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| Actual, unretouched photo of Facebook |
Well, I blocked another one.
In 2008, I reluctantly — very reluctantly — joined Facebook. I really had no interest in connecting (or in some cases, reconnecting) with names from my past. And anyone I wanted to currently interact with, well... I just did. I'd call or text or email. I didn't need to know what they were doing every second of the day. I didn't need to see a picture of the sandwich they had for lunch or the bowl of soup they were about to eat before their dinner's main course. I didn't need to see a picture of their kid not wanting to have his picture taken. And, by the same token, nobody was particularly interested in the day-to-day minutia of my life. Nor did I see the point in sharing.
But things change... right?
Now, my days and nights and hours in-between are filled with many of the things I just listed. My Facebook feed is filled with photos of sloppily-decorated cakes and wide expanses of unmarked highways and pictures of rash-cheeked children that I have never met and who, most-likely, never want to meet me. In addition, I read dozens — no, make that
hundreds — of examples of misinformation, incorrect movie quotes, inaccuracies about historical events, skewed, opinionated and largely irrelevant commentary regarding how good a particular restaurant's hamburgers are and which classic rock groups suck.
Yes sir! Facebook is a swirling, bubbling, stinking, festering, garbage-filled shithole. And.... I'm here for it!
Against my better judgment, I accepted many, many Facebook friend requests from a number of high school acquaintances, as well as some that went back to my elementary school days. Of course, those little schoolmates of mine — the ones I ran around with at recess, in addition to the ones who taunted me with contentious catcalls of "Jew!" and "Kike!" — are now approaching Medicare age and have, no doubt, faced the joys and adversities that life dealt them. And now, letting bygones be bygones, we share stupid jokes and silly pictures and sanitized memories. I have also become "friends" with folks who, to be honest, I do not remember from my youth. These are people with whom I have a dozen or so mutual friends but, for the life of me, I have absolutely no memory of meeting them, interacting with them or even ever hearing their names before. I had to look a couple of them up in my high school yearbook (after dusting it off) to try to jog my memory. Even then — nothing.
One woman — I'll call her "Terri" — sent me a friend request, which I accepted. We allegedly went to high school together. There were 1100 in my graduating class and I only knew a fraction of them. Her recent photos on Facebook showed a woman who, I would have guessed, was ten years my senior. She did not look familiar at all. When I tracked her down in the pages of my yearbook, she looked nothing like her recent pictures and still she did not ring a bell. In the days and weeks that followed, I saw lots of photos of her dog and her "amazing" husband. More pictures of her dog (whom she identified as her "best friend," leaving her "amazing" husband to occupy second place ...or maybe lower). I saw pictures of celebratory dinners at Olive Garden and IHOP (where the food is "amazing." As "amazing" as her husband was not made clear). Terri would regularly post memes about how dreadful Mondays are and how Friday is almost here, baby! I caught glimpses of her filthy house when the real focus of those pictures was her "amazing" son, who appeared to be less-than-excited at having his photo splashed across Mom's Facebook page and who did not exactly fit my vision of "amazing." I found Terri's posts to be annoying, while at the same time, highly entertaining.
But, alas, Terri had to be blocked. And not for the reasons you might think.
As we have already established, Facebook is a disgusting, squalid wasteland brimming with volatile and extreme opinions on every subject from healthcare, government, television, music, life, parenting... you name it, someone on Facebook will gladly offer their opinion on it, whether or not it was requested. And, of course, no one — and I mean no one! — apologizes for their statements, especially if they have been proven wrong (sometimes just a short Google query away). There is more "doubling down" on Facebook than in Las Vegas.
Most of the memes that Terri posted were benign, filled with unauthorized usages of Peanuts and Disney characters accompanied by a message about working or family or
— gulp! — some vaguely
religious sentiment. But recently, Terri crossed the line. Say what you will about your political convictions or some wild conspiracy theory. I will even let a thinly-veiled anti-Semitic remark slide by. But what Terri did was... was... downright
unconscionable! She posted a blatantly inaccurate meme referencing
Back to the Future, the globally-acknowledged, indisputable Greatest Movie Ever Made.
