On Small Talk

The internet's favorite punching bag for some reason?

iykyk

I mentioned recently that I have the occasional habit of writing small essays in the comment threads of Facebook acquaintances. It’s kind of funny to me that Facebook has ended up being the social media I use the most; it hosts all of my local community groups and my Rancho Gordo Bean Club group and Marketplace and a creative writing pedagogy group, and once I realized I could unfriend my worst relatives and all other sources of brain noise, it actually became quite functional. But it still hosts, on occasion, conversations that make my head spin. I often end up watching bad/weird discourses, anchored by shareable memes, spread across my tiny Facebook yard like weeds. I can ignore most of it. But every so often I can’t help myself.

Most recently, I found myself in the comment section of a post that included this screenshot: