by David Todd McCarty | Wednesday, June 1, 2016
We, the members of the internet, just wanted to say a few words in defense of you who so diligently keep us informed on Facebook and other social media outlets to all the vital conspiracy theories, racist rants, urban myths, and fear-based flotsam and jetsam. You provide a valuable public service and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
It’s takes a special kind of selfless public servant to regularly pass along obviously suspect information with zero criticism or awareness. Not just anyone can click share without a thought to intent, meaning or impact.
We’ve been talking amongst ourselves and we really like the posts about poignant subjects such as guns, congress, war, or gorillas, written by such awe-inspiring luminaries as Jodie Foster, Abraham Lincoln, Morgan Freeman, and Thomas Edison.
It’s astounding that Lincoln had such insights into the internet, or that Morgan Freeman happened to make a comment that was oddly in tune with our personal beliefs, but there they are, in plain type across a picture of them. We didn’t even know Jodie Foster was that political. But no one would post it if it weren’t true, so it’s good to know that our celebrities have such wisdom.
The other thing that really helps us get us through the day are the warnings about police speed trap stings, criminals putting pennies in door handles, and we would have never known about Mark Zuckerberg giving away all those millions if you hadn’t told us. By the way, who won that money, because we never heard? I guess they keep that stuff pretty quiet.
Amongst some of our group, the posts that claim typing a number or word into the comments section of a post will change the picture you’re looking at, even though we’re pretty sure Facebook doesn’t work that way. “You won’t believe what happens next,” they say. So far, none of us have seen it change, but we’re hoping as soon as we upgrade to the new Windows OS we’ll be able to see what you’ve been awestruck over all these many months.
I don’t want to speak out of turn, and not everyone in the group approves of these, but my personal favorites are the chain letters that ask you to copy and paste a post about…well, frankly anything it would seem, because we all know that sharing a post wouldn’t have the same effect as copying and pasting the words. They always seem to be true, despite all the negative comments I get telling me that they’re hoaxes. But how would they know? And isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?
My friend Kyle claims that he’s been sent several dozen envelopes full of cash since he started forwarding the memes that promise rewards from heaven if only you’ll forward this to 12 friends. I’ll be honest, they always seemed like bullshit to me, but you can’t argue with success. Kyle hasn’t lied to me since he told me it wouldn’t hurt and he was only going to stick it in a little bit.
The special holidays messages are always very helpful. Can you believe evil people are still putting razor blades in apples? And I didn’t even know people still gave out bottles of aspirin at Halloween. Seems a little expensive. We don’t even go in for the full-sized candy bars anymore. Must be in the wealthier neighborhoods.
We were all a little nervous about your post that Facebook now owns all of our photos and was selling them to big advertisers. We all reposted that notice telling Mr. Zuckerberg that we didn’t give him permission, just like you said, and we haven’t heard anything since then about it, so I guess it worked. Mrs. Stolfuz in 5B claims no one wanted our shitty photos of cappuccinos, cats and grandkids in the first place, but I think she’s just being difficult since she refused to post the notice.
But what really set everyone off, was your notice that Facebook was going to start charging for its services. Seemed odd since they’re currently valued at something like $339 billion dollars and apparently make all that money selling access to advertisers. But we’re ready to leave the moment we get a bill in the mail. We’re simply not paying for a free service.
Your last post though, about the government reading all of our posts? That one we realized is too ridiculous to believe. You really should have done your homework on that one. The government would never do that to its own citizens. After all, this is the land of the free and the home of the brave. Get your facts right before you post.
Anyway, we just wanted you to know how much your posts mean to us. We don’t understand how ungrateful people can be when they complain about you clogging up their feed. Clearly they don’t appreciate the service you’re providing.
But we do.
