We are careful not to say –
rather, to write – the wrong thing.
Oh, someone on Facebook will set up a
hue and cry because we didn’t ‘like’
the doggy picture, or we failed to support some post about alternative medicine
or tattoos. We could be ostracised – which in Facebook terms means we are ‘unfollowed’.
We support this, we don’t
like that... it seems that this large group of foreigners which we belong to
and which has chosen Spain to live – a group which has little background to
share, coming as it does from all over northern Europe – must weld itself into a
cohesive group, by championing the most trite causes they can find. Buddhism (a
charming philosophy) is shaken like a stick by an angry dog. ‘Don’t hurt the
ants’, says someone after I posted a picture of my kitchen covered in the
little creatures. ‘Put down peppermint oil and they’ll go’, says another. Go
where... into the bathroom? Too late anyway, I’d already sprayed them with Matón. ‘I’ll have a word with her’,
posts another, referring to some evident newcomer who did ‘the wrong thing’ in
some public function attracting many hostile Facebook comments in the process. Some
of us émigrés want to criticise the large number of immigrants in their country
of origin, without noticing the irony. I am shown on my regular visits to
Facebook ugly racist propaganda from hate groups, improbable items from fake
news sites and disturbing pictures of mastectomies and twisted bodies: just
type ‘amen’ they say.
Others seek to chastise those
they don’t know who have hurt some animal (I got one today about a fellow who
beat his dog two years ago... in Brazil)! We must be suitably shocked and write
imprecations and insults (and, for some reason, overuse the epithet ‘moron’).
We are introduced into vigilantism. We have become pious and grievous.
Other regular subjects, which
attract an enormous tail of comments, include ‘we really must learn Spanish’,
‘bullfighting is bad’, ‘we’re just guests here’ and ‘would anyone please adopt
a three-legged nine year old dog called Jaws’.
In the old days (just a few
years ago), our waspish criticism of others was hidden by a pen-name, and the
‘forums’ shuddered delicately as we stormed and raged. But now, with our own
name not only prominent on each comment but linked to our home-page, one would
imagine things would be more settled. Kitty pictures and photos of the loved
ones, swimming or posing good-naturedly for the camera. Useful local
information perhaps. A sunrise photograph (well, OK, we’ve seen enough of
those). Yet the ratio of these posts to hostile political attacks, crude jokes,
eviscerated animal photos or endless threads about nothing much in
particular... means that some of us – me
anyway – are spending too much time on Facebook (or, at the very least, I need
to filter out my ‘likes’ and ‘friends’ lists). I arrive at this opinion just as
Movistar calls to say they are upping
my service to fibre-optic and fifty mega per second. Oh boy, I’ll be able to
watch those Facebook videos now!
By the way, ahem, don’t forget to check the Business over Tapas Facebook
page!
This whole business of "like" and "not like" on Facebook reminds me very much of Newspeak in "1984" when something could be considered to be "Doubleplusungood" if not on the approved list. And room 101?
ReplyDelete