In Love with Social Media

I’m having two conversations at once — one with a woman I have never met, the other with a man who is 13 hours away. These are the wonders of social media.

It’s because of social media’s ability to transcend place and time that I survive through the COVID era of distance and extreme caution. I am not an extrovert, but I love real conversations, the ones where you get beyond “how are you” and into things like culture, beliefs, and stories.

I was on social media in the 80’s, before there was social media as we know it. In college, I spent time on the PLATO system, which was mostly an educational system with functions that were used as social media as well as instructional communication. We had what we called “notesfiles” (which became Lotus Notes, and influenced later social media) which would be equivalent to Facebook’s Groups and subreddits. We had chat, known as term-talk, group chats — anything familiar to today’s social media user.

What PLATO didn’t have was a beautiful visual interface, instead having a line command interface much like pre-Windows computer; the ability to go to other sites to do research, and access to dating sites (although this is arguable; I had gone on two or three blind PLATO dates before Match.com existed. We didn’t worry about this, because were were a close-knit community, even though some of us were states away.)

Today, social media is so much more amazing than I expected it would be. Beautiful visual web pages, sites and apps that can facilitate sharing lives (Facebook), sharing pictures (Instagram), bond with video clips (TikTok), date (numerous, but I met my husband on Match.com), or become a base and despicable being (4chan).

And today I can open up the world with social media. I become just a little more cosmopolitan, vicariously.

First Snow — a Christmas scene

Years ago, I wrote a story called “First Snow”. I searched my crypt of past writing for a copy so I could post it here, but I have no copy. The only copy of the story resided on a computer system/community that no longer exists called PLATO. (For those who spent time on PLATO before there was an internet to play with, I was lleach/pasrf, lleachie/pasrf, laurie/pasrf, and lauren/pasrf. Also mylovelifeis/cursed). If you’re interested in the system that had chat capabilities, advice notesfiles, and serious, unwashed gamers while the Internet slept in someone’s dreams, check out this book: The Friendly Orange Glow

I have the choice of lamenting the loss of a pretty little vignette, or I could try to rewrite it like I am doing with Whose Hearts are Mountains.

***********
Through the years we all will be together,
if the fates allow …

Snugging up my coat and tightening my scarf with mittened hands, I stepped out the door of the computer lab. I noticed it had started to snow while I stared at the terminal typing to wraithlike friends, sharing myself more freely than I did in real life.

The first snow of the season crunched underfoot as I walked under the streetlamp, surrounded by the old, settled buildings of the engineering campus. I had heard the rumor that the University would tear the old University Fire Department down for a shiny Public Safety complex. I shook my head; the squat, grimy beauty of the current building would be no more. Too many changes. I stepped forward, because there was no way to walk but forward.

The night seemed bereft of people, of noise; nothing except me and the silence. And my thoughts.

My best friends would graduate soon. First, Mike, who would be gone in three days before I could ask him what his family was like. Then Alex would graduate in spring. Others had already drifted away, and I would not hear their stories again. That was the problem with holding people to my heart — they drifted away, and I would let them go.

The snow fell in earnest, shrouding all familiar landmarks in a coat of white. Street lights and phone poles stood starkly against the billows. My footprints stood in stark relief as I turned around and viewed them, the only footprints marring the snow. Each step was into uncharted territory; each footprint showed that I had survived that part of the journey, but that I had survived it alone.

Alone — no, not alone. I held the memories of my friends; I held their stories. There would be no new stories when they left, no new memories made, but there would be what I held now.

As I crossed from the campus to the shady streets of Urbana, I stopped in front of the University High School, its Gothic hulk softened by snow. I glanced up at the streetlight — an old-fashioned globe light — to see the swirling snow fashion it into a star of sorts, close enough, and I let my husky voice rise:

… through the years, we all will be together,
if the Fates allow —
hang a shining star upon the highest bough …

And that was what I would do when I got home. I would decorate the tree in my tiny apartment, hanging the star at the top, and drink a toast to memories and to the first snow. Like snow, friendships could melt at a moment’s notice, but memories would last.

Using Facebook to Sharpen Writing Skills

Before I had a blog, I had Facebook. Strangely, Facebook helped me with my writing a great deal.

There are rules for writing in Facebook: conciseness is the number one rule. You might never have seen a conciseness rule written as such on Facebook, but you have seen the condensed version: tl;dr. Too long; didn’t read. Messages have to be short and to the point.

Second, grammar and spelling. There’s a lot of misspelling, all caps, no caps, and errant punctuation, but at the same time, people get ridiculed for it (unless they speak a foreign language, in which case all is forgiven.) If the misspelling or punctuation is humorous, it will become a joke, as is evidenced by this exchange in the pre-Internet system called PLATO:

F. Ortony: You can’t win Wessing.
E. Wessing: How does one ‘wess’?

The third rule is: Use your words wisely. One is less likely to tl;dr if one avoids repetition and uses more evocative words like action verbs, descriptive adjectives, and concise nouns.

The fourth rule is: make them care. Facebook can be overwhelming, and vague arguments and insults either don’t interest people or get their attention in the wrong way. What gets attention the right way: Sound arguments, sharp humor, language that evokes the writer’s emotions and leaves room for the others’ emotions.

It doesn’t hurt to insert all of these in regular writing as well. Poetry puts the most meaning in the least number of words; the writer can’t get as descriptive as in a novel, but conciseness really matters in poetry. Grammar and spelling and logical setup benefit all forms, but especially prose. For those non-fiction writers, these skills are equally crucial.

And to think I can practice these skills every day while critiquing cat videos!