I'm Judging You (22 page)

I'm also secretly hoping that they had a talk with someone who told them not to share everything about their love life with thousands of strangers. I actually cross my fingers that they stop giving the whole world a twenty-four-hour key to their house full of dirty laundry. When you leave the door to your heart house open, don't be surprised when people come in and eat all your food. Many a Bleeding Heart have changed their relationship status from “Married” to “Single” in a matter of months or a year, and at that point, you just want them to have a gahtdamb seat, because clearly love is being a haterbish to them and maybe they need to do bad all by themselves for a minute or two.

Don't mind me, though. I subscribe to the “real Gs move in silence like gnus” way of life. I like to keep my personal life sacred and away from the eyes and ears of prying people. I have never had my relationship status on Facebook, and I've been on there for more than ten years. I have never uploaded couples albums, and I certainly have never argued with my beloved there. Why? Because that is hallowed ground for me. My relationship isn't for public consumption, and my heart would not know how to heal properly from hurt in a public way.

When I get married, folks will see pictures of my fly-ass gele on the day of as my Nigerian family dances behind me. People will be all, “I didn't even know Luvvie was engaged.” Damb right, tricks. The wedding will start three hours later than planned, of course, but attendees will forgive me because I will show up looking like a bag of money, and they'll understand that it taking forever to get me looking like that was worth the wait. All will be forgiven. Will I change my Facebook status? Maybe, maybe not. Who's to say? People will ask why I didn't post pictures of my groom, and I'll tell them to mind their business.

You're probably like, “Luvvie, are you saying we should never talk about our relationships on social media?” No, I am not. I'm just saying that when people are invited onto your love train because you've shared every detail, then you're making it community property. For every broadcasted gesture of love, I hope there are two gestures we don't see because they're yours and yours alone.

But you do what you want and keep sharing every detail of your relationship on Facebook, and I'll keep my floss handy, because popcorn gets in my teeth and I like to stay prepared.

 

16. For Shame: Get Some eBehavior

I was loitering on Facebook one night when I got a message from someone I didn't know. He was Nigerian, based on the name, and he rolled into my messages saying, “You are so sexy. Can we have some chat?”

I clicked on his profile, and he had to be about fifty-three at minimum, looking like everyone's slightly greasy uncle. No, sir! We cannot have any chat! I am fresh out of chats, and I checked Amazon and chats are back-ordered until the 32nd of Neverary. Ugh. I bet he sent that message while Aunty was snoring next to him. I reject it and return it to sender, in Father Abraham's name.

Unsolicited messages from random men are an unfortunate rite of passage on social media, and some just make you want to jump in the shower and scrub everything. Nigerian Uncle's message was not the worst I've gotten. At least all he asked for was some chat. Some people will jump straight to vulgar stuff, and then you wonder if they were raised by mannerless wolves.

People lose all semblance of couth and decency on social media, and it makes me want to report them to somebody. Like, where is your mama, and does she know you're being dim online? We are doing ill-advised things online constantly, and I'm judging us for it.

Social-media hookups are not new or novel. It's been a thing since back in the days of AOL when people would be in chat rooms and on Instant Messenger. Countless relationships started with the simple question “A/S/L”—that's “age, sex, location,” for anyone who doesn't know because they were too young (or old) to ever partake in those games. Millions of people have met their husbands, wives, concubines, and future restraining-order recipients on social networks. It makes sense for people to troll these platforms for love. You gotta keep your eyes peeled for the next person who will spoon you.

However, you gotta know how to make the magic happen and not be a creep while doing it. There's a thin line between receiving a straightforward indication of someone's intentions and filing a police report on the stranger who makes you feel in danger from behind a computer screen. Ultimately, if your behavior would make your mom frown, think twice. I'm side-eyeing all those people who have turned every social network into their Tinder.

You know what gives me the heebie-jeebies anytime someone does it? Poking me on Facebook. I have been on Facebook since forever, when profiles were one page and you couldn't upload albums. I've watched the site evolve and grow and seen features come and go. One feature that just will not die in the hail of blistering fire it deserves is the poke. They have gotten rid of things like Facebook Gifts, but they choose to keep this poke thing, which is now the spider monkey that will not let go of our eAnkles. It is a boil on all our asses.

The Facebook poke is the never-defined, always-creepy ability to virtually tap on someone's shoulder or poke them in the who-knows-where-you-want-to-imagine. Mark Zuckerberg and his team of evil world dominators refuse to really answer as to what it's for, but that doesn't even matter, because it has taken on its own definition. To poke someone on Facebook is to randomly try to get their attention to flirt. It's a virtual wink, and like winks, the person who sends one your way makes all the difference in the world.

If the poke comes from one of your friends, this might be their way of playfully annoying you. That's cool. But if the poke is from a dude, especially one who is not currently poking you in real life, then it's gross. Fortunately, I have smart friends, so they never poke me. The creeps who do are always dudes I don't know at all, and I cannot deal. I am UNABLE TO CAN
18
with their lack of decorum.

This is not a valid way to express romantic interest. If you're crushing on or interested in someone, and your way of letting them know is through a Facebook poke, you're wack and you have no game. If I wanted to be poked by random strangers, I'd go to a crowded reggae club and walk to the bar, where several bambaclaat will act like they “accidentally” grazed my ass with their fingers. No, thank you! Very few love stories begin with “One day he poked me on Facebook.” VERY FEW! And if they did, I want to pull the person to the side and ask how hard he apologized for his error.

That poke is only made creepier when the person who does it has “Married” on their Facebook profile. Have you no shame? This is the gift and curse of our access to people's private information. I will never get over how people who are seemingly in serious monogamous relationships are trolling social media for sex. Folks are creating digital harems for themselves, setting up profiles to be cheating dogs.

