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This is me, my head and my life. Deal with it.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

The Dark Side of the Social Media

In the past few weeks I have discovered, and fallen in love with, Pinterest. Seriously it's as if someone wrapped up a present and said "here Jessica, here is a web sight that will allow you to waste huge amounts of time while feeling like you are wasting absolutely no time. Unwrap this and do what you will." And oh boy have I. I am a pinning fiend. It really is a great. And the best part is that people like my pins, and repin my pins, and make me feel like I am just as cool as I think I am. This morning, however, I discovered that pinterest has a dark side. Let me explain.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm filled with a delightful jubilee of oddities. By that I mean that there are certain things that drive me crazy and make me want to hit something, and other things that just make me want to vomit, but you know, in a fun way. There isn't a good reason behind it, that's just the way it is. So, on pinterest I created a board that would allow me to show the world all the things that bug me. Because if I'm willing to admit my social ineptitudes that makes them ok. One of the peculiar things that bothers me is naked pregnant bellies, especially in picture form. I just think its gross and weird. I mean normally, and not in a"these are art shots" situation you hire a photographer and you get cute. You wear adorable clothing, that covers all the major parts of you. So why, when you have a huge belly and stretch marks do you take off clothes for the photographer? It doesn't not make sense to me. I don't think it's classy and it kinda disturbs me. And of course because I'm me, and don't think people really pay attention to anything I do on any social medium, I find some pictures of naked pregnant bellies and post them with pithy captions like "why do people do this, it's just gross" and "please do us all a favor and cover up your bulging belly." And apparently a bunch of people were not ok with this personal decision. Seriously I woke in the morning with a text from my cousin explaining what was going on, and an apology for having commented. Her exact phrase was "it won't end, they're out for you." I thought she must have been joking, or exaggerating. She was not. A bunch of people I don't know in any way had gotten on and basically ripped me a new one because I had the audacity to not appreciate the beautiful pregnant human form in all it's glory. People called me ignorant and repressed and wrong and all this stuff. It was kind of ridiculous.

This brings me to the first problem that I have with social media. It makes it so easy for people to be rude. It is so much easier to say blunt, unkind things via facebook or twitter than it is to say them face to face. These people who were commenting on my blog didn't know me. They are never going to see me, or meet me, or listen to my thoughts on what makes a sandwich perfect (it's all in the ratios). They are free to declare their opinions on my opinions in any way they choose with no consequences. Facebook is the same way. You can rip someone's status apart just like that, but it would probably be a lot harder to say it to their face. We all do it too. I can get super snarky on facebook and twitter. I blog about things that I would never have the balls to say to someone's face. I guess that's what anonymity does. It makes common courtesy and politeness go out the window, and replaces them with rudeness and unchecked anger. That saddens me. I wish we could go back to a day where you had to sit down and talk to someone about there opinion. For days when you couldn't just blurt out your thoughts, post them, and then be done with them. My new goal is to try not to say anything on a social medium that I wouldn't say in real life. I probably won't succeed, especially not in my blog, but I'm going to try.

I eventually deleted the offensive prego pictures. But I almost didn't. All morning as I was getting ready I kept thinking to myself, "they don't have to like it. It's my pinterest and I'll do what I want. Its my opinion who cares what they think?" Those pictures were all about me. My rights to post what my opinions however I want. If other people don't like it then they don't have to look. So there ha!

This brings me to my second issue with social media. It is makes everyone terribly self-centered. What you post is all about you. I bet most of us don't even pause before posting a crass status, or an embarrassing photo. It's my facebook/twitter/pinterest/blog/etc, I can do what I want. And it's true you can. But is it doing whatever just because you can really the right thing to do? I think that's why I took those pictures down. Do I have every right to find pictures of future dads hugging naked pregnant bellies while the mom's face is nowhere in sight, creepy? I do. And I always will. But maybe it's best that I don't share those feelings with the internet-ing world. Maybe sharing my opinion isn't worth upsetting others. It's easy to share whatever comes into your head, just ask the people who were calling me ignorant without ever having had a conversation with me, because you can and you want to. What's harder is thinking about others before you rip on something others find beautiful, or post mean words about someone's opinion. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad to have dissenting opinions. That's healthy and good and makes the world go round. But maybe putting a little thought into what we post instead of just letting the brain juices flow would go a long way.

