I didn't sleep well/Facebook crap

I woke up at 4 in the morning, so I figured instead of giving sleep another try, I'd wake up and play around on my Fackintosh computer. After seeing that there was nothing to do, no one to talk to, no games to play, I decided to check my Facebook page. Facebook's a total waste of time, but it's good to hear from the cool people I knew from way back when. I almost feel like I'm helping to feed a corporate monster that's been eating us all one-by-one, but it isn't like they've been making businesses and replacing old Mom & Pop stores... right?

Something has always bothered me about the website, though. I can look past all the "application requests" from my friends, because Facebook likes to hack people's accounts and spread its shenanigans like a virus. I'm not mad about that, and I'm also not mad about the way everything gets changed constantly, and I'm told what I should download and add to my pages. No, it hasn't got anything to do with Facebook at all, other than stupid, poetic statuses made by loosely-connected friends; people you hang onto because you feel guilty if you dump them. I only have about 3 or so, but they nonstop put up little cutesy quotes that mean absolutely nothing when taken out of their original context.

Here's a quote word-for-word, without changing the grammar:

"stand in what you believe in even if it means standing alone. if more people thought this way true friendships would be formed instead of fake ones!"

Okay, an admirable quote, but what does this have to do with "true friendships" if you stand alone? Do they have to stand alone with you, even if their opinions might not be the same? What exactly is the message being portrayed here? Well, here's what this person believes in: all men are cheating, lying scum that don't matter, and this is all because they got in a little fight and broke up, and she's so angry that she hates all men for about a week or less. So if she runs into other people who hate men so much, is it a true friendship? If all her male friends are cheating, lying scum, why hasn't she left them all behind? I think it's all a total lie. In fact, judging from the way this status is spelled and the other ones are linguistically butchered, I'd say this was a copy/pasta message.

Quotes shouldn't be used if they contradict the person's way of life. Someone who uses another person's quote should make it be applicable to their beliefs. They're mantras that show who the person really is, not because it sounds intelligent. Words have the power to have an effect so great that people can change their lives to make it true for them. After drawing some crappy little cartoons that had a message about how I didn't approve of certain things, I've had several hundreds of messages talking about how people had completely turned from liking something stupid to disliking it. I didn't mean to make them change their opinions, but sometimes when you say something you're passionate about and truly believe in, then some others will follow 100%, as long as there isn't a stupid reason for believing in it.

So overall, if you really believe in what you quote, follow through with it. Don't say it because it's poetic or partly true for what's currently going on in your world. To reference a quote is to present what you feel in a way that you couldn't describe in your own words. For me that means,

“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” -Mark Twain

Shit, I might be a fool...

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