If It's on Facebook, It Must Be True

Perhaps like many people, for quite sometime, I have begun my day with a quick scouring of my Facebook newsfeed for what I may have missed during my 8 restful hours of sleep.  Admittedly, it's where I pick up much of my morning news.  Which celebrities died. What adorable things cats are up to. What weird thing the Donald said this time.  You know, the important information we all need to know to properly start our days. 

I tend to scroll through liking stuff - pictures of kids holding up certificates for being awesome, quotes about "strength" in the face of life's challenges, pretty much any post with a cat (I have a thing for cats). And of course I post tons of pictures of my little munchkin dancing and being her generally cute self. I do this among the community of sharing that social media has created.

And with my posts, I rarely ever stop to ask myself "has Facebook had enough of my kid's dance moves today?"  Two reasons: 1) Who could really ever get enough of her? I mean, come on, she's freaking adorable; and 2) If you don't like it and I've somehow offended your newsfeed with #annabanana overkill, you can avoid my posts (and if you don't know how, I'm not telling...you will suffer through another cute picture of my kid like my 5000 other Facebook BFFs - ->inject evil laugh here)

Well, I have recently decided that I need a Facebook break, personally.  There is nothing to read into here.  I just need to step out for a moment.  I realize I created a great stir with changing my name on my personal page.  Some people reached out to find out why and the answer is simple, it's my personal page and I want to keep it separate from my public pages.  That's all.  

So knowing that the Social Media world is abuzz (maybe not the whole world, but a couple people seem very interested) with my name change controversy, I decided to explain why I'm stepping back from the personal page a bit.  Shocker alert - not everyone on my Facebook friend list is actually a friend. I've just decided it's time to be more mindful of my personal posts which are shared among a large number of contacts - family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Not everyone really knows me or gets me.

Clearly, I live much of my life out loud.  Like it or not, that's just who I am.  I'm not apologizing.  But I do recognize that if you don't live in my house or my brain, some of my posts may generate speculation about what I actually mean . Why would I post a certain photo or quote? Why did I change my profile or cover photo?  There's probably no hidden agenda at all.  I like to switch stuff up.

Here's a question: why does anyone care?  Seriously.  I'm not posing this question to be mean or snarky.  Why should a Facebook friend of a friend of a friend who I met one time at the friend of a friend's backyard BBQ 3 years ago where we hit it off about whatever care about how many selfies I post of my kid and me?  Why should she wonder what's going on in my home life based on a hashtag I may have used or a quote I shared?

And here's the thing: she doesn't really care.  She's not concerned about my life in the least.  If she was, she would reach out and say "hey, I hope everything is ok. Saw you changed your name on FB" with a winky face and kissy face emojis - as many friends actually did. (And I probably disappointed a great many when I explained that I was uncomfortable getting friend requests from total strangers.) 

My Facebook friend of a friend of a friend I met at the friend of a friend's backyard BBQ 3 years ago cares about herself and her family and maybe her very few close friends. That's it. What makes my posts so intriguing is that social media allows us to see into the lives of people we really don't know and compare our own lives..  "Wow, so and so is getting chunky!" "Did you see how amazing so and so looks?" "Looks like trouble in paradise for so and so..."  "Did you hear what happened to so and so? How awful." 

We are voyeurs, spying on other people, comparing ourselves, feeling good that whatever happened to them didn't happen to us, feeling badly about ourselves that so and so can still look so freaking amazing after having a litter of kids (you know who you are, you sexy bitch!), feeling anxious that our good friends are supporting this one or that one in the Presidential race, feeling envious of so and so's "perfect" life, family and dog.  Actually, it's not really spying -we're all sharing aspects of our lives with people we probably would never have either the interest or ability to interact with in "regular life." 

I share my blog posts because I know how it feels to believe I'm the only jerk out there with certain feelings, insecurities, passions, or fears. There is a cathartic effect to sharing in this way that I appreciate and I do hope what I share is meaningful to those of you who read it.  Perhaps to some of you, my posts are a great source for gossip.  If I'm being truly honest, that hurts, but hey, I'm the idiot with a blog so knock yourselves out.  

For all my criticism of Facebook and the folks hanging out there, I am an admitted addict and voyeur. I do love being able to tune in and see the amazing things people are doing and their kids are doing.  I love baby goat videos and cat videos and pretty much anything Taylor Swift does (or her cats for that matter). I love that so many people in my social network have been able to re-create their professional lives with direct sales and social media marketing.  That is remarkable.  I also love that my first book, Trinity became an Amazon best seller through the power of social media - and fingers crossed, we can get Queen Makers there too (did you pre-order your Kindle edition???) And I love that we have broader awareness of social issues and opportunities to give to charities and to help others with Go Fund Me drives and the like.  

This is a tough decision for me.  While I have my Facebook friend twice removed probably texting gossip about the true intentions of my posts on one hand, I have all these great benefits of social media on the other.  Despite all the pros though, I'm still going to take a break - just a breather to spend more time building my public pages.  Given the volume of cute kids, cats and goats in your newsfeed, I doubt you'll miss me all that much. Be sure to tune in and follow my "Lauren D. Fraser" author page, my "Trinity of Kirana" page and of course "Full Court Mom" page. I'll still overshare, don't worry. 

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