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Despite my regular presence as a blogger, I rarely check facebook unless I'm trying to contact someone and am not sure of their current e-mail address. It's my rolodex, basically, and otherwise uninteresting to me, which also means I'm generous in defining "friend" as anyone I might plausibly want to contact sometime in the next 10 years. But maybe once a month I'll be in a social mood and will check in, maybe post a link, scan the 20 most recent status updates, and perhaps discover that someone I know is up to something interesting I hadn't heard about, and I can be pleased for them.*
Today, I did this, and one of those 20 most recent status updates spoiled the ending of a movie that came out a few days ago, which I haven't seen yet but plan to see this weekend. Not in the course of a discussion, not thoughtlessly, but deliberately, out of the blue. "[five-word-solution of mystery]. Bam! Movie spolied." Needless to say, this person was not a filmmaker. Needless to say, this person has been defriended. Another commenter had already replied "thanks for ruining my weekend," and that didn't compel this person to take the status update down, so I can't even stretch benefit of the doubt to say "I'm sure she was just excited to have come up with this clever wording and didn't think about how it would affect other people."
I'm not someone who has to be surprised by an ending to like a movie, as evidenced by the fact that I'll watch the same film over and over again without diminishing interest. I generally prefer films on the second or third viewing, and if I don't I start to question how good they are. So although I'm sad now, and something has been taken away from me, what I'm more upset by is the act of intellectual aggression. Let's all spit gum into strangers' hair when we ride the bus. Let me piss on your indoor houseplant next time I'm over. It'll be funny and clever.
I don't understand how to have a society. 300 people can be kind, but all that's going to matter is the one inexplicable nasty one. I wish I could find a way for social behavior to have more power than antisocial behavior, but I can't work it out. I'm trying; my profession is to try to change the way people act and think. But I'm afraid that I need to be either smarter or dumber.
* I have never understood and will never understand animosity toward Christmas letters**, and the accusation that they rub your face in how wonderful everybody's life is, and make an egotistical assumption that someone else might like to know you're alive. Rather, I understand the animosity, but I think the people who feel it must be meager people. With the exception of, say, unrepentant mass murderers, I'm delighted to hear that anyone at all is doing well.
** I do mean in general, as a genre. Individual letters may very well be awful, and frequently are.
Today, I did this, and one of those 20 most recent status updates spoiled the ending of a movie that came out a few days ago, which I haven't seen yet but plan to see this weekend. Not in the course of a discussion, not thoughtlessly, but deliberately, out of the blue. "[five-word-solution of mystery]. Bam! Movie spolied." Needless to say, this person was not a filmmaker. Needless to say, this person has been defriended. Another commenter had already replied "thanks for ruining my weekend," and that didn't compel this person to take the status update down, so I can't even stretch benefit of the doubt to say "I'm sure she was just excited to have come up with this clever wording and didn't think about how it would affect other people."
I'm not someone who has to be surprised by an ending to like a movie, as evidenced by the fact that I'll watch the same film over and over again without diminishing interest. I generally prefer films on the second or third viewing, and if I don't I start to question how good they are. So although I'm sad now, and something has been taken away from me, what I'm more upset by is the act of intellectual aggression. Let's all spit gum into strangers' hair when we ride the bus. Let me piss on your indoor houseplant next time I'm over. It'll be funny and clever.
I don't understand how to have a society. 300 people can be kind, but all that's going to matter is the one inexplicable nasty one. I wish I could find a way for social behavior to have more power than antisocial behavior, but I can't work it out. I'm trying; my profession is to try to change the way people act and think. But I'm afraid that I need to be either smarter or dumber.
* I have never understood and will never understand animosity toward Christmas letters**, and the accusation that they rub your face in how wonderful everybody's life is, and make an egotistical assumption that someone else might like to know you're alive. Rather, I understand the animosity, but I think the people who feel it must be meager people. With the exception of, say, unrepentant mass murderers, I'm delighted to hear that anyone at all is doing well.
** I do mean in general, as a genre. Individual letters may very well be awful, and frequently are.
