It’s January and I don’t teach as many classes as I normally would during the year thanks to living in the southern hemisphere where summer months are December to February. So I have more time to be online, research material for classes, read articles and, inevitably, check Facebook. I think this site, along with Twitter, are great news aggregators and makes it much easier to read articles since you don’t have to access each one of the news websites you normally read. In my list of “likes,” for instance, I have The Guardian, NYT, The New Yorker, TED, Global Post, to name a few. These sites always post interesting articles, such as this one about mondegreens (I had no idea what that was), or this about the decline in the use of definite article “the” — as an EFL teacher, it’s impossible not to be interested in this kind of stuff.
I also like to see the funny things from South Park and American Dad! in my timeline, as well as selected clips from The Daily Show. I also tend to “like” Facebook friends’ businesses, but only if they have something to do with what I’m genuinely interested in.
Then there’s the “funny” (emphasising the air quotes) stuff. Those people that just share every single stupid video of a guy falling, or a cat jumping, or a dog barking, or whatever else they find funny or cute. There are the people with the memes, just sharing one after another. Some are okay, very few are laugh-worthy, most are just dumb.
I start to get annoyed with the religious posts from people that want to convert you no matter what. Hey, I’m not against anybody’s choice of religion, people are free to follow and believe in whatever they want, but the sharing of prayers, saints, blessings from whatever religion is something that I just wish I could say once and for all: No, thank you!
But nothing gets more in my nerves than political vitriol. This normally would translate into a Fox News reference, since oftentimes in the past I posted about the channel and its unbelievable partisan discourse. I’ve been Fox News-free for almost two years now — after the only cable company that carried the channel inexplicably decided to drop it in 2013 — but I assumed I was immunised against the vitriol or at least that I knew how to handle the batshit crazy talking points. I guess I took everything for granted and I’ve realised now that I don’t have antibodies against the discourse in my timeline.
The last general election in Brazil was my first experiencing the full Facebook treatment. Every single minute one person, left or right, would post something usually demonising the other side. I hated to read about both sides because it wasn’t anything constructive, and I started to deeply dislike those who took a few minutes (adding up to hours) of their time to write such mean things. I wish I had read about their platforms and what they were REALISTICALLY planning to do about the several problems we have in the country and the state, but no, no, no… Why would they do such a thing? It easier to get people to make a passionate decision than an informed one.
The dislike escalated so much that I had no choice but to unfriend a couple of people, and I’m not a person that just keeps friending everybody and from time to time does a little spring cleaning, I only allow people that I really know or have met in person more than once or for professional reasons. What makes me sad is that I used to hang out with these people some 10 years ago, we were good friends, but I guess I was having so much fun drinking and dancing that I didn’t realise it!
The content is basically Fox News-like — attacks on the opposition and outrage when criticised — and what surprises me is that in Brazil it’s a leftwing practice. The right also gives its contribution, but they tend to be more moderate, more center-right. There are of course the few nuts that stand out, but I would say the tone isn’t as toxic. It’s a reversal of the American political system; bizarro politics, perhaps.
Being disappointed with all things politics in Brazil, since no matter who is in office will do everything to screw with people’s lives, I think I need to develop those antibodies fast or I’ll be suffering double the amount!
-- Never too many beers -- 