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| Heavy. |
Now, I've seen my share of memes using stills from the beloved 1985 science-fiction comedy starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. They range from a bewildered Doc Brown and the single line "Great Scott!," which can be used as an all-purpose response to any
number of astounding statements made on social media to more
topical takes on the COVID-19 pandemic and uncanny similarities between future Biff Tannen and a certain 21st century president. In 2015, a new batch of memes flooded the internet displaying a wide array of manipulated dates on a screenshot of the digital readout of the DeLorean time machine featured in all three films of the trilogy. As every true
Back to the Future fan knows, Marty McFly left present day 1985 on October 26. He landed in the 1955 of his parents' high school days on November 12, just prior to the "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance." (You know, the one where George and Lorraine had their first kiss.) In the final scene of
Back to the Future, Doc Brown, in his now-ultra modernized DeLorean, returns from the future with a warning to Marty and girlfriend Jennifer. The teens hop into the time machine, their destination being October 21, 2015
— because, according to a rattled Doc Brown, s
omething has to be done about their
kids! For the few who do
not have these events committed to memory (you know who you are), a quick Google search will confirm everything —
dates, sequence, everything! However, any idiot with rudimentary Photoshop skills can produce a somewhat convincing version of that iconic shot of the DeLorean dashboard with the dates of their choice. And because most people take what they read on the internet as gospel (despite multiple warnings), these
fake images are passed off as
real and a vicious cycle begins. I thought that everything would have come to an end when the
actual October 21, 2015 came and went, with numerous news outlets proclaiming the real-life arrival "Back to the Future" Day and even
USA Today reproducing the newspaper front page as featured in
Back to the Future II. But
no! It was not to be. The inaccurate memes kept right on coming, thanks in part to a rogue website that allows visitors to plug in
any dates they like to create their own version of the DeLorean control panel.
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| Did you jump ship? |
Well, obviously Terri didn't know about this
Back to the Future custom generator. Instead, she used a poorly-doctored version where some of the numbers weren't even
digital numbers. They were plain old Arial. She posted her little wrong picture with the comment "As a die-hard Back to the Future fan, this is pretty cool." The picture displayed the date January 22, 2023 and the explanation "Today is the day the Marty arrives in the future." I saw this and began to fume. I couldn't restrain myself and I left a comment. Look, say what you will about the Bible or the government or the way I live my life, but don't you dare —
dare! — mess with
Back to the Future! "Terri," I began, "while this may be cool, it is wrong. Marty arrived in the future on October 21, 2015." Look, I may not know much. I cannot do math. I don't understand astrophysics. I don't know what goes on under the hood of my car. But —
goddammit! — I know the entire series of events in the remarkable life of Marty McFly as though I experienced them myself. And I know that not only did Marty arrive in the future on October 21, 2015, but that the year 2023 plays
no part in
any of the three
Back to the Future movies.
Terri, replied to my comment, saying: "In the second movie, he goes to 2023. They say it in the first one." What? What does that even mean? And that, as a matter of fact, was my reply to her nonsensical attempt at clarification. Almost instantly, I received a private message from Terri. She said:" You know everything. Please don't bother me any more."
No apology. No "are you sure?," leading to a continuing open dialogue allowing either of us to present evidence and prove our respective points. Nope! The internet won't have any of that! The internet would prefer that we behave like spoiled children who have just been told they cannot stay up another 30 minutes to watch a TV show they've seen a hundred times. The internet wants us to solve disagreements with name calling, sarcasm, insults and ultimatums. The internet encourages us to hold our breath until we turn blue and take our ball and go home. I am 61 years old. I stopped acting like a child when I stopped being a child.
But, this is Back to the Future we are talking about. Terri had to be blocked. What choice did I have?
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