I Apologize For My Role In Ruining Social Media

Facebook was my gateway drug into the world of social media. I opened my account on November 16, 2011. I was surrounded by family and friends who worked as Sherpas guiding me through the nuisances of Facebook etiquette.

1) Don't post about politics. 

2) Don't post about religion: unless you are posting about how awesome Jesus is. 

3) Don't post about racism. 

I was advised to avoid posting about anything other than cats, babies, and food. I was so eager to get reacquainted with my old friends that I indiscriminately started sending and accepting friend requests. Within a few days I had over 500 "friends". This was awesome! What I didn't account for was how much some of us had changed over the years. After a while it was obvious some of our lives were in completely different places. Life happened and we had different priorities. 

The overwhelming majority of my “friends” wanted Facebook to be a place where they could escape from the day to day grind of life. I didn’t know social media was supposed to be fun, and when I found out I didn’t care. All of this was happening so fast. 

I turned Facebook into my public diary and started journaling. It was cathartic! I wrote what I thought and didn’t care about the consequences. There were days I felt incredibly blessed to have a second chance at life; on those days, I wrote about my feelings. 

There were days when the world seemed like a flaming bag of crapsicles; on those days I wrote. I didn’t shy away from controversial issues. I was indifferent to the agreed upon rules that governed social media. This was seen, by some, as aggressive behavior. I lost a lot of those early "friends" as quickly as I found them.

We are encouraged to avoid “controversy”. Because of this we often ignore bigotry, hatred, and incivility. Too many of us believe society's ills can be fixed by ignoring them. There are people who believe their right to bliss shouldn’t be impeded by the raw nature of our world. They are wrong! They have every right to ingest or avoid any information they choose, but they don’t have a right to another’s silence. 

I don’t apologize for the (small) role I’ve played in ruining social media. I don’t apologize for writing about race, religion, class, culture, or politics. I don't apologize for my truth being abrasive against the skin of those who choose to avoid the issues I write about. 

However, I do apologize for not giving people the benefit of the doubt. I apologize for not allowing people the time and space to process ideas they maybe haven't thought about. I apologize for not showing Grace. I apologize for automatically assuming the worst. If we hadn’t avoided talking about these issues for so long we might understand each other and how they affect us better.

You Can’t Spam Your Way To Success!

Image: The Center for Client Retention 

Have you ever been in that awkward social media position where you are being tagged in every post a friend makes? They turned their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram into the most annoying advertising campaign ever. They’ve convinced themselves that the first 100 times you ignored their posts were due to some circumstance beyond your control, and if they keep adding you eventually you will click the link or donate. This constant spamming is actually alienating the people who are most likely to support them.

Here’s the hard truth: You can’t spam your way into support. Social media can be cruel to anyone trying to find their customer base, but especially content producers. I understand the mentality: you have a list of contacts, who have contacts, who could help you create a ripple effect through your social media feeds. This compound interest of people could give you a solid launch into your business endeavor, but this only works if you deliver a product people feel compelled to share. Telling people you have a product and showing them your product are two different things.

It’s a double edge sword for content producers: you have to give a certain amount of your product away in order to build your clientele. People aren’t going to buy content if they don’t know what they are getting. People want to know what your brand is.

Everyday people swipe past hundreds of free articles and videos produced by academics, experts in their respective fields and seasoned journalists; why should someone pay for your time? What have you given them? How can they benefit from their investment in you?

There is an audience for all kinds of content, but you will never connect with them without first letting them know what you have to offer. Social media advertising campaigns have to be supported by underlying content. You need a place people can go to see what you produce. Telling people you have a product without giving them an example is wasting your time. You can’t spam your way to success. Constantly spamming people in your social network is more likely to alienate them than cause them to support your efforts.

Fireside Chat Omni Homestead

Public Radio In The Age Of Digital Media

Presented At The Omni Homestead

Part 1

Part 2

Christian Memes: What Do We Really Believe?

Tis, the season for cable and local news outlets to dust off their file footage from the previous years war on Christmas stories. I'm not particularly concerned with the validity of their claims; maybe there is a cabal of Atheists and secular progressives trying to diminish Jesus' role in the holiday season: that may be true. As nefarious as that sounds, I'm more concerned with the apparent lack of faith some of my fellow Christians seem to have when it comes to matters like these.

At the beginning of the school year a similar religious phenomenon happens: Facebook memes about Prayer and God being removed from school spread like wild fire. The law is very clear in these matters anyone who wishes to pray can do so without fear of punishment by an authority figure. The law prohibits someone employed by the state or federal government from leading a prayer and potentially endorsing one religion over another. 

The fact that our schools no longer have structured prayer has been used (by some) to explain the decadence in our society. There's not enough hard evidence to support that claim; correlation doesn't always equal causality. Even if someone could prove that the removal of prayer is the underlying cause of our moral erosion, it doesn't solve the problem of Christians who subscribe to the idea that an omnipotent God could be limited by man's law. 

After every new school shooting memes like the one at the top of this post dominate space on newsfeeds and timelines across social media. The logic is very easy to refute. If you read (and believe) the first verse of the Bible: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Any Christian who believes that the same God who protected Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedego from being consumed by fire, protected Daniel in the lions den, and provided for his people for 40 years in the desert has to listen to a law written by a man who will wither and die needs to get a bit deeper into the word. 

Before there were politicians, school boards, or people to worship him God created everything. When Christians subscribe to the kind of faulty logic these memes offer they sound more like nonbelievers than our Atheists brothers and sisters. How can you believe Jesus overcame the grave and washed our sins away, if you don't think he can get past a hall monitor?

These memes offer a glimpse into the psyche of those who invest in them. It's easy to share a catchy meme, but much harder to come to grips with the evil in our world. The free will we exercise to worship (or not worship) is the same free will that allows someone to open fire on children. It's not easy accepting the terrors of life. There's a season for everything and this too shall pass, but until then I will do my best to fight what I perceive to be the dumbing down of God's people by overly simplistic social media memes.