FaceBook Offends Me – Report It

 

If you are somehow stuck on Facebook and have found yourself to be offended, read this not-so-quick emergency guide for how to solve this tragic problem.

GTFO

There is only one sure-fire way to guarantee you won’t ever be offended on Facebook.

Log off.

If you are unclear on how to do that, please just walk away.

Yes, that is the only sure-fire way to avoid being offended on the internet. And while you are logged off, how about you go do something about those things on the internet that offended you so much?

Who Gets Offended by Stuff on the Internet?

I could sit here and list certain groups of people who I think usually get offended, at least in my experience, such as religious people, overly sensitive people and people who have experienced ‘bad things’ in life. But I think it goes beyond any of those group labels, and actually is far more related to a person’s individual character. So who are these characters?

Self-Centered People

self-cen·tered  [self-sen-terd]

• Concerned solely or chiefly with one’s own interests, welfare, etc.; engrossed in self; selfish; egotistical.

“Surely you jest,” the self-centered are now thinking.  “Just because I am willing to protest offensive internet material does not mean I am self-centered, it means the opposite! It means I care too much!”  Bullshit. It only means that somewhere in your narcissistic little head, that you think, hell, sometimes even expect, that something should be altered for the sake of little ole’ you.

The Internet Doesn’t Care What You Think

Try as hard as you can to remember that ‘The Internet” :

• Is not a ‘person’
• Does not have a sensitivity filter
• Is not solely for you to use
• Is not out to get you
• Does not have its own conscious thought or free-will

It’s is little more than a giant trashcan at the bottom of a series of tubes and pipes.

Quit Being so Offended by Updates

All of those changes and updates and things you’ve been bitching about have also included a myriad of ways to hide a single post, hide three different levels of post from any given users based on an importance rating, and clicking these options all takes one single click. To report, it takes a minimum of four.

But Someone Posted a Picture of Domestic Abuse / A Sad Puppy / A Cross Eyed Person / A Nipple / An Erroneous Comment on Their Wall Where I Could See It!

Yes, so why is it up to you again to complain about it? To judge a friend, Facebook or Face to Face type? It really isn’t. I have seen this type of crap posted before on some lame ass Facebook status or another so here is my version, and the answer to your question.

While you were busy reporting the picture of a woman being punched in the face on a meme, a woman who has been domestically abused is getting a good laugh at it, it is helping her to cope in her own way, with those terrible memories. It also reminds her how dangerous that situation is. Shedding the terrible, replacing sad memories with laughter, even if only for a moment. Somehow she made it through all that without being as whiny and overly sensitive as you. While you were upset and reporting someone making fun of a cross-eyed kid, you had no idea that the cross-eyed kid himself posted it originally because he handles the bullshit life gives him by facing it head on. While you got upset over a nipple slip on your wall, you didn’t bother to learn shit about that girl who posted a sliver of her nipple on her own Facebook wall and realize that she was posting what her ‘new’ nipples look like now that cancer and a double-mastectomy took both of the original tata’s and now that she has her pride and dignity back, she wants to share with her friends how great of a job the tattoo artist did creating her new nipples.

All true stories from people I have known that have been reported or harassed on Facebook by the offended.

Better Yet! If you don’t mind all that clickin’, click your ass on over to Change.org orCare2.com and whip up a petition protesting some intolerable event of domestic abuse in your city or state. You don’t even have to literally stand up to do that. Or, you could get off your ass and go volunteer some time actually talking to a victim. While you are there, ask that person if they think any of your complaints of offense, or rabid report clicking ever stopped a punch to their face. Ask them if you ‘making a stand’ on a social network ever helped any of them get out of a bad situation. Oh? But your intolerance of a picture or a comment on the internet is, ‘making a stand?’ No it isn’t. Making an actual stand against something, means actually standing up and being pro-active for a cause. Doing something non self-centered about something that offends you could include:

• Rescue one of those sad dogs you rage about being mistreated
• Extend yourself, if you see someone genuinely in need, don’t just get offended about it, help them with a solution, or at least make an effort
• Maybe you have an extra five bucks, why don’t you click on over to your bank account and donate $5 dollars to a foundation that will help women recovering from breast cancer
• Talk kindly to the kid who is cursing up a storm on Facebook at 4am, instead of just making him more miserable by taking his only obvious babysitter away for a couple of days.

All of the other shit, your questionable judgement, morals, misgivings, obvious ignorance, and ouchy places that leave you in an offended clicking and commenting frenzy, should probably just be stored in your closet full of skeletons before you consider logging on to Facebook anyway.