This post is super long and a little rambly. Sorry. I guess my point is that while social media is awesome, and fun and amusing, it can also be dangerous, and hurtful. And now that I've blogged about it I hope I can keep the bad in mind along with the fun and try not to do more harm then good.

Monday, November 14, 2011

The Pleasure of Your Company

When I was younger I was one of those people who was too cool for a best friend. Back in 3rd and 4th grade people didn't ask you who your boyfriend was, they asked you who your best friend was. And in response to that question I always said, "oh you know, I don't really have a best friend, I just have a group of really good friends." Psh, I was such a liar. Or maybe I wasn't but if I said that now I would be. If someone asks me now who my best friend is, and sometimes even if they don't ask, I say that my best friend is Heather Williams. I'm going to try to not get overly sentimental here, but tis true, Heather is my bff. I've known her since I was four and she is one of the very few people I can be totally myself with. I don't have to worry about what I'm saying and who's going to think I'm a bad person or any of that. See, Heather knows I'm a bad person, and is going to join me at my party in hell. What brings about this sudden gush of feeling towards a person who I very rarely hug? Probably the fact that I spent most of the weekend doing nerdy things with her. Nerdiness binds two people together in a way hugs just can't. Which is probably why we don't hug. It's just weird. We do salute though. Anyway, back to the point. This weekend was awesome. I came home after the Utah-UCLA game (weird for me to watch) and called Heather to inform her that I was home and my mom had purchased HP 7.2. Five minutes, 2 doorbell dings and 2 knocks (sorry Header) later my family, Heather and I were curled up watching the movie, laughing and crying at mostly appropriate times. The fun did not stop there. Sunday we went to the homecoming of the fabulous Allen Warner, which was fun, but not nerdy. Then we watched "The Two Towers" extended version, skipping all the gross boring Sam and Frodo stuff. Yeah, in one weekend we watched both HP and LOTR. And we wonder why we don't have boyfriends. Spending this weekend in nerdom with my bestie made me feel super grateful that I have someone who is willing to accept me for me because she is just like me. I love Heather, and am totally alright with the idea of never marrying and living with her and some pit bulls. So yeah, that's my rave review of Heather. She's fantastic and I wish she would leave the UC bubble and live with me in Salt Lake. It would make my life a lot better. It would also provide me with a social life that I am seriously lacking. It would also also mean that I wouldn't have to get and give all life updates via facebook. It would also also also make me very happy, and eliminate any more rando horrible roommates.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Grand Canyon Adventure+Halloween Adventure

So I have been super lax in updating my blog of late. Something my father told me I needed to fix. So here I am, fixing it. As you may recall from one of recent-ish posts, I decided that I wanted to have more adventures in my life! And the good news is, I HAVE! Yeah for accomplishing what I set out to do! Here now for your enjoyment is a recap of my great adventurous life.

ADVETURE 1: THE GRAND CANYON
Yeah that's right, I went to a national park that isn't in the state
of Utah. What now? Here's the story. My dad, and my alternate parents Jen and Wayne Pullman decided that for UEA they wanted to hike across the Grand Canyon, from the north rim to the south rim, in one day. Are you shaking your head thinking "you crazy fools"? Cuz that's what I did. But they needed another driver, so I said I would drive. And drive I did. 3 day, 20 hours of driving, 5 1/2 of those with no one but my self and the music playing off my iPhone speakers in the car. That part was just as fun as it sounds, not very. A quick side note if any of you ever find yourself thinking, you know what I think I'm going to move to the middle of nowhere Arizona and sell Native American craft items out of a road side stand, reconsider, immediatly. Because that is some bleak bleak land out there. The Grand Canyon itself though was absolutely spectacular. Everyone should see it at least once in their life, if not more. Pictures below.

















ADVENTURE 2: Halloween
So Halloween is hands down my favorite holiday. I love it more than Christmas. To me Halloween is a holiday that everyone can enjoy. All you have to do is dress up and have fun. Also there are pumpkins to be carved. So this year I had a pretty great costume. I was the Grapes of Wrath. The picture, will hopefully do it justice. I went out, I had fun. I even won some money at work. But the real fun was making the costue. My mom and I had a really superb time coming up with how we wanted to make the grapes and make me look angry, and gangster. All in all I love halloween.