Are We Living In The Age of TMI???

*"Automatic push-button remote control, Synthetic Genetics, Command your Soul!"



This entry was written AFTER some questionable photos of the gross and gory kind arrived in my email. IT was that proverbial FINAL straw!

"Automatic push-button remote control, Synthetic Genetics, Command your Soul!
Automatic push-button remote control, Synthetic Genetics, Command your Soul!"


Have we become a society of useless information hoarders and dispensers? Perhaps the answer is already apparent when you consider the speed and frequency in which we are now able to send, process and dissect data. It’s just a little daunting, overwhelming, unnecessary, and, at times, just plain monotonous. Gone are those good ole days where we were able to be reserved, to retain a bit of privacy and maintain some personal mystery.



The Enigmatic Age of Gentle Finesse and Quiet Mystique has died a quick and senseless death.



I miss those days. I grieve those days. I yearn for the return of those lost and glorious days once more.



Nowadays people can and often will tell you the most personal, primal, private and mundane isht about themselves… and there are others on the opposite side of a screen who will not only process it, but eat it up… with glee! I just don’t get it. Don’t the rest of us have lives to live anymore? If not, just what in hell happened to them? Why has recording and reciting our existence become so imperative? It reeks of desperation to me. Why must our every deed be broadcasted to a world audience? Why in this world should anyone be so interested in where we are, what we’re doing, and who we’re doing it with, 24/7? Why should anyone really give a damn about what you had for dinner, where and with whom?


This tediously useless, deeply trivial isht is one of the reasons why to this very day, I refuse to join Twitter and so rarely visit Facebook, much less update my page and my status on that site. Truthfully, I can’t understand why anyone would care.



When did so many of us become such attention whores?




No. I’m not talking about celebrities and how they roll. With celebs, maybe others ‘follow’ them to get a sense, that, no matter our stations in life, we’re all here sharing the same planet where even the famous do normal, regular, mundane things, and yes, they can be just as dull, boring and uninteresting as the rest of us. Indeed. In today’s hyper-informative world, celebs often prove themselves to be very insecure people, quick to piss off, get angry, get into feuds, fights, differences of opinions, act a fool, and this becomes mindless brain-candy for the scrutinizing public. That’s all just sad to me. Some of these privileged people really reveal themselves to be all too human: flawed, foul and yes, fucked up. And although, I have to wonder: who gives a damn … apparently millions of people do!

No. Celebrities, in general, must drink the same flavor Kool-Aid, and they believe it makes them all-important and immortal. When sycophants, groupies and others blow enough smoke up your stank ass, continually tell you, yes(!), give you gobs of free stuff in swag bags, and pay you obscene green to go some place just to be photographed and be seen, you might just develop a tendency to think your feces don’t stink.

But here, I’m actually speaking of people, just regular, ordinary people (pipe in John Legend), living pedestrian little lives, in their own prosaic little burbs. Do they also want fame so much they are willing to whore out their images, their personal business, exploit their families and their very lives in the quest of becoming demi-stars? Are they so badly wanting to feel a part of something Larger than themselves, to the point where they don't bother setting personal limitations anymore? I wonder. Why is it that they suddenly think everything they do, feel, say or think must be recorded, reported on and validated by a mess of strangers?

Don’t get it twisted. I’m not completely against the concept of social media; after all blogging is a part of it. I actually see the need and the purpose for some forms of it, especially when one wants to pimp a product, sell something, plan an event gathering, or make an announcement to a large amount of people, often social media is an excellent way to reach a target market. I’m not against the concept of like minds meeting and I’ve actually made some good friends and met a few fascinating people I would not have known otherwise if we’d not become acquainted online. So, from that perspective social media can be a very useful and fulfilling thing, both professionally and personally.

But somewhere along the way, it all went awry... and it has gone from the sublime to the truly ridic. Now, you’ve got people who set up web pages, Facebook, My Space and Twitter pages devoted solely to their pets. Their pets, who talk, carry on conversations, tweet photos, and who flash quasi-literate, demi-charming personalities all their own. Please! No need for vicious emails or PETA protests lodged against me. I’ve nothing but love for our four-legged friends and this is not a slam against any creature within the...uh-ruh... critter community. But pets? Pets with personal web pages? WTF?

