The façade of recognition…existence!

Copyright 2019, InterAmerica, Inc.

In my columns for Fort Wayne newspapers, I often wrote about television’s attraction for those who needed or wanted validation; that is, people sought, as they still do, a moment on TV which they thought gave them their reality, their proof of existence, even if only for a few minutes.

It was something more than Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame. A moment on TV is seen, now as then, as an authentication that one is a purposeful, real being…a significant member of humanity (society) within the context of the hordes.

I’ve noted here, at this blog, and elsewhere that many UFO enthusiasts came to the ufological table looking for some kind of recognition, striving to find it with whatever they could contribute to the feeble area of UFO interest.

A few have achieved a modicum of fame or notoriety, and we know who they are, but quite a few haven’t.

So now I’m finding those ignored UFO “exuberants” plumbing the pages of Facebook, striving for “likes” and recognition there, as I’ve noted before here.

Many have set aside their past passion for a UFO explanation, replacing it for some acknowledgement from the raft of UFO folk who’ve settled down with in Facebook.

You know how I hate Facebook, even though I am, admittedly, an avid user of the site, for my criticisms of news and entertainment media, having signed on to Facebook early on before it became the be-all and end-all of existence for the great unwashed.

I try to use Facebook and not let it use me. Whether or not I am successful in that is yet to be seen, and I do find many wonderful things online there: art works, intellectual meanderings, humorous asides, and other enlightenments.

But I, like many others, are inundated by the human effluvia that envelops the internet venue.

And while I excoriate my news media brethren for their banal and often moronic contributions on Facebook, I now find that many of my UFO compatriots are just as invidious as the media persons who should know better.

The many current broadsides against Facebook, some from persons who were there at the beginning, are taking their toll but not fast enough or strongly enough to set aside the massive slide in to insipidity that engulfs almost everyone and everything one sees there.

And it saddens me to see and read the dreck that once somewhat sensible UFO folk are pummeling their Facebook friends with, not UFO material but personal ingredients that normally would be eschewed in other UFO venues, but on Facebook become gems for those who haven’t made it in ufological circles but give them a sense of cachet, no matter how tinsel-like that cachet is.

Okay, I’ll get some remonstrance, perhaps, from a few UFO pals who think the shower of platitudes and effluvium they see and enjoy is harmless, which it may be in the short-run, but like cancer such assaults will take their toll, especially when Facebook is broken up, and it will be, sooner than later.

RR