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SOCIAL MEDIA HYPERBOLE

7/13/2015

12 Comments

 
What is with these people on Facebook who have to put, “Keep a tissue handy, I’m still in TEARS,” thinking they will entice you to read their piece?  Or the other hyperbole-wranglers who cry, “This is hysterical!” when it’s patently not.  Why can’t more people be impeccable with their words and, to quote Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”  

“No one saw THIS coming!” is another false claim to get you to watch their video    which invariably shows something quite normal and not all that unexpected taking place and could be pretty much predicted by a child. While we’re on the subject, if you have a loved one serving in the military and you’re invited out onto the ice at a hockey game, or onto the field at a baseball/football game, chances are pretty good said loved one will come up behind you dressed as the team mascot to surprise you because they got home a few weeks early.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for reuniting families with loved ones (especially those who had been in potentially dangerous locales) and can get as sappy and teary eyed as the next person, but would appreciate not being patronized with hyperbole and false claims.

When a headline on Facebook or Twitter contains the words obliterates, devastates, destroys, etc., I’m guessing none of those things happened and will make a mental note to avoid that poster.

Another beef with some social media posters – and they’re generally of the female persuasion – why must they feel the compunction to share with us their glee each time their ‘hubs’ or ‘DH’ (dear husband) brings them a cup of coffee, tea, wine, chocolate, etc.?   We get it.  You’ve got a husband (allegedly) who dotes on you (allegedly) and you’re delighted with that fact (alleged fact).  Notice that men manage to refrain from that form of bragging.  I can’t recall seeing, “The wife just brought me a [fill in the blank] beer, coffee, beef jerky.”   [God knows they can and do brag about plenty of other things that are just as boring, but rarely the aforementioned doting spouse trope.]

The penultimate social media oversharer is the tweeter or FBer who feels the need to keep their friends/followers up to date on their every move.  The ones on vacation truly mystify and irk me. 

“Here we are on the [fill in the blank: plane, train, boat, cruise ship, catamaran, International Space Station – now, the latter would admittedly be impressive, but still].” 

“Here we are arriving in [fill in the blank: Vegas, Maine, London, Paris, the Mekong Delta, Tahiti.” 

“Here we are [fill in the blank: water skiing, hang gliding, zip lining, bungee jumping, wrestling rabid wildebeests, playing volley ball on a nude beach.”

Wherever you’ve gone, whatever you’re doing there, and with whomever you’ve gone there with – we don’t care.  Honestly.  Go.  Have fun.  Enjoy.  Tell us about it when you get back.  We really don’t need a blow-by-blow description of your travels.  Seriously.  How about you live in the moment and experience your own vacation while it’s happening?   While we’re relieved not to have to sit and watch a hundred slides of your trip as in days of yore, likewise, we do not want to see multi images of you on social media wrestling rabid wildebeests on the International Space Station.

One final complaint.  [It’s my birthday, I’m allowed.]

I think a brief revisit is in order re: the excessive overuse of the word hero. [You know my feelings on this.] According to social media, as well as the regular media, nearly everyone and their granny is a hero.  A cop who helps little baby ducklings from a rain grate and reunites them with their anxious mother does not a hero make.  If said officer climbed down into a putrid alligator-infested sewer pit to rescue the fluffy little critters, that’d be a different story.

And while it’s more than commendable for children to fork over their lemonade stand profits to a charity or worthy cause, this act alone does not constitute the stature of hero.  They are good deed doers who will hopefully carry that generosity of heart with them throughout the remainder of their lives. There is a vast difference between making of monetary donation to a cause you endorse and diving on a live grenade to save your colleagues, or entering a burning building to rescue a person or animal, especially if they are strangers.

It’s exhibiting courage and bravery, risking life and limb, to save someone else – be they human or animal – that makes a hero, not just someone who has done ‘the right thing’.  It’s a sad state of affairs that too few people are ‘doing the right thing’, so that when someone does, they are elevated to hero status.

Watch this space – where next time we’ll chat about the 1960 Pulitzer Prize winning novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ which I feel was highly overrated, and why its sequel ‘Go Set a Watchman’(which was actually written first but lay hidden for 55 years beneath some other papers in a safe deposit box, allegedly), and portends to depict Atticus Finch* not as an open-minded caring person, but as a racist who has attended a KKK meeting and rails against desegregation. At a time when so many racial atrocities are happening it could appear to some that author Harper Lee and her ‘people’ have decided to release this second volume now feeling it could be quite profitable. 

