Because for the life of me, I cannot understand why some of ya'll (mostly under the age of 25), feel the need to use Facebook and Twitter to send out dim-witted stream of conscious rants aimed at your equally dim-witted friends. For real...profanity-laced tirades about nothing in particular?
Here is something you need to know--no, you are not cool. You are just an overgrown child with a dirty mouth!
And here is something else you need to know--the internet is permanent. The stuff you write that is connected to your real name or whatever lame alias you have chosen for this week is written in ink, not pencil or chalk. The fact that your feed will be full of other inane musings in a few hours does not mean that what you wrote today is not still out there, frozen like a snapshot for anyone to find if they look hard enough. And believe it or not, some of that dumb stuff you spew into cyberspace is going to come back to haunt you.
So I have a very simple request--please think about the nonsense you are posting to Facebook and Twitter and ask yourself before you update your status, is this something that my grandmother would appreciate me writing? Would she be proud of your clever turn of a phrase, or would she give a literal SMH and wonder where the heck she went wrong? What about granddad, would he brag about you to his friends if he saw some of the crap you write online? Or would he go searching through the yard for the right size switch to tan your hide?
If I sound like an old person, maybe it has a lot to do with the fact that I had old grandparents once. If they were living, each one of them would be over 100 years old...and the technology we have would truly bewilder them. Not a one of them would understand how a phone could work without a cord and how a computer could be carried in a purse, but they would understand that certain things said in public reflect on what they would call home training. If one of my Grandmas ever thought that I could even form the words to say some of the stuff you do, I would get skinned real good and mind you, I am almost 40...
And here is the other bee in my bonnet, erry single one of ya'll got mamas that I know and I am sure that they would be pissed if they knew about any of this. This is the type of stuff that would cause my mother to bust up friendships: "That girl is a bad influence on you and I don't want her anywhere near my house, do you hear me? Did you see that garbage she wrote, and she can't spell on top of everything!" (My mother was an English teacher, so what did you expect?)
So just stop it! I know that you are mad at the world because adolescence is perhaps the worse thing you have yet to experience in life, but really...that boy who broke your heart will not remember your name in 20 years and more than likely, you will wonder what you ever saw in him when you see him at the mall wearing his old-school track suit while shopping for discount baby clothes and sneakers at the Target. And if he does remember you, it will be because he regrets how badly he treated you, especially since the fast girl he dumped you for is Baby Mama #1 of 4... And that girl from math class probably was talking about you, but that is what girls do (even grown up girls). Suck it up and go to school anyway.
Okay, not that I expect that anyone whose status updates served as the impetus for this piece would ever read my blog, but I hope that the rest of you will join me in schooling these youngins about appropriate internet etiquette and the consequences of assuming that no one is watching. Someone is always watching, taking notes, and then passing judgment. You have been warned!
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