I am trying to make friends outside of FaceBook while applying the same principles.  Therefore, every day I walk down the street and tell passersby what I have eaten, how I feel at the moment, what I have done the night before, what I will do later, and with whom.  

I give them pictures of my family, my dog, and of me gardening, taking things apart in the garage, watering the lawn, standing in front of landmarks, driving around town, having lunch, and doing what anybody and everybody does every day.  

I also listen to their conversations, give them the "thumbs up" and tell them I like them.  

And it works just like FaceBook.  I already have four people following me … two police officers … a private investigator … and a psychiatrist…

Noel

LOL!!!!!

ha ha ha so funny 🙂

A true classic! Thanks for sharing.

Wonderful characterization of the modern lifestyle. I showed it to my wife and she has already copied it to many friends around the world.

That was a pretty good one, Noel.

The narcissism on display now via social media is astounding to me - all the selfies, showing off, etc. etc.

In the past I was critical of younger generations for this behavior, but after pondering on it a bit, I realized that some people(too many, really) have always been this way.  The only difference is that now they have the Internet and social media as means through which to show off all their new toys and their fabulous life, whereas before they could only brag to a much smaller audience.

Dave

" two police officers … a private investigator … and a psychiatrist…  "

Inspector Clouseau wanted to see his license ( lee-saunce)

2 hours ago, dave2013 said:

show off all their new toys and their fabulous life,

You mean like pictures of their gaming rigs and screenshots from their flight sims? 😄

Maybe favorite books, movies or music? An inspirational quote they found somewhere? 

You might even see the occasional picture of what someone had for dinner if it's really impressive, or a spectacular snowfall. You might see a picture of someone's dog or cat. Or a car they found interesting. Some people even have a pic of their own car, motorcycle or airplane in their profile pic.

Some people post news articles they found interesting. Others comment on said news articles.

Yeah, I guess online communities can be like that. Seems to me it's been like that ever since I first got online on a 2400 baud modem in the late 80's. Sometimes I miss the dial-up BBS systems and FidoNET. Or the public access UNIX system where I first discovered USENET. Or all the various IRC channels where we interacted in real time, and made friends with people from all over the world.

There was even a "Victorian Internet" made up of all the telegraph operators. In slow times they'd chat, exchange jokes, and there was even one marriage performed over the telegraph system. Google "Victorian internet".

I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Hook

19 hours ago, LHookins said:

You mean like pictures of their gaming rigs and screenshots from their flight sims? 😄

Maybe favorite books, movies or music? An inspirational quote they found somewhere? 

You might even see the occasional picture of what someone had for dinner if it's really impressive, or a spectacular snowfall. You might see a picture of someone's dog or cat. Or a car they found interesting. Some people even have a pic of their own car, motorcycle or airplane in their profile pic.

Some people post news articles they found interesting. Others comment on said news articles.

Well, that's not what I'm talking about.

Showing pictures of your flightsim rig on a flightsim forum is expected and doesn't necessarily indicate bragging.

Posting pictures of a favorite book, a beautiful snowfall or sunset, or an interesting article also doesn't equal bragging.

I'm talking about all the selfies in nice locations and pictures of expensive meals, cars, clothes, etc.  Then there are the folks who like to display their entire lives on Facebook, Youtube, and other sites, posting videos of themselves cooking dinner, cleaning house, and performing other mundane tasks.  It's all a bit bizarre to me.

There's a lot of narcissism, boasting, and exhibitionism out there, especially on social media.  I find this sad.

Dave

14 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

There's a lot of narcissism, boasting, and exhibitionism out there

Yes.

Ever hear of Maru the cat? The guy's YouTube channel currently has 897K subscribers and 2K videos. The cat really is funny. YouTube mugumogu if you're interested.

If anyone can monetize a YouTube channel of cleaning their house, more power to them, even if it's just pocket change. If anyone is making a decent living doing that, they have my respect. Probably depends on what they're wearing in the videos.

Our version of that is posting videos of our sim flights. Or reviewing sims and updates of sims. Or unboxing the newest nVidia card. Even better are the real world pilots posting videos of their flights, like the guy in Papua New Guinea. 

