Good evening, everyone. Before I ramble on about this week’s peeve, please chant this out loud three times while turning in a circle:
WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
So…
A couple of weeks ago, someone around here posted about the conservative version of Facebook. It’s called The Tea Party Community and it does, indeed, closely resemble Facebook. (You can google it if you want to. You’ll only get to the sign-in page.) Well, what could I do but sign up? I created a mash-up of two of my favorite conservative crazychicks and became Sarah Bachmann. My first post was a gushing “thank you” to the people who created the TPC for giving “us conservatives” a place where we could feel safe, etc.
Well, Katie-bar-the-door! I had friend requests left and right! (Well, okay, just right.) People liked my comments! I shared pictures of flags and eagles and sunsets superimposed with prayers for this great nation in her hour of need. I nodded and high-fived and right on’ed all over the place. I even offered the words, “God bless Ronald Reagan!” under a smiling, air-brushed picture of the late saint (though I think I saw a wisp of smoke come from my keyboard as I typed).
But... My ability to become a convincing ultra-conservative was slightly disturbing. And the deception began to bother me. “Why am I doing this?” kept tugging at me. What was I going to do, eventually? I wasn’t going to engage the others in conversations bent on swaying them. All that was left was more deception and some sort of eventual betrayal. And then I began to notice the tone of the place going wrong. Even for many of the people there and for the moderators. Racist posts would pop up and then disappear. But pictures of Obama in African costume with a bone through his nose (remember that one?) were left up. When they first launched, it was happy conservatives giggling together. There quickly developed, however, a faction of vicious racists.
Eventually, I was friended by a guy whose picture was of a skull with a bullet hole in it. And the more I thought about that picture, the more disturbed I became. Because I’m absolutely certain that I know exactly what he meant that picture to suggest.
So after about a week, I closed my account. When I did, it asked me if I would tell them why I was leaving. So I did. I told them that there was too much hate, and that until “we,” as a party stopped being so racist and violent, we didn’t deserve to be in the game.
I know, I know – what did I expect, right? I can’t really answer that. What I didn’t expect was skulls with bullet holes in them. Cuz that’s some scary shit.
So – What’s YOUR f*(&^n’ problem?