The point of some people's entire digital lives is to procure ass. It's like they see every new online connection as potential for a new nether connection. I realized this when I started getting people flirting with me on LinkedIn, of all places. That is the most chaste and dry of social networks. Everyone is in their all-white button-downs and blazers, looking like the uptight, hyperserious people they are not. There is little cleavage and no six packs to be seen on LinkedIn, our electronic résumé. This is the platform where instead of lying about our vacations, we're lying about how many words we can type a minute. And we've massaged our positions to sound like they're management-level instead of entry. What part of that place says “Date me”?

No part, that's what.

So how do people still muster up the nerve to try to solicit you there? How?
Is nowhere safe?
Flirting on LinkedIn is like walking into a meeting in the office conference room and asking your coworker to a romantic dinner. If you like them, you better do it after hours and not in that environment.

“Hey. I like you. Let's chat.” Look. I like caramel candy, but it gets stuck in my teeth. I'm not sure what liking someone has to do with the price of hot chocolate in Thailand. No, scrub! I don't want your number. No, I don't wanna give you mine. One of my friends had someone send her a dick pic on LinkedIn. She said he was an adult film star, so I told her that maybe he was just sending that as his résumé. Too bad she wasn't hiring. Your romantic LinkedIn message makes me want to spray my computer with Raid, and then it shuts down and I have to restart it. Rude.

Speaking of inappropriate venues, now that selfies are major and we cannot help but turn our cameras to ourselves, folks gotta learn how to behave accordingly. Selfies are not acceptable everywhere. You know what places you should probably not make about your face? A memorial for Holocaust victims, or a former slave plantation, or in front of a burning building, or a funeral. Step away from Maw Maw's casket, fool. Anywhere that is the location of a tragedy or is supposed to honor and remember the dead is a place where you should refrain from taking selfies. Go show your revolutionary self-love or impressive and tone-deaf narcissism elsewhere.

In fact, how people deal with death on social media in general is often insensitive and crass. We are all armed with smartphones, so now we're able to capture footage of everything. Our days are documented and so are our joys and struggles. I scroll through my feeds sometimes, mad as hell that folks are so callous about images of death, treating it like any other thing they just hit “Share” on. I have seen one too many dead bodies or heads blown off without warning on my social media, and it is never anything less than jarring. It is an immediate day-ruiner. People might be sharing a news story, but the featured image is of a lifeless body. First of all, I do not understand how media outlets feel okay making the main image for a story the dead subject's body. That is crude and wholly unnecessary. Then people, of course, pass the story on. I've seen pictures of bodies piled on top of each other after a stampede that killed hundreds. It showed up on my timeline under a picture of one of my friends' newborn babies, and I was just not ready. I've seen auto-play videos of shootings where before you can look away, you've seen someone's blood spilling as they hit the ground.

When called out for their insensitivity, people will often say they want others to feel the pain of the families who have to deal with such loss, with their brothers and sisters being killed. Why should we have to see the lifeless bodies of people before we can come up with empathy? If we need to see blood run from people's skulls to be affected by their deaths, then we are monsters. Even in our outrage, it is a spectacle.

Everyone grieves differently, and we all deal with death on our own terms. However, some are taking to social media to expose people on their deathbeds or in their last resting places. Sharing videos of dying strangers is one (hideous) thing, but some people will go against the conventions of common decency and pass along videos of their loved ones taking their last breaths on Facebook or Instagram. Misery loves company, but personal trauma should not be such a tangible shared experience.

I've seen folks break tragic personal news to their loved ones on social media. No one deserves to find out that their cousin/sister/son/nephew/grandparent died via a Facebook status. Can people ensure that families have been told before dropping their eulogies? I've seen this happen, and it is always traumatizing to whoever discovers the news this way. It's a double whammy. We're living in the culture of FIRST, but certain things should be treated delicately, even if it's slower.

The only thing that spreads faster than death online is hate and trolls. The Internet is full of people whose lives are so miserable that they want to make sure they play a part in other people's gloom. This is why I am convinced that hell is an eternity spent in the comments section of many websites (especially YouTube and Reddit). People find the strength when seated behind a computer to spew the most vile, disgusting things they can think of. Keyboard courage is indeed real, and the hateful dirt bucket behind the computer screen is often some lonely person living in their mama's basement, scratching their ass, and lacking vitamin D because they refuse to go outside.

From the thumb thuggery to the creeps to the inappropriate selfie-lovers, everyone needs to have a gahtdamb seat from time to time and check their behavior. If it'll make their mom frown and if it shames their family name, they should think twice.

 

17. Dumbed-Down News

I was on Twitter the night of January 12, 2010, when a massive earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Hours before news of it broke on television, I was reading about it via the Twitter account of a man named Richard, who ran a hotel that was in the middle of the city, but was still standing amidst the rubble. There was no electricity and according to him, they were using flashlights, candles, and anything else they could find to see. I kept on refreshing Richard's timeline, thirsty for updates, because as I listened to the news, nothing I was hearing was as compelling as his tweets. He was
in
the disturbance, and he informed us at the moments there were aftershocks. People were tweeting at him to see if he somehow had news of their loved ones, and he responded as well as he could. My friend's husband happened to be in Port-au-Prince doing some reporting, and when this news hit, she was incredibly worried because she didn't know his whereabouts. But he was staying at the hotel that Richard managed! So she sent a tweet to him and asked if he had met a man named James (not his real name). She described her hubby and waited.

She got a response from Richard the next morning, a couple of hours after sending the tweet. He told her that he had been with her husband earlier and he had gone back out to do what journalists do, report. It was the first time I cried over a tweet. I was so happy for her! It was like that good news was for me. If any moment could capture the power of social media to send us information and news right when we need it, that was it.