There is No Security. I am and will always be Instapunk. Before I was Harry.

I have been playing around with Facebook for a few months now. In which time I have learned a lot about the social network phenomenon.

I spent ten years in the blog universe, which was a lot like Fight Club, bruising battles in the comment sections, no quarter asked or given. Lots of insults, bad language, idiots, and the occasional bright light that makes it all worthwhile. But the world changes on a dime these days. And so it has once again.

The Facebook universe is not centered as blogs were on ideas. It’s all about me, me, me, and the poses I can assume to make me look smart, important, or more attractive than I actually am. So there are lots of reposts of the posts of others, which endow me with a noblesse and erudition I’ve done nothing to prove.

That’s why I’ve adventured into the realm of comment threads, which look similar to blog comment threads but are markedly different.

Number One rule of FB comment threads. Do not take issue with the leading comment offered by the poster. No matter how logical your disagreement, how witty, how charitable, how polite, all disagreement with the poster and his or her “friends” will immediately be construed as personal and a signal of the absolute evil your disagreement represents. Fail to go away when the poster and his friends give you warning of your transgression, and the name callers appear at once to characterize your evil, stupid, idiot lifestyle, and threaten you as if you were on the doorstep with a shotgun.

I used plenty of bad language at Instapunk. See for yourself. Had plenty of bad language used on me.

http://www.instapunk.com/archives/IPLArchive.php3

Never in ten years banned but two. But what I find at Facebook is ever so much more offensive than what I’ve experienced in blogging. (With many notable exceptions by the way.) Nothing bruising about FB comments. Just lots and lots of fancied bruises by people who never learned to defend themselves with words. These are people who don’t know the difference between disagreement and ad hominem assaults which are to be countered immediately by nuclear means or inferences that there’s something about you which no good person could ever countenance.

Facebook is a world of thin-skinned narcissists, poseurs, and preening fakers. One who declares himself a poet and isn’t. One who declares himself a cultural critic and shows no sign of having noticed anything prior to his recent date of birth. One who declares his political acuity and has never studied history prior to the 21st century. To oppose such people instantly inspires them to accuse the skeptic of everything wrong with themselves. Everything is personal, and you are every wrong name in the book. Everything they say in their rants is self revelation. And none of them has anything remotely resembling a sense of humor. The ultimate victory of political correctness. Even the self-appointed “Defenders of the Faith” can’t recognize a joke without an attached emoticon.

I haven’t used bad language in Facebook comments. But I have an inner clock that tells me with startling accuracy how quickly some millennial will run out of intellectual steam and start attacking me with obscenities.

But this isn’t just about millennials. It’s about people of all ages. Facebook is the woodwork the rest of the people crawled out of. They want approval. Of their faces, families, fatuities, food, and faux personae.

Maybe I won’t make more comments, hurt more feelings, deflate more inflated egos. But maybe I will.

For I am Instapunk, regardless of the terrain. Real life or video game version of reality, I am Instapunk. Which I, incidentally, can prove into the millions of words. As I said. No Security.

Well, it’s a choice don’t you know. If you don’t like that message, here’s the alternative.

Here endeth the lesson.

P.S. And I forgot. They always always always have to have the last word. As if that could make them somehow smart. Ignore them.

Surprise. I win.