My Facebook landing page is like a well-traversed jungle or an active meeting place in a large city. At any given time, it provides accommodation for a plethora of information that reflects the heartbeat of a multi-cultural community.
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It’s the platform on which I connect with my friends daily and observe the antics of others as they express their feelings of sadness, joy and happiness. And I must admit that I’m often stirred to the very core of my soul as my fellow Facebookers convey their emotions through poetry, prose, photographs and YouTube videos.
I don’t mind the religious fanatics who often quote verses from the Bible, obviously to scare their friends into submission to the bosom of God, or Allah or Jah. And I welcome those who provide newspaper and video links to televangelists and other Bible-thumping revivalists. I firmly believe there’s enough room for all sorts of us on Planet Earth, even as the global population reaches its 7-Billionth mark in the next three months.
Aha! And here’s my special breed – the picture-takers. I’m glad to know that there are others who are still guided by the maxim that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” However, to some of you, drop the over-bearing narcissistic behaviour in your photo posts. Even as you like to see yourselves in pictures all the time, give a little respect to the others posing beside you.
Did I hint that I like to see your friends and families in those photos too, in addition to outdoor sceneries and party camaraderie? But, I think members of the Facebook fraternity would find them more interesting and believable if you say who’s who and where’s where in these photographs, even if you borrowed them from your grandmothers’ family albums.
In the journalism business there’s a term called caption. This is the act of saying what’s going on in the photo and naming the people exactly as they appear from left to right or from right to left. As for place names, just don’t write Kingston, Quebec or Montreal with Canada on your mind if you don’t know the facts.
By doing so you could offend a Jamaican citizen from Quebec, a district (or village) close to Port Maria, the capital of the island’s northeast parish of St. Mary. Or you could earn the wrath of another Jamaican from Montreal, a district near the town of Carron Hall on the opposite side of the same parish, close to the northeast end of St. Catherine, an adjoining parish. And you wouldn’t want to insult Jamaica whose capital, Kingston, has the world’s seventh largest natural harbour.
In its rich and confined state, my Facebook page reminds me of a junk box I kept when I was a young man. To me, it was a sort of repository for useful things such as: transistor batteries, bits of electrical wires, cute pieces of plastic and other pocket-size radio and mechanical parts I had picked up on the streets or in waste bins. If they hadn’t disappeared, I have a strong feeling they would’ve come in handy one day for one of my mechanically or electrically contrived projects.
Even earlier, as a teenager, I had a bunch of keys, but I discarded them when I found out that hoarding a dozen or so keys (or even one), particularly without the matching locks, could’ve landed me in jail on some charge like: intent to break and enter. What was I thinking? I don’t remember harbouring any interest in key-making or lock-smithing.
I think I’ll check my page now to see who is sharing useful information, fund-raising for Christmas, announcing a concert or posting photos from their six-year-old albums. Then I’ll check through the clutter of newspaper links shared by a certain voracious reader.
And I hope there’s no obituary as I send best wishes to a friend who is celebrating her birthday today (December 9, 2011).
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