This Is Why I Blocked Paul McCartney
(Christ, I hope he hasn’t done anything controversial since I wrote this)
As some of you may know, I accept pretty much all friend requests on Facebook that appear to be from genuine people (Side note: ((Already? Yes.)) I’m always a little embarrassed for the men my age who have a lot of young, female Eastern European friends).
When a stranger or friend-of-a-friend “friends” me, I send them a little introductory note. I wrote about it here.
Still, there seems to be no end of wingnuts friending whomever Facebook suggests. They ignore my personal message that says I use Facebook to plug this newsletter and see family photos. Then they post horrific or mind-numbingly stupid memes, as if daring me to say something.
There was a brief time when I would just unfriend them. The problem with that (seemingly sane) response is that their posts create hate spatter and I have no way to wipe it off. I have to pass it like an acid kidney stone in my soul.
When Bud Light said it didn’t hate trans people (or whatever it did to get morons in a tizzy sharing anti-Bud Light memes) I changed my approach and dug out my early 21st century troll. The arbitrary line that these idiots drew putting me on Bud Light’s “side” infuriated me. I still hate Bud Light, but not more than I regret transphobia’s existence.
It occurred to me all at once that, while I understand that the way we treat each other online is one of our primary societal ills, bottling up my disdain and letting abject stupidity on my feed go unremarked upon is going to give me an ulcer.
As a second piece of this, I’m trying to cultivate a more positive feed that lets FB know I don’t want vicious idiots, only the toddlers my friends and family are shooting documentaries about. I sporadically scroll and Like posts from people I hope to see more from in an attempt to filter out the unwashed.
One time I saw a picture of the Beatles and a 1500-word story about (let’s say) producing “Let It Be.” It was pretty cool. I didn’t click Like, but I read the whole thing. The next day, a different Beatles account wrote about how Yoko sent Paul—Paul? I feel like it was Paul—to California, to ask John to come home after the May Pang thing. This lasted for about two weeks, maybe ten days.
By the time they added Rolling Stones stories, I’d stopped reading, but it didn’t matter. If I even slowed down near a Classic Rock post, they’d just give me more.
A quick heads up: If you've written a book about the Beatles or late 60s rock, your work is likely being republished by bot accounts.
Never one to shy away from a single-sided war that only I know or care about, I started blocking those accounts. It’s almost a hobby, now. If I slow down on a promoted post, I block that account. This week it came to a head as Facebook dared me to block Paul McCartney. While the odds of Paul calling me out on it are pretty slim, that it even occurred to me heightened the absurdity both of my crusade and of Facebook writ large.
I’m blocking things I normally would like and engaging with things I adamantly dislike. That’s plenty weird, but what’s troubling is the mental exertion it takes.
The plain fact is that Facebook won’t ever work the way I want. I want to share stories I read or write with people who want to do the same. Unfortunately, we have to come to terms with the realization that Facebook will always feed on stoking misery or its younger sister nostalgia. Scrolling has become a low-stakes emotional speedball cultivating two addictions at once.
When I finally quit smoking for good a decade ago (with the exception of the requisite lockdown relapse) it wasn’t for health reasons, it was because I no longer enjoyed smoking. It was arrogant to think I could remake my Facebook experience; so arrogant I thought it mattered that I blocked Paul McCartney.
Keep the Faith,
Tony
PostScript
I went to Reading, Pennsylvania, this week to cover a mummy’s burial. If you haven’t seen it because of the whole, WWIII OMG! news cycle, here are some links.
Here’s the version that ran in the Hindustan Times, to give you an idea of how wide this story went.
Here’s an apparently drunk news anchor in Chicago getting nearly every fact wrong.
I’m going to write a longer essay about the trip, maybe even record it for the TL;DR folks who I know wish I still recorded stuff. I’ve got a couple audio things in the works.
I’m going to start sharing what I would share on Facebook here instead. If you’re a subscriber, keep an eye on “Notes” for the fun and the random. Here are two recent posts:
Also, this is the part where I suggest following more people on Substack and getting the app so you can play along. It’s nicer than Facebook, intellectually. One downside is there’s a dearth of toddler photos.
TR