Could you imagine someone writing the same letter to three friends in the old days? 100?
And is there not something fundamentally different about sharing an experience together, and describing one to people who are distant, even if only on the other side of town? I think of a really good ad for Las Vegas where they show a group of obviously exhausted women. After a few moments one of them start laughing, then they all do. Then they cue the line “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
Is that not a fundamentally, totally different experience than posting pictures and descriptions?
And one of my kids commented to me that a good number of the rioters–the white ones–around the country seemed to be doing it in part for Instagram. The violence and destruction was abstract, but the social media seemed real to them, which is a precise inversion.
I’ll post it here–SHARE it with you–if and when I find a way across the river.
I’ve actually had as one of my quotes on Facebook virtually since I got the account that “if I ever get it all figured out I will text you.” I guess I saw all this back then, too.
It’s odd how we figure things out, then forget them. As Churchill is said to have put it: “men will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
I think I’m going to extend my abstinence to all news. Let’s see how I do with that. No news, no Facebook, until July 4. I won’t deny myself public comments here.