Hate is a strong word, maybe loathe is better…yeah, fear and loathing on some God-awful social site.  Let’s be clear about this, I’m only on Facebook to promote the Daily Discord, which sucks!   Our other venues grow like social site Chia Pets, even when ignored, but Facebook?  What’s more disturbing, there’s something inherently wrong with Facebook and the whole virtual narcissistic cesspool (VNC).  As John Bender once said, “It’s demented and sad, but social.”

First off, I am supposed to be incognito.  This may come as a surprise to some of you, but Mick Zano is not my real name.  Oddly, the Crank is his real name (go figure) but I chose an alias.  I did this so Muslim extremists, tax collectors, and Mormons can’t find me.  In fact, I moved out west as part of a Jehovah’s Witness Protection program.  I just want to post my Discord funny of the week and get back to the Lesbian Bondage Forum, but nooooooooo.   Oh, and FB now has big brothery facial recognition programs too, which is going to help a few small town sheriffs connect the dots…dots I don’t necessarily want connected.

Facebook also killed a nice little Yahoo group I had going with all of my college friends.  For years we had witty banter bantering about.  There was always great pithy-quipy style remarks from the peanut gallery on a wide range of topics, from beer all the way to women.   That’s been replaced with:  

Rats, I have the stomach flu today. 

Be the first of your friends to Like…

Then that loser gets 5 Likes and 17 comments, while our own Virgin Contracts VD: Hailed as Immaculate Infection headline gets bupkis.  Yeah, like that’s fair…but, then again, I do like the stomach flu as much as the next guy. 

Here’s my main point for bringing you all to this dark and terrible post.  I ended up on Facebook for real the other day, to do some actual social site activities.  What was I thinking? For only the second time ever I searched for new friends. What do I find?  I’m old…damn old.  Don’t any of you have hair?  Here’s a flashback from my first Facebook experience.

My First Impression of Joining Facebook You all look, er…great!

It’s gone a little downhill since then, I’m afraid.  But undaunted—well, somewhat daunted—I found a way to forge ahead.  I saw some peeps from my old high school and even updated my profile.  Apparently, I speak Klingon now.  This “activity” netted me three comments within about 11 seconds.   Wait, five, the Crank just commented on it…twice! 

Then, during this ridiculous searching-for-new-friends procedure, I finally find an old friend of interest, but his profile pic is of Hermione Granger of Harry Potter fame.  What?!  Dude, you’re in your early 40s and she’s like 14… and guess what?  I’m a mandated reporter! 

Then, when I’m searching for friends, I find two people on the suggested friend list.  Wait a cotton picking Farmville minute…they must have secretly un-friended me!  Snap.  One of them had even asked me to be her friend in the first place!  BWTF woman!  Bad enough you still have my Dylan CD and now this?  Hey, I only befriended you in the first place out of pity, which brings me to the big problem: people posted pictures on my home page.  I have never put any of them up there (I don’t even know how!).  How do they get up there exactly?  Not without some considerable effort on my part, I have ruled out the work of the Virtual Elves. 

I didn’t even know these blasts from the past were there for months, then I click on my profile and find crimes, misdemeanors, debauchery, dogs & cats, living together, mass hysteria…or as I like to call it “college.” Did I mention I’m supposed to be incognito?   Besides, as those of you who know me can attest, ever since college I have become a model citizen.  Really…I have….just ask my probation officer.

I thought, last time, I figured out how to hide the pictures on the top of my page, but this week I find they’re still there!  You can scroll on the sides and still reach all of them (in all of their pre-Photoshop glory). BWTF?  Like most people caught in this web of deceit, my social group consists of a strange hodgepodge of friends, coworkers, and family members—an unsettling combination, for sure. 

Of course, my kids and my wife are nowhere to be found on this “profile page,” so if they go to my home page, sure as shit, you can find me smooching somebody other than mommy.  Thanks for posting that one!  Well, in all fairness, I’m smooching fellow contributor, Dave Atsals, as well—even more enthusiastically, by the look of it.  I guess I was an equal opportunity smoocher.  So I finally figured out how to get them all off the page, for good.   Now let us never speak of them again.  Well, one of them is below, the only one I’m not kissing anyone or doing something incriminating.  It’s a good picture of a Thunder Alley rally.  Oh, shit, underage drinking.  Well, the statute of limitations should be over by a couple of decades.

Finally I’m back in stealth mode, like a Romulan flagship.  I am the wind.  I am the rider on the storm.  I am Claude Rains.  I am the MIB and the MIB 2.  I am the walrus, ko ko kajoob.  So no more tagging me in these pictures, you social site hooligans, or so help me I’ll, I’ll, I’ll unfriend you…and you’re little dog too! 

Hermione Granger.  Really, dude?  Wish I had thought of that.