Facebook Rage

I enjoy Facebook as much as the next person. Okay, maybe not quite as much as the next person, but it amuses me and has allowed me to get or stay in touch with people I enjoy being in touch with. I probably should have left it at that--I probably should have kept my list of "friends" to distant people, not people I used to work with. For a long time, I "ignored" requests from coworkers, back when I was employed: the boundaries between personal and professional are already too murky where I used to work, and were made worse by the fact that my husband works there, and my kids go to school there.

But when I lost my job, I granted friend requests, figuring it might be a source of support, or could even serve as very casual networking. Big mistake.

I have "hidden" several people, people I enjoy, even people I am related to, because of the Facebook Drivel Syndrome: the people who write about what they had for dinner, how quickly they mowed the lawn, whether or not they're tired. These comments don't create Facebook Rage in me, they just make me cringe--and hit the "hide" button, so I can go back to imagining that these people aren't as pathetic in real life as they clearly make themselves out to be in cyberspace.

No, Facebook Rage is, for me, a relatively recent phenomenon. It's what comes over me when people I once thought of as tolerant, sensitive, intelligent human beings show their utter lack of compassion and understanding, instead choosing to use Facebook as a way to express their flippancy or, worse, their heretofore hidden prejudices.

The first time a "friend" did this was when she posted on her wall for all to see that she was "disappointed in the city of Detroit." Okay, never mind that this is a pretty narcissistic ploy--someone was going to write in, "Oh no! What happened?" and sure enough, someone did. (Someone else even wrote in, "Are you okay?!" Of course she's okay, you idiot, she's logged on to Facebook.) So she provided the details, explaining that the city police hadn't even come to the crime scene, and that she now has to drive back down to Detroit from the suburb she lives in in order to fill out a report.

Frustrating and maddening? Absolutely. Did she deserve sympathy? Without a doubt. Was it okay for her to blame the entire city of Detroit for this one incident? Not on your life.

So I pointed out to her that perhaps taking to task an entire city for the actions of a small number of people was somewhat akin to what many republican politicians she so despises do when they try to generalize about an entire group of people based on very little truth.

Oops. She didn't like that. She retorted that she thought she had the right to express disappointment with the police officers who refused even to come to the crime scene.

Yup, she has that right. But that's not what she posted. Her exact words were, "I am so disappointed in the city of Detroit."

I am not a native Detroiter. I am not even a native to the Midwest. But when someone who is a native Michigander throws out a very public statement that, at the very least, is overgeneralizing, and, at the very worst, could be seen as racist, I get pissed. This city is in big trouble. And my heart breaks for the people who have spent their lives here, or who came here looking for a better life than the one they used to have, and have ended up jobless, homeless, and being blamed for some thoughtless person's disappointment that her car was broken into. My guess is, those police officers who didn't come to the scene of the crime probably had more important things going on. Just a hunch.

I should have "hidden" this person then and there. I did, at least, let the matter drop. Yay me.

But yesterday, in response to a story in CNN's Money, this same person posted that her job was in the top 10 of "stressful jobs that pay badly." Huh. Never mind that she must be considering her job to be "fund raiser," which is a stretch, given that her actual position does not involve cold-calling people and asking them for money. In fact, her job, which is at a private school, involves dealing with people who have already pledged money. Okay, I need to get over that. Her job also allows her to get a major break on her kids' tuition at the school.

But what I can't get over is her utter insensitivity to the people who might see her wall who don't, in fact, have jobs at all. I wanted so desperately to write in response, "Try to imagine the stress of not having a job."

And there is my conclusion: regular use of Facebook brings out the worst in people. I don't want to see people without their social clothes on. I don't want to know these people in all their uncensored glory. Their foibles are too much for me: please leave me in ignorance. And then I will have the luxury, and grace, not to write back in my fury and my self-righteousness, which have absolutely increased in response to the loss of my job.

Being unemployed when you don't want to be sucks.