Because There's Not Enough Shit to Argue About

The polarization of America continues to astound and sadden me.

Wait. What?

Liberal and conservative?

Black and white?

Christian and Atheist?

No no no.

None of that.

The Really important chasm-

Facebook and Twitter.

Lemme tell you- I was loathe to even look at either one.

I mean, seriously. Just the names were so weird, so frivolous, so inane that it hurt my brain just to think about it.

(Said the BLOGGER).

(To be fair- I didn't blog in forever, either. On accounta the idiotic name of the media and all).

But one day, someone said, "Hey! I've put a link up for your book on my Facebook wall!" and I was duty bound to join Facebook for the express reason of thanking them, and mayhaps doing a tad of marketing of my own there.

And here's what I found out.

While I was hopping back and forth into and out of 3 different discussion forums keeping up with online friends, all those people AND OTHERS were right in the world of Facebook- on one page. I've found old friends from high school (who I actually DO want to keep up with) and have talked more to my brother since joining Facebook than we have the entire rest of our lives.

I "like" all my news source Facebook pages and get friends' updates and news all day long...in one place.

Along with funny photos of puppies and whatnot.

Eventually I put up my own author page and am using Facebook ads as well.

Then...

...Someone said, "You should totally Twitter- it's an awesome networking tool".

Jeebus.

I asked people on Facebook what they thought of Twitter. The general consensus was that Twitter is for those who want to follow celebrities or people who THINK they have celebrity status. One comment was something like, "If you want to know the last time Brittany took a shit- join Twitter".

So I looked at Twitter and signed up for it. For the networking aspect of it, not the poop-tracking aspect.

Now, because of its format, Twitter is by force more streamlined, more concise. Where Facebook WANTS you to elaborate-

"How's it going, Sheri?" pops up in my status bar.

"Who are you with?" "Add photo" "Check in" are all prompts designed to make me put MORE stuff on my wall.

Twitter? 140 characters. That's it. Including any categorizing (#HASHTAG).

While I do have friends and family on Twitter, there is no "Here's a photo of my awesome food" to be seen, and little to no idle chitchat. Twitter is all business.

Or snark.

Twitter loves it some snark.

It's amazing how cleverly sarcastically bitingly bitchy some people can be in 140 characters or less.

And a big amount of that is aimed at...

PEOPLE WHO USE FACEBOOK

(An actual Twitter comment)- "One is a whiny online diary and the other a light-speed news source"

So I've gotta wonder, what the hell?

They're tools. You don't use a screwdriver to do a hammer's work (OK- that one time but that doesn't count) but you need 'em both to properly build stuff.

Why does one have to be 'good' and the other 'bad'?

I like Facebook for the sharing and communicating I can do with actual people in my life along with some newsy stuff and funny stuff

and I like Twitter for scrolling down thru news stuff- a few words to gimme an idea of what it's about and the link to the article if my interest has been piqued. Simple and awesome.

Also for being cleverly sarcastically bitingly bitchy.

So, even at my advanced age I'm fully engaged with social media. See?

Wait. What?

What the hell's a 'pinterest'.

Shit.