Oh I know I did, I vented.
I would verbally throw up whatever garbage happened in my day at work, and it was totally okay... because social media was barely existent and nobody read.
Anyone remember that 6 months I lived in Monroe finishing graduate school while Jeremy was in South Louisiana starting grad school?
Well for the LA Bride newbies here, those were the days when I said what came to mind. Completely unfiltered.
The only roommates we could muster up were two of Jeremy's guy friends, they are great guys and probably made life a lot safer for me, but I was highly irritated one night and nearly crucified a good friend over the internet.
Did any good come from my explosive comments about living with two guys? Nope. It just caused more arguing and bickering. Let's face it opposite sexes who have no interest in dating each other and basically treat each other like siblings will tear each other apart.
I took the post down within a day, but three years later I still regret writing it.
A long time ago I came to the realization with blogging that the world was a nasty enough place and I wanted the bloggers I read and became friends with to be positive and influential (in a good way).
I wanted to walk away from reading a post and think, "Wow that's such a good idea!"
There are enough mean spirited writers looking to knock someone down on the ever famous GOMI, and the dozen Mckmama and PW hating blogs. There are also more superficial materialistic touting crazies out there that if I were to be sucked into their realm I would trash our lifesavings just to "keep up with the bloggers."
Y'all have bad days too, I'm sure that just like me you have no desire to read the negatives. Work is hard. Kids are hard. Let's face it, marriage is hard.
So why be negative and look to tear each other apart?
Why jump on the crazy bandwagon and spend your energy and reputation on, well.... crazy?
Over the summer I had the chance to work with a big blogger as part of their intern team. One of our biggie deal breakers was that they didn't want us trashing talking on our blogs and social media and people relating that to their site.
It made sense, if everyone linking to your site verbally flies off the handle Google will eventually decide that you do too.
I guess I just don't get why people act so crazy, so publicly.
3 am. In a small crowd of trusted friends. Yeah, I'll say whatever I want.
On the internet. Where I could lose my job. Potentially have other teachers or parents reading this mess. Um, heck no you won't get any crazy thoughts out of me. It's just not worth it.
Besides, the amount of personal information bloggers post (myself being guilty of it) has the potential to make readers think that they "really" know you. To the point of running into people out in pubic and they make comments about things you said and totally taking it out of context.
This little internet in just a slight window into the soul, and just like text messages... you can't hear tone all that well.
So before we put something out there maybe we should consider a few things.
1. Not everyone shares the same views. Don't intentionally put things out there that are explosive in a negative way. Is what you're sharing nice, does it help someones, what good does it do?
2. You can't really read tone. I may mean one things and you take it another way. A post meant to be funny and sarcastic could easily be taken as mean spirited.
3. Don't be so quick to judge and attack everyone. Putting out a nice, encouraging vibe is so much merrier than snarky and sour.
Just be nice people.
