Originally Posted by
rob_s
Social media will be our undoing in many levels. Knowing ore than we ever should about what goes on in the minds of our own friends is one of them.
I’m sure I’ve shared this story before...
In the early 2000s I started shooting with a local IDPA club. It was great. Everyone got along, but then we really only saw each other on average 2x a month and even then it was hard to hold a conversation what with the ear protection and loud noises and all. This was also something like club #2 of all IDPA clubs.
Then they added a forum to the club website.
Turns out, every single one of them (us?) was a complete and utter nutbag. One was an insane militia type (who I hear now lives in the woods with others of his ilk). One was a disgraced former pool company tractor who turned out to be lying about being a lawyer. Some were even democrats! Then some folks started using the forum to air club dirty Lau dry, rallying other dipshits to their cause, creating strife where heretofore there had been none. People were suddenly indignant about issues they didn’t even know existing 6 months prior.
All of a sudden, we all knew way too much about one another. Everyone was great friends on the range and at the bar afterwards, where the limited opportunities for communication pretty much limited our talk to the subject we all had in common (shooting), but once we had broader access to the opinions and thoughts of one another. The club very nearly imploded!
I have several close friends that I keep on “ignore” on facebook. For one thing, I’m rather embarrassed for them about the volume of their posts, and for another the content of said posts can be equally embarrassing, and for a third the fact that they seem to think that their rants in Facebook are having any sort of positive outcome is perhaps the most embarrassing.