Ummm… note to the reasonably sane people: if most folks don’t know you, don't know who you are, or give a good damn about you, what makes you think your PET would be any more popular or interesting? And if by chance they are deemed more popular or interesting than you, well, how sad would that be?

People of all types, strata, ages and ilk have fallen into the annoying habit of broadcasting waaaay too much of themselves, about their lives, their mates, their kids, their fams, their vacations, their pets and their shopping purchases, until it’s become more than a tad or a tidbit over-indulgent… and the result of this is the complete and utter oversaturation of the self.

Could the frequency or the infrequency of their bowel movements be too far behind?




And please don’t get me started on the subject of cell phones.


Granted, I’m tres old skool. How is this for a concept? I actually use my phone to make occasional calls. That's it. That's all.

Wi-i-i-i-i-i-i-ild right?




I don’t play games on it. I don’t text. I don’t take or send pics with it. I wouldn't become totally null and void, be rendered completely destroyed, left catatonic in some fetal position nor would I be unable to cope with life, should it get lost or misplaced. I don’t depend upon my phone, like a dog with a bone, Linus with his security blanket or some itchy, jittering junkie needing his fix.

But apparently, I’m nearly alone in this practice and only using a phone to make calls, when necessary, makes me somewhat archaic. Fine. I’m good. I can live with this reality. Better that, than to overuse your phone to the point where you disturb and offend others in your idle time.

Just the other day a friend of mine thought it necessary to email me and a small tribe of other people pictures from a recent emergency room visit, along with (click) shots on a stretcher, (click) headshots vogueing a sick and forlorn expression, (click) close-ups including a snotty nose, chapped lips and all … I’m like WTF?

Question: Could you not have waited until you were back home, safe and sound to share that information? Could you not have waited until you had easy access to some freaking Kleenex and some damn Clapstick?

I’m just asking… what up wid dat?



Another person who I’ve known for a minute, felt it necessary to email this pic of a very gory–looking blood-raw and wounded arm shortly after surgery. Innnnn-tense! I damn near threw up! I just didn’t understand the purpose of sending me that madness. Call me crazy, but I’m just not a big fan of Large Gaping Wounds... in extreme close-up!!! Aiight? Personally, I don’t find that kind of thing vaguely entertaining in the least! Isn’t there such a concept as OVER-SHARING?

I mean, shouldn’t such graphic visuals come with a pre-warning or something?

It was then that I‘d finally had enough! It was necessary to let him know I was not so fascinated, nor amused. I’ve had to cuss out a few, and yes, I've gone OFF on people who think that their lives are so-o-o-o-o damned remarkable that their every activity becomes the stuff fit for some Oscar-worthy documentary.



Have we become a society of useless information feeders? Methinks the answer is already: “yes.”

To that concept, I say this: Stop this madness!

Is there a smartphone app out there that tells folks to: GET OVER YOURSELF!?


Maybe there should be!

Hey, how about a new app called Reality Check that straight-up tells you: Put Me Down, Damn it! You’re Boring! Read a book! No! Not a Kindle version! A real BOOK! Yo! Go Outside and Breathe Some Fresh Air Without Me As Your Crutch, Your Companion and Your Adoring Mirror! Seriously. Think of Some Thing or Someone... Other Than Yourself! Trust Me! You Really Ain’t All That!


I await the day when people embrace the concept of owning a certain mystique again. I long for a time, when they leave, not a picture of their wounds and how gross they can be... or of a meal and how they discarded it… but instead, what they do leave behind is left to the IMAGINATION. This is what truly makes people interesting: the good sense to know when to remain enigmatic.




*
"Automatic push-button remote control, Synthetic Genetics, Command your Soul!
Automatic push-button remote control, Synthetic Genetics, Command your Soul!
Automatic push-button remote control, Synthetic Genetics, Command your Soul!
Automatic push-button remote control, Synthetic Genetics, Command your Soul!"
*







Ya smell me?


I’m just sayin’.


One.



* from Mean Machines by The Last Poets