Something’s not right…..

Copyright 2019, InterAmerica, Inc.

My initial Facebook entry and page consisted of mostly UFO people who were “friended.”

My MediaWatch page, of a later date, was changed by Facebook to another personal page and recently I friended other UFO folks, mostly contemporaries in the UFO community.

But then I noticed a sea-change in what those contemporary UFO enthusiasts were posting.

While most continue to provide something related to the UFO phenomenon, many have opted to promote their daily existence, interests, and activities.

An article by Jia Tolentino about this in the April 29, 2019 issue of The New Yorker, Eye Candy, (Page 71 ff.) is a fascinating, insightful essay showcasing two books highlighting the insidious nature of social media, the internet, and, of course, Facebook.

The two books are Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World [Portfolio] and Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy [Melville House].

But it’s the attendant remarks of Tolentino that strike a chord with me. She nails the obsessive addiction that social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, et al.) has on those who’ve signed up for such “services.”

And, interestingly, she notes the ongoing discussion about Capitalism that is finding its way into the dialogue. (My academic pal Bryan Sentes provides reams of Facebook clutter about the problem.)

The Capitalism Tolentino refers to can be watered down to the need and greed of business enterprises that exploit social media participants, in order to get those participants to buy or use their wares and services.

And the abetting of such entities as Instagram and Facebook, via advertisements and user data, is shown to be egregiously “evil” as I read more and more about social media activity.

(A Wired magazine piece in the May 2019 issue – 15 Months of Fresh Hell Inside Facebook [Page 45 ff.] – provides more evidence of Mark Zuckerberg’s nefarious creation.)

But here, I’m lamenting the change in UFO interests from the UFO phenomenon to the daily, mundane activity of those who once slavishly attempted to understand or explain UFOs.

These one-time purposeful folks are now anxious to showcase their run-of-the-mill daily routines: what they are eating, whom they are drinking beer with, what insipid paintings they’ve done and wish to display, what places they are visiting or have visited, and what their offspring broods are doing.

Without any notable accomplishment(s) in ufology, my UFO “friends” (up to now) have descended into the social media milieu, and don’t even know they are entrapped.

(My news media friends have done likewise, but this blog isn’t for them.)

It’s not right, that one-time UFO aficionados have abandoned their zeal for the UFO phenomenon in order to press their pathetic daily existences upon those who are stuck with their daily notifications from Facebook, Twitter, et cetera.

It’s not.

N.B. Image at top from https://llbartlett.typepad.com/dazed_and_confused/2014/04/pet-peeve-thursday-facebook-is-evil.html

RR