every time someone's internet presence feels like a personal attack on my life i first try to have compassionate thoughts like "what if something terrible is happening in her life?" because even though we know it isn't there's still a very slim chance hell is real and i'd like to have a plausible defense of my actions on earth should there be some sort of way to argue my way out of damnation. but then i think, "well if she were actually suffering there's no way she'd be spamming me links to all these pyramid schemes" and my guilt evaporates just long enough for me to click that block button so i can move on with my day. i'm a patient person and hesitant to alienate anyone who might have fifteen dollars lying around to buy my books, but it dawned on me the other day that for me, the internet has to be a meticulously curated digital space in which your uncle's vaguely racist tweets have no place.
i hate fighting. i'm sensitive and no good at it and if the consequence of bickering online means i gotta spend the afternoon feeling bad because a kid i don't remember from high school called me a fatass kelly price over a reductress article please murder me. and if i get on your goddamn nerves: BLOCK ME FIRST. kill me with your powerful brain! there are too many places in real life where blocking is not a viable option to tolerate someone ruining your many secret lives online. you can't block the coworker who won't stop fucking talking while hovering nearby as you're just trying to put half and half in your breakroom coffee, but you can block that friend of a friend who says shit like "i'm not prejudiced, i don't care if a person is purple or green or blue." lol blue people SHUT THE FUCK UP. you can't delete the neighbor whose eyesore of a car is parked on his front lawn whose cat keeps shitting on your deck, but you can delete your cousin who earnestly believes that rap music is reverse racism and vehemently comments as much on every kendrick lamar video you share. no mute button for the woman at the grocery store who won't stop asking where the shampoo is even though you're pushing your own cart while wearing both sunglasses and a coat, but you know who you can mute? everyone you hate on the internet!
PROTECT YOURSELVES. YOU DON'T NEED THIS SHIT. and to prove i'm not the only piece of garbage scrolling through instagram unfollowing people whose gorgeously filtered lives make mine look like trash, i crowdsourced a bunch of actual experiences from my interface friends of their smallest, pettiest, aint-shittiest reasons for hitting a bitch with the mutombo block online:
-checked in at golden corral
-remembered that he told me i looked bad in the sixth grade
-blocked a guy who agreed with me because i didn't like his tone
-my grandmother has been sitting in my requests for three years. (which is a genius method of preemptive blocking that often comes in handy)
-tagged me in pajama christmas dinner picture even tho i said don't tag me in pajama christmas dinner picture
-any post starting with "89% of facebook users wont repost this" gets a HOTTTT block.
-blocked my ex-wife cos she found jesus.
-all their posts have no periods yet all their texts have periods? nah. blocked. way too positive, you love your life that much B, then get off facebook. blocked.
-unfriended and blocked every bitch trying to sell me ugly leggings or fat wraps or supplements.
-made a status saying we should "lead with love" and "try to find what unites us instead of divides."
-COMPLAINING ABOUT CAPS/ASKING "WHY ARE YOU YELLING."
-motherfuckers who bang on about how blessed they are. the more you gush about how great everything is, the more i hope you fall into an open sewer and die.
-i blocked someone who said they liked french toast more than waffles.
-blocked a relative for always posting pics of dead people in their caskets.
-talked shit about eddie vedder.
-for liking "sam's club" not "costco."
so yeah, even if people are relatively harmless it doesn't mean you have to, like, be assaulted by their terrible memes. you don't owe them shit! they're not your mom! and if they are, you are not obligated to deal with her either! if my mom was alive and on facebook, SHE WOULD BE BLOCKED. i can only imagine how hilarious her timeline would be: her profile picture? definitely a blurry photo-of-a-photo of her circa-1989 face; multiple daily shares of every "iyanla fix my life" clip posted on oprah's fan page; quotes from steve harvey's books, posted in earnest and definitely mentioning how "handsome" he is; blackamericaweb articles about celebrity news she heard about on the tom joyner morning show; and public posts in which she tags me asking how to dvr "the bodyguard" on BET or saying something like I Need @Samantha Irby To Go To Target And Get Some Tide Detergent It's Buy One Get One Half Off Until Tomorrow!! THANKS BABY!!!!!!!!! Love, Mom. how do you expect me to live my carefree, profanity-laced online life with that terrorism happening every day!? i would get one of those kid divorces in a heartbeat.
