Facebook and the Problems it Allows

This will be one of those posts where I talk shit about people I'm supposed to respect. Deal with it.

It's no secret that there is a very serious religious divide on the maternal side of my family. One group is full fledged fundamentalist Christians (they make Jerry Falwell look like a reasonable, concerned citizen) and the other is a mixed group consisting of athiests, catholics, agnostic, and a lone Episcopalian (me!). As I'm sure you can imagine, the fundies just love to spread their "message" in a number of given ways. Unfortunately those fundies who are related to me take the more "aggressive-shove-it-down-your-throat-fire-and-brimstone-will-make-my-point-even-at-the-most-inappropriate-and-unneccessary-moments" approach (that's a technical term, by the way).

This behavior has found its way to Facebook, which was previously a haven for college kids to post random shit about themselves and leave mindless notes for friends to giggle about. Since Facebook has caught on and it's now open to "no network" users, it's a free for all resulting in even certain members of my family joining and using it for unpleasant purposes.

Normally I wouldn't care about people joining websites and using them, it's not my business at all, but some people are using it as an opportunity to facebook-stalk and use aggressive language about religious ideas toward other people. Plus these are the very same people who only a few years ago were preaching to me about teens and young people joining "dangerous" networking sites that promote "secular" ideas. Now they're on MySpace, Facebook, and whatever else...I can only guess that the difference is that recently their pastors have told them these sites can be used to evangelize while before the sites were only useful to people with non-Christian or evil motives (i.e. pedophiles).

Facebook used to be fun, now it's becoming a tool for anger and resentment. I'm completely addicted to the site though and, because it's almost ubiquitous for members of my generation, it's really the only viable means we have to regularly keep in touch with people we've connected with over the years. I'll continue to use Facebook for sure, but I think I might be using the "Blocking" mechanism for the first time very soon. No point is being Facebook stalked (which is normally kind of a compliment, if you think about it) by those who only wish to bring you down.

Next time I'll try to post something more cheery and maybe even funny...