One can only have concern for the 89-year old Ms. Lee who, by all appearances, seemed content to live a quiet life off the royalties of her first (and until now, her only) book. Word has it she lived rather simply, even frugally by the looks of her self-inflicted haircut.  It gives one pause to hear Ms. Lee’s attorney and trustee of her estate, Tonja Carter, hint there may even be a third recently uncovered novel bridging the two.  Can I get an Amen and a Halleluiah?

12 Comments
Veronica
7/13/2015 07:40:50 am

Wow, you are on a ROLL today!!! I think I can say without reservation that this might very well be your best entry yet (so far). Virtually every point you've made here, I concur completely, and you do it in such an amusing, observational way. These are one of those entries that I will actually go back and read again, because they're so thoughtfully laid out. Thanks for sharing it. Oh, and by the way, happy happy birthday!! :) :) :)

Reply
Mary Vettel
7/13/2015 07:54:47 am

Thank you, Veronica. So glad you enjoyed it. Also glad you concur.

Reply
Ada
7/13/2015 07:43:03 am

Mary, what you're saying about what makes a person a "hero" in the eyes of many strikes a chord with me. I have had this discussion before and am always curious to find out how others interpret that meaning of what makes one a "hero", as we have our own definitions of it. In fact I was watching a program which included a short segment describing the teacher who boarded the Challenger space shuttle a "hero" simply by being a willing participant.

Reply
Mary Vettel
7/13/2015 07:57:08 am

Hi Ada, thanks for reading and commenting. Yes, no disrespect intended toward any of the astronauts, alive or dead, but I believe this is an instance where 'hero' is applied to her because she perished.

Reply
Will Tinkham link
7/13/2015 08:00:44 am

Seems highly suspicious to me that Harper Lee has a stroke about the same time her sister--and Harper's attorney--dies AND the sister's law partner miraculously finds the long, supposedly lost manuscript, which Harper had long said she didn't want to publish AND now wants to--according to her new attorney.

Happy birthday, Mary!

Reply
Mary Vettel
7/13/2015 09:45:26 am

Thanks for reading & commenting & the birthday wishes, Will. In total agreement w/you on the suspicious aspects of the whole thing. Sad.

Reply
Carol
7/13/2015 10:52:44 am

Happy birthday, Mary! I just finished reading your book,
Death at the Drive-in, and enjoyed it very much. What a great mix of comedy and mystery. I hope you have more books for us Baby Boomers to enjoy. Your latest blog also hit the nail on the head. You're the voice of reason. Keep up the great work.

Reply
Mary Vettel
7/13/2015 03:21:54 pm

Hi Carol,
Thanks for the birthday wishes. I'm glad you enjoyed DEATH AT THE DRIVE-IN and the blog. There are several books in the works for Baby Boomers - and non-Baby Boomers alike.
Watch this space.

Reply
Beddy
7/16/2015 01:26:41 am

Still laughing. You are so SPOT ON with these comments. They are things that have plagued me so badly at times, I've had to take breaks from social media. "How about you live in the moment and experience your own vacation while it’s happening?" Perhaps people need to grasp at that 15 minutes of fame that social media provides. God forbid we are all just people and the deepest value in our lives is the intrinsic one. Anyway, your comments ring true and hilarious, which are the finest of literary companions.

Reply
Mary Vettel
7/16/2015 07:17:28 am

Thanks, Beddy. I appreciate your comments. So nice that you're in agreement with me and I'm not a cantankerous curmudgeon on my own.

Reply
Davina
7/22/2015 01:18:52 am

Great blog Mary! You've nailed it, while people are sending their every movement on devices, they are not living the moment especially with the people they're with! Boring travelling companions:) I hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Reply
Munley from QT
1/11/2018 01:36:27 am

Really enjoyed your thoughts on the meanings and sounds of words. I think you would love learning the Russian language -- at least for reading if you don't want to speak it. The grammar is very complicated. I really struggle with the grammar, but I love encountering Russian word roots and the attitude that comes with them. For example, "Спасибо (spa-see-bo)" meaning "thank you," has the root Спаси meaning "to save" and a suffix having to do with God. So it literally means "God has saved me!" (Maybe a person is regarded as having something of God inside, I don't know.) The Russian word for "to hate" literally means "to not look upon," and the Russian word for "to forgive" has the same rood as "to say good-bye."

Reply



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