebook/twitter/pinterest/blog/etc, I can do what I want. And it's true you can. But is it doing whatever just because you can really the right thing to do? I think that's why I took those pictures down. Do I have every right to find pictures of future dads hugging naked pregnant bellies while the mom's face is nowhere in sight, creepy? I do. And I always will. But maybe it's best that I don't share those feelings with the internet-ing world. Maybe sharing my opinion isn't worth upsetting others. It's easy to share whatever comes into your head, just ask the people who were calling me ignorant without ever having had a conversation with me, because you can and you want to. What's harder is thinking about others before you rip on something others find beautiful, or post mean words about someone's opinion. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad to have dissenting opinions. That's healthy and good and makes the world go round. But maybe putting a little thought into what we post instead of just letting the brain juices flow would go a long way.

This post is super long and a little rambly. Sorry. I guess my point is that while social media is awesome, and fun and amusing, it can also be dangerous, and hurtful. And now that I've blogged about it I hope I can keep the bad in mind along with the fun and try not to do more harm then good.