Welcome to the Surly Farmer, from the Surly Farmer.
I hope this site provides a pleasant distraction to your day. None of this will be on the test and there will be no math. So dig in.
Me and the Zuck, or How We Got Here
It was September, and I was starting to think that this Zuckerberg fella might not have my best interests at heart.
Back up to 2007, when I got in contact with an old friend who encouraged me to join Facebook, saying “it’s just like high school.” Friends, that is not the best way to tempt me, but I gave it a try anyway. Soon, I was reconnecting with people from high school, college, distant relations, Army days, prison (just checking to see if you were paying attention), and all was good. It continued like this for a while, and mostly because I kept politics out of my posts, it was a Golden Age of Facebook.
There were some problems, however, such as the sinking feeling that your life is being monetized by a bunch of assholes in Silicon Valley, or that privacy—already increasingly an illusion—was draining away faster than a pitcher of beer at the Concho Corral on a Friday night.
And then came Trump.
I kept fairly apolitical through the end of W, and through both of Obama’s terms, though at times it was not easy. But when Trump came along, I couldn’t help myself. The man and his candidacy represent the very worst things about America: the worship of celebrity regardless of ability, and the conflation of wealth with competence and moral authority. In my wildest dreams, I could not imagine Trump winning the Republican nomination, let alone the presidency. Yet here we are. As Trump ascended in political relevance, I became increasingly less interested in not giving offense to people, and my follower count began to fall. I didn’t want to persuade people to come around to my view, but I also wasn’t going to be quiet about what I saw as an insult to the nation. My total friend list on Facebook never exceeded 160-170 people, and as I write this now, it is at a very reasonable 140 people.
Now, in addition to the real live trolls and bucketheads on Facebook, the mouthbreathers and knuckledraggers who believe anything that arrives in a FW:FW:FW:FW:FW email from drunk Uncle Bob, for whom nothing was too spurious or delusive to “Share Now” with their fellow dullards, we are learning that ol’ Zuck and friends were willing to sell out the American public for literally a few rubles.
And I’m out.
As we learn more about Facebook’s involvement with Russian interference with our electoral process, the picture is only going to get worse, so now seems like a good time to pull the plug. It’s the only thing I can do to show my contempt for these people.
I risk losing contact with people who I care about, because my only interactions with them were through Facebook, but I hope that many of them will visit the Surly Farmer from time to time.
Anyway, welcome. I’m glad you’re here.