elitism

“The belief that one’s social group is superior to another group.”

I think that pretty much sums it up. (thanks urbandictionary!)

Elitism is when you believe your group is socially better than another group. Elitism is saying, “Oh, I don’t use Facebook, because I am not a commoner. Muahaha.” *pinky finger* I kind of love Elitism, just because it is such a ridiculous idea…and I kind of love ridiculous ideas, because they make me laugh.

So. This morning I was visiting an online mother’s group I frequent, and I had the pleasure of reading an expose` on why some lady quit Facebook.

Not only did she quit Facebook, but she posted it onto this online forum to tell other people about it. Which…she could have just done on facebook. If she hadn’t deactivated her account. On Facebook.

Here’s the thing: No one cares if you quit facebook. You might care, but I don’t care. For the most part, whether or not someone is on facebook is only relevant to that person…and maybe some people they are close friends with who will think, “Why isn’t Becka on facebook anymore? Did she block me? Oh, she quit facebook. Well, that sounds like something Becka would do.”

Pretty much end of story after that. The world will keep spinning, there will continue to be cat gifs shared, and any of us on Facebook…will just continue doing Facebooky things.

Like.

Moral Disclaimer: Facebook isn’t for everyone. I have friends who are on it all the time, I have friends who just have an account but are never on. I text them to let them know if I have pictures of the kids up, but otherwise it is their business how involved they feel comfortable being on Facebook. I personally like it, because it is so much easier posting pictures and updates on Facebook than emailing it out to a bunch of people; especially when there are sensitive friends who don’t want their email to be looped into a huge group mail. Facebook keeps things anonymous for those who prefer anonymity, and transparency for those who are okay with transparency. Everyone has their own limits, and it is important to respect those limits.

Ask your doctor if Facebook is right for you.

As I was saying…

What I think is stupid is having puerile “OMG I QUIT FACEBOOK YOU GUYS!” posts. Online. In forums. That are just like Facebook. (but whatever)

Oh No. What are we going to do.

What is hilarious to me are the reasons why people quit Facebook.  How about we go through these reasons together?

Here we go!

1) You have more time for so much other stuff!

Like WHAT?? Laundry?? Cleaning?? Watching the grass grow??

Unless you are working on a doctoral thesis and need to seriously hunker down to get it finished, or if you are in the middle of childbirth, or if you are trapped in a volcano…what other stuff do you now have time for, that the Facebook app was getting in the way?

The reality is, it is just another app on your phone. You could always, oh I don’t know, have self-discipline and just not check Facebook every two minutes.  You could do that. Instead of freaking out and deleting everything because you can’t balance having an app on your phone and making sandwiches, all in the same day.

You could always do that.

2) You suck as a friend:

“I deactivated mine last night! I’m just so tired of being constantly connected to people I only kind of like.“

I’m just going to go out on a limb and say no one noticed that you quit. Except that now they have 60% fewer snarky remarks on their photos, for some reason.

Since you have so much time on your hands now, maybe you can devote it to reading a book on Kindness and Empathy. Because liking people is awesome, even people you kind of know. You should try it.

3) You are perfectly happy in your little bubble. Consisting of: You.

I can’t even make this up. I found this on Elite Daily.com

“The vast majority of my Facebook friends are not actual friends, but people who I’ll never see again (or at least hope to never see again). Mostly, they are acquaintances of real friends, and nothing against them, I just don’t care to see what they’re doing.

My feelings culminated one day as I was scrolling my newsfeed for any semblance of intelligence, when a rather long and emotionally charged post punched me in the gut. The poster was a woman — one whom I never met.  Maybe I met her once; I was drunk and can’t remember…”

This guy is such a winner, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t like Facebook.

Oh yeah, maybe it is because he is the last intelligent person on the face of the earth. Thank goodness for him! And his online posts about quitting Facebook! That we can post onto Facebook!

He concluded his online post about how much he hates Facebook with this nugget of wisdom:

“The next time you’re about to put something on Facebook, don’t.”

Thanks Rudolpho Sanchez in Generation Y!

4) The concept of “community” and “social awareness” is a new concept to you

Jeannie Kim, from Health.com, had these personal revelations to share with us after she quit Facebook:

“Yes, I missed a bunch of birthdays, and yes, I would have missed the news of a former coworker’s engagement if another friend hadn’t seen the post and clued me in (thanks, Camille!). But to my surprise, even from day 1 of my fast, I didn’t feel like I was truly missing out on anything… 

What I wasn’t getting: constant updates about the awesome vacations people were taking (making me feel like a boring homebody), or the amazing educational activities they’d planned for their kids (making me feel like a slacker mom), or the IMPORTANT POLITICAL THING WE SHOULD ALL TAKE ACTION ON NOW that inevitably devolved into a nasty name-calling flame war (making me feel tired). I didn’t miss any of that at all.”

This is some hardcore psychology I’m gonna drop on you, Jeannie:

It is a mature and balanced person who can be happy for your friend’s successes, find joy in other’s accomplishments, and are interested in social/enviro/political awareness campaigns in order to make the world a better place, together.

What is not a mature and balanced perspective is seeing your friends’ accomplishments and only being about to think about yourself.

Seeing the primal, basic joy that a parent has when they watch their kids participate in something great, and foolishly only being able to think of yourself.

Or, reading a call-to-arms to promote awareness in the world in order to help people around us, and only thinking about what a burden it is for you to have to read the headline.

Listen, I’ll post on Facebook some articles I have read about what it means to be a decent human being…..OH, but you’re not there. That’s a shame.

5) You think you don’t matter to people

This is the worst reason, and it is a BIG FAT LIE. Sure, maybe if you have 975 friends, 920 of them don’t care what your new shoes look like. I think that is a reasonable claim.

However, if you believe that what you do doesn’t matter, then you are believing the worst lie in the history of mankind. Men’s Journal had this huge long list of reasons why everyone should quit facebook, along with points like “it ruins your health and you are going to die omg!” (not joking…it’s on there). But they also had this terrible, horrible, no-good comment:

“Nothing You Post Actually Matters
Very few people care what you’re doing, whom you’re with, where you’re eating, or what you just bought, and the people who do were probably right next to you when you did it. “

I care about my friends on Facebook, and I like to see who they’re with, what they’re eating, what they just bought and other such things that are important to them.  Because I like them, and that’s what friends do. We are interested in what happens in our lives, and we are interested in each other’s ideas, and we genuinely want to see our friends happy, well fed and surrounded by people who love them, doing things that makes them happy.

Most of my best friends don’t live near me, and I am always excited to see what their kids are doing, pictures their daughters draw for them, flowers their sons bring to them while playing in the backyard, little kids in floaties at the pool, friends on dates with their husbands, vacation pictures, call-to-arms for prayer….

We are all in this together.

That is the point of Facebook. It is to allow us to be together, when we are physically too far apart.

So, go Like someone’s page today. Because they matter, and you matter 🙂 Don’t be a quitter…be a friend.