I met up with a new new friend for coffee and real life interaction. Yay internet friend dates.
It was a few hours after SCOTUS decided that marriage is marriage and everyone should be able to do it and while we discussed it and were happy for the people that couldn’t get married before, we were both noticing the stream of rainbow colored profile pictures coming down our timelines.
Exciting. But we’re still focusing on #BlackLivesMatter. For always.
ESPECIALLY after Bree Newsome just climbed down from the SC capitol with Confederate flag in hand.
ESPECIALLY after President Obama gave the speech on the SCOTUS decision then had to go give the eulogy for Senator Clementa Pickney. It’s entirely possible to care about a lot of issues at one time. You can care about Haitians being deported from Dominican Republic, and same-sex marriage, and black lives matter, and who’s getting kicked off The Bachelorette, and if Adele is ever going to get back in the studio to give us another album. And while it’s “just social media” it’s no longer accurate to say “Facebook/Twitter is not real life.” Because it is. I just said I met a friend on there in real life. I’ve kept in touch with friends from elementary school because of it. I watched the live tweeting of several white people get fired for their racists comments on social media.
@HyleyLowly pic.twitter.com/tYeGpAbr43
— Regal Cinemas (@RegalMovies) June 18, 2015
THEY @ HER BRO!
So yes while your
social media presence is just a small representation of you and it’s not like ALL of you can be represented online, what you don’t speak about matters as much as what you do speak about.
I read a post where someone was saying it’s just easier to post happier things and it’s incredibly easy to change to a rainbow themed profile picture than it is to speak about heavy situations. But I also don’t care. I’ve had friends message me to say they are glad I post articles because it gives them a better perspective on things. But we live in a great information age where all this stuff is accessible to you literally in the palm of your hand. I’ve had calm conversations with white friends about my black perspective but like who has the patience?
It’s noticed and it’s frustrating and all of my thoughts are too jumbled to really have a point. And so I’ve been directing people to Karen Walrond’s fantastic post:
Don’t just act like it’s not happening because it makes you uncomfortable.
Bravo!!!
Yay! I'm so proud of you for exercising your freedom of speech.
I love that we are friends on all the social things because you really do post (dare I say "curate?") all kinds of things I wouldn't know otherwise from pop culture to real life, relevant stuff. (BRB, gotta go google Bree Newsome).
From personal experience, I know that I often don't say anything about real life stuff on the internet because I feel like i have nothing new to offer. Will it matter to anyone that I say that the Charleston shooting had me sick with disgust or will I be accused of being some kind of bandwagonner who's spouting platitudes during tragedy for attention's sake? So, I guess if I'm not feeling profound, which is most of the time, I shut up. But thanks for letting me know that something is better than nothing. And I'm grateful for people like you who are all about the sharing and having something to say who make me think and will realize that no matter what I say, no matter how… lacking in depth it might be…. at least it's genuine.
And hooray for the internet, all the way around.
hooray for the internet indeed. it is hard to seem repetitive, but i figure so much stuff gets lost in the algorithms and feeds it's good to be repetitive. or something else like that, but more profound.