How I Survived This Election Season

In a few days, our national nightmare of this election season will be over, hopefully with the results I want both nationally and locally, but regardless, Election Day will come and go.

I remember thinking at the beginning of this year, during the earliest parts of the Republican primary, that I might not survive it. It wasn't just that there were swaths of sentient adults strongly considering such dim bulbs as Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, among others -- it was that immediately, there was no way to talk about it on Facebook without it getting testy very quickly.

I would "Like" an article, or update my Facebook status and suddenly, there'd be six to ten comments not just disagreeing with me but doing so in a way that begged a fight. Or, I'd comment on something a friend of mine write or shared, and the same results would ensue.

It's worth noting that I have friends on both sides of the political aisle, something that I think reflects positively on me. And some of them are as passionate about their views as I am about mine. But their comments started repeating a few themes:

1. Matt, STOP talking about Point A. 

2. Matt, START talking instead about Point B that I want YOU to address now, even if it's relationship to Point A is tangential at best.

There were also two, basic results - again, this was still back in FEBRUARY.

1. Yelling

2. No change in opinion for either side

It's not a relevant photo. I just like it.

In 2008, I remember this of course, but it seemed so much more aggressive, and escalated so much faster ... that in itself is a post for another time. 

But more than anything, the reaction just irked me. Who were these friends of mine to tell ME what to write about on my own Facebook wall? Who were they to tell me what not to write about? If they don't like it, dont' comment, right? 

And yet ... part of this was me writing comments on their posts. And then, what is probably obvious to everyone else but somehow wasn't to me, a realization came to me:

My Facebook wall is my friends News Feed.   Read more, if you are interested. 

Let me repeat that in a slightly different way - on Facebook, "your" Status isn't your own. It's something you are forcing onto everyone else's News Feed. 

Here's the thing - if you are friends with someone in real life, and you both use Facebook at all, it's kind of impossible not to be friends on Facebook. And unless you really want to spend some time tweaking settings (which I've done, see below), you're going to see all of your friends updates in your own News Feed, whether you want to or not.

When I share an article about Mitt Romney hiding his wealth offshore, or not paying taxes, or just generally being a robotic, often cruel douchebag, I am essentially shoving an article under all of my Facebook friends faces, if not forcing them to read it then to see (via the headline) what I'm reading and thinking about, especially if I add a supportive comment with the article. 

I know more than a few folks who have essentially quit Facebook over this. But ... I like Facebook. So, I did a few things instead.

First, I decided to simply stop posting about politics whatsoever on Facebook. This also created an opening in that I decided I could add friends from work to Facebook, something I resisted before as politics and work don't mesh and I didn't want to create any awkwardness in that regard. 

I then created a Friends List that I put all of the folks who I disagree with politically into -- even if I knew these folks didn't really post about politics, I put them there so even when they "Like" Glenn Beck I don't feel compelled to respond.  I hid this entire group from MY News Feed. 

I stopped auto-posting everything that I write on this blog to Facebook (though little did I know that I would just stop writing here almost entirely). 

And ... it was FINE. 

On Twitter, I held no such reservations - anyone who Follows me there either enjoys it or Unfollows me - there's no compulsion to be Twitter friends with real-life friends like there is on Facebook. Sure, I've had a few arguments on Twitter, but with perhaps only one exception these were with folks I have ZERO real relationship with. If and when we cease talking forever, it changes nothing. That's not productive, to be sure, but it's not jeopardizing any relationship I genuinely value. 

Paul Ryan's smirk here is what gets me.

There are some longer term impacts to this, at least for me. 

Facebook ... is not nearly as interesting as it potentially could be. Mostly now, I read about people's kids or about sports, and politics from Facebook Pages that I like (which I don't share, natch) and some of my similarly minded friends. In short, it's much like being at a party or in a bar with those friends. Which is fine.

I actually use Twitter - it's where I actually look first when I'm trying to find out news. If I stopped using Twitter I would have to replace what I get from it elsewhere such as Google News or CNN. There's nothing to replace Facebook, it's just something I'll visit less regularly and use far less frequently. 

I doubt I'm alone here.