My 17-year-old daughter wanted to listen to her new “Oldies” playlist on the way to school. First song: U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Yep, the “Oldies” playlist is an 80s and 90s playlist.
Sigh.
She’s not wrong, but I feel so ancient this morning.
It’s dark. And my son is still in the backyard getting ready for tryouts next week. Trying to make the high school JV lacrosse team as a 7th grade goalie.
Sitting on a bench on the Horseshoe and A SQUIRREL JUMPED ON MY KNEE and then took off. I think he was as startled as I was.
Enterprise has me in their system as “Roberta” instead of “Robert A.” They just called asking for Roberta, and were very confused.
Almost as funny as how Pet Smart has me in their system as “Bub” instead of “Bob.”
Today would have been my mom’s 80th birthday. Thinking about her today.
After two weeks of kids being sick and snow days, today I have the rarest of occurrences… a normal day without a single scheduled meeting. If you are looking for me today, I’ll be at my desk getting things done.
Big party at Craft and Draft Irmo to celebrate their 5th anniversary. That’s right, the opened in January 2020 right before COVID shut the world down. So glad our favorite local bar is still thriving.
In one of my early grad school classes, we had a conversation and some readings on parasocial relationships… mostly one-sided relationships you “build” with people that you watch on tv, listen to on the radio, or subscribe to their podcasts. We think we know these people. Maybe at some point we met them, but our real “relationship” is surface level. We might know their favorite athlete or actor, but have no idea what their spouse’s name is. We may know all about them, but they don’t actually know we exist.
(My grandmother had a very strong parasocial connection to the Augusta, Georgia NBC affiliate morning show hosts. She would tell me all about them when I visited, as though she knew them.)
Social media is a little different than local television celebrities. You can have interchanges and discussions, but the reality is that these are also incomplete. You can’t get to know...
Six years ago, I wrote a blog post encouraging people to ask “why” they post to Facebook? I reread it last night and at the end, I found this gem:
Now the hard part: Start asking “why” before you post? Understand the impact of your words before you comment. Or like. Or share. In all likelihood, this exercise will cause you will post less. Comment less. Like less. That’s okay. The only person who will get upset that you are using Facebook less is Mark Zuckerberg. (And honestly, he’s too busy trying to collect all your personal data to notice.)
Still true today. And not just for Facebook.
Iconfactory’s Tapestry is nearing release. I love being able to scroll through a unified feed with Micro.Blog, Bluesky, YouTube, RSS feeds and more. I’m so impressed with how it’s come together and steadily improved during the beta process.