the most effective strategy i've found for dealing with most relationships that have successfully ground themselves to a halt is to continue living my life as if that other person has died. that way, i can honor the memory of what we had without stressing myself sick over whether or not she's taking someone new to my old favorite bar. and, rather than delicately scrolling through her feed on my phone trying not to accidentally like any of her life achievements while seething in anger over what we used to have, i can instead just not do anything BECAUSE THAT ASSHOLE IS DEAD. anyway sometimes you just gotta help people make their way to the graveyard of your life. especially since he already knows you unfollowed him because you never ever comment on his posts. and you should never ever ever feel bad about it. because even if their rotting corpse rolls the digital stone away and you just happen to run into that twitter zombie at the coffee shop then just signal to the barista that you're gonna need to take that americano to go and give that guy a nod that says "dude, sorry not sorry but i really hated all those buzzfeed tasty videos."
click here for a handy primer on living your best social media life.
-motherfuckers who bang on about how blessed they are. the more you gush about how great everything is, the more i hope you fall into an open sewer and die.
-i blocked someone who said they liked french toast more than waffles.
-blocked a relative for always posting pics of dead people in their caskets.
-talked shit about eddie vedder.
-for liking "sam's club" not "costco."
-IF I DUMPED YA, YA BLOCKED.
-overuse of "just sayin'."
-i don't like my friend's husband's haircut and their dog is honestly the ugliest thing on planet earth.
-blocked a local lady for creating a fb group dedicated to pictures of her child's lunches.
-one of those facebook game invites. no i don't want to play candy crush but i do want to crush your soul.-i don't like my friend's husband's haircut and their dog is honestly the ugliest thing on planet earth.
-blocked a local lady for creating a fb group dedicated to pictures of her child's lunches.
-BECAUSE I JUST GOT TIRED OF LOOKING AT HER FACE.
so yeah, even if people are relatively harmless it doesn't mean you have to, like, be assaulted by their terrible memes. you don't owe them shit! they're not your mom! and if they are, you are not obligated to deal with her either! if my mom was alive and on facebook, SHE WOULD BE BLOCKED. i can only imagine how hilarious her timeline would be: her profile picture? definitely a blurry photo-of-a-photo of her circa-1989 face; multiple daily shares of every "iyanla fix my life" clip posted on oprah's fan page; quotes from steve harvey's books, posted in earnest and definitely mentioning how "handsome" he is; blackamericaweb articles about celebrity news she heard about on the tom joyner morning show; and public posts in which she tags me asking how to dvr "the bodyguard" on BET or saying something like I Need @Samantha Irby To Go To Target And Get Some Tide Detergent It's Buy One Get One Half Off Until Tomorrow!! THANKS BABY!!!!!!!!! Love, Mom. how do you expect me to live my carefree, profanity-laced online life with that terrorism happening every day!? i would get one of those kid divorces in a heartbeat.
the most effective strategy i've found for dealing with most relationships that have successfully ground themselves to a halt is to continue living my life as if that other person has died. that way, i can honor the memory of what we had without stressing myself sick over whether or not she's taking someone new to my old favorite bar. and, rather than delicately scrolling through her feed on my phone trying not to accidentally like any of her life achievements while seething in anger over what we used to have, i can instead just not do anything BECAUSE THAT ASSHOLE IS DEAD. anyway sometimes you just gotta help people make their way to the graveyard of your life. especially since he already knows you unfollowed him because you never ever comment on his posts. and you should never ever ever feel bad about it. because even if their rotting corpse rolls the digital stone away and you just happen to run into that twitter zombie at the coffee shop then just signal to the barista that you're gonna need to take that americano to go and give that guy a nod that says "dude, sorry not sorry but i really hated all those buzzfeed tasty videos."
click here for a handy primer on living your best social media life.