Welcome Facebook Friends

We don’t have the time to rehash why Facebook has descended into a looping cycle of pet obituaries (“Here’s a photo of my beloved pet, but I’m going to wait until the second paragraph to mention that we had to put him down last night for Ferengi Ear Polyps, so you probably just hit Like or Heart when you saw a dog photo and if you’re lucky, you went back and changed that thumbs-up to a sad emoji, but more than likely, you just Liked a dead dog and moved on because that’s how much mental thought goes into most reactions”), generational grievances (“the generation I was born into is superior to the generation you were born into and everything we liked and did and said and drove and listened to was perfect and everything else sucks and I feel better believing I’m part of some sort of exclusive group because my birthday falls between two brackets, but in truth, I did nothing for my inclusion into whatever generation I claim but somehow find undeserved pride by my association with it, and now I will complain about young people’s clothing choices, their music, and their technology”), and an endless parade a shitty AI generated images, fake quotes, disinformation, misattributed statements because someone saw “Neil deGrasse Tyson” as the name and didn’t take the 2 seconds to check if it is, in fact, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and, of course, those ominous “Facebook For One” posts where someone types I’M SO DONE. I HATE EVERYTHING and everyone has to jump into the comment section to see if the person is watching football or broadcasting suicidal ideation and you can’t tell because nuance isn’t allowed on Meta platforms. In short (In long? Is that a thing?), Facebook is a shit show held inside a burning dumpster floating on a river of gullibility heading toward a waterfall of propaganda. You know, if you’re into visual metaphors.

Long story, long: I’m publishing on Substack now. Yes, I’m giving up my several thousand followers and friends, but at least I’m won’t seethe with rage over every ridiculously gullible AI post or bigoted rant by some goateed dude in wraparound sunglasses in his truck cab. Frankly, that site has been a silly place since 2015 and it’s just gotten worse. No, I’m not mad. No, I don’t hate anyone. I’m just done with whatever it’s become. So, if you’re here because you saw a link in my Facebook feed, welcome. Despite Substack trying desperately to make me charge you for my posts, I don’t plan on charging for this newsletter. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m a big fan of the free exchange of idea. So, sign up and you’ll get an email of the things I post, or you can come here instead.