We're all doing the same thing, just the content of the videos is different.

Have you ever actually seen the kind of content you're upset about?  I haven't.  Is there really enough of it to worry about? I honestly don't care. Let them do their thing and let us do ours. I've heard rumors of "smartphone zombies" but I've never actually seen one. I have to assume enough exist to start the rumors, but it doesn't appear to be as widespread as some people would have you believe. Basically, it's just a meme.

I visit my Facebook page every few months. My Facebook friends don't post that kind of thing. One lady posts pics of "found dogs" they're trying to get back to their owners. Another friend posted a lot of political content I didn't agree with until I unfriended her. My son occasionally posts food pics, but then he's a chef. And animal pics. And pics of his motorcycles. I see all those in real life, but still enjoy the posts. Likely others do too.

One guy on another forum posted a pic of his car. It was the same make, model and color as one I'd owned in the past. You may assume I enjoyed it.

Live and let live, and don't worry about things you have no control over.

Hook

37 minutes ago, LHookins said:

Ever hear of Maru the cat? The guy's YouTube channel currently has 897K subscribers and 2K videos. The cat really is funny. YouTube mugumogu if you're interested.

If anyone can monetize a YouTube channel of cleaning their house, more power to them, even if it's just pocket change. If anyone is making a decent living doing that, they have my respect. Probably depends on what they're wearing in the videos.

Our version of that is posting videos of our sim flights. Or reviewing sims and updates of sims. Or unboxing the newest nVidia card. Even better are the real world pilots posting videos of their flights, like the guy in Papua New Guinea. 

We're all doing the same thing, just the content of the videos is different.

Posting videos of a funny cat is not the same as taking selfies of yourself at some resort in Cancun and posting it all over Facebook and Instagram so others can envy you.

We are most certainly not all doing the same thing when we post videos of our flights on a flightsim forum or channel.

It's clear that you just don't get what I'm talking about.  That's OK, it doesn't really matter if you do or don't.  Live and let live, right?

Have a nice day.

Dave

34 minutes ago, LHookins said:

Live and let live, and don't worry about things you have no control over.

Hook

Hook, I posted that because a friend e-mailed it to me and I thought it was pretty funny.  I looked at it as humor and not as a critique of Facebook.  I have never had a Facebook or any other social media account.  AVSIM is not a social media site.  It is for flightsimmers (although I am not one any more).  Hangar Chat is what we talk about aside from flying.  I used to log onto Flightsim.com and Hangar Talk was what we used there to chat about non flying topics.

Lighten up.  That thing I posted to start this thread was not a criticism.  It was a rather funny take on Facebook.  If we can't laugh at ourselves over the things we do we are in a sorry state.

Noel

17 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

posting it all over Facebook and Instagram so others can envy you.

Um... I don't envy them. Generally I think it's pretty cool.

I don't think people posting pics of themselves with their airplanes are intended to make us envy them. Or their $65K home cockpit setups (although I may be wrong on that last one). I see something like that and just think, "Hey, that's pretty cool!" 

I once posted some pics of me taking my cats for a walk. I talked about doing this a lot and people didn't understand, so I posted pics. The thing that impressed them most wasn't the 7 cats and 2 dogs in the pic, but the utterly rural look of the road in front of my house, trees lining both sides of the dirt road, like a path through a forest. Did they envy that? I certainly wasn't expecting it. But I do like living in the boonies.

Someone posts a pic of Monument Valley with themselves in the foreground of the picture wearing hiking gear. Am I supposed to envy that or simply be impressed? I just thought it was pretty cool, and I had an interesting pic of my friend.

Always remember, your own life is impressive enough that you don't need to envy anyone. Those pics probably aren't intended to inspire envy, and if they are, you simply ignore those people  as they simply aren't that interesting.

Hook

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

Hook, I posted that because a friend e-mailed it to me and I thought it was pretty funny. 

Noel, I thought it was funny too. 😄 

It reminded me of something published long ago in, I think, National Lampoon. Go around giving people unsolicited advice quoted from Poor Richard's Almanac until someone punches you in the face. 😄 😄 

I miss National Lampoon.

Hook