Life is a gift

So, in case you didn't know, Twitter exploded. Everyone is about to lose their minds while we all wait for April 13 and the judge's ruling for Jodi Arias's sentencing. Just imagine how unbearable the wait must be for the Alexander family. It's a reminder of what matters. It's a reminder that today is a gift, and that we should be thankful and kind to each other.

#Justice4Travis

There are thousands of really incredible people out there that any one tweeter may cross paths with. But just like a yard sale, you have to rummage through lots of garbage to find the good stuff and the hidden gems. You have to test the waters and weed out the ones that are abusive or self-righteous or too vulgar for your taste. Amazing people with similar interests and quick wit are all out there just waiting for you to meet. It is so fun to make new friends and have genuine sincere and sometimes hilarious conversations with for hours. Every kind of people you can imagine, a rainbow of personalities, where it is your prerogative to befriend or not to befriend. To exchange or not to exchange ideas, share jokes, news, stories, adventures, far-away places, recipes, cocktails, or a picture of your cat...

Then you get to the serious stuff, the real life stuff that reminds me every day how lucky and blessed I am in my life and how thankful I am. You see real heartache and fear. You can feel it. People reaching out. I have seen the recent tweets from Corrina Flores, Detective Flores's wife, who is grieving the loss of their young darling son Tony and she barely has the strength to make it one day at a time. Her pain is palpable. It is so heart-wrenching to even imagine trying to survive the tragedy of losing a child. It must be simply surreal, almost an out-of-body experience every morning when she wakes up.

I saw a poor woman who was upset because her mother was having some serious surgery and she was very worried whether or not she would pull through. I see domestic abuse survivors, fragile yet incredibly strong women sharing stories through both humor and tears, about the horrific and violent things they and their children have lived through. I've seen cancer survivors, people who have had a loved-one murdered, someone whose home burned to the ground, someone who lost her husband in a tornado, people fighting against abuse and bullying, injustices and discrimination of race or sexual-orientation. And through it all I have met and seen so many beautiful, wonderful and caring people who lift each other up, send love and well-wishes, are a shoulder to cry on, and pray for one-another. These people are the other reason that I enjoy twitter. These are the ones who restore my faith in humanity. Caring people. Strong people. Smart people. Kind people.

Meanwhile others are busy insulting and cussing at strangers and tearing each other down. This goes beyond the sport of bantering with trolls. I don't really understand the whole troll game, I don't get what is fun about exchanging insults and profanities and threats. I can't comprehend why anyone would even engage in any type of conversation with people who are obviously enjoying pissing you off. And it goes even further, when a silent or otherwise dormant troll is provoked via various means such as direct tweets mentioning them by name, blog posts and comments, and fake Twitter accounts dedicated to hate. It really is just a big stupid game in my eyes. A total waste of time. A cesspool. I dont think it is funny at all, i think it is repulsive.

I don't know about you, but I have witnessed some deplorable and ridiculous behavior all over the internet. So many lost souls. It seems that some attention-seeking people enjoy conflict and provoking toxic exchanges. I feel like so many people have lost touch with what is important. 

Maybe I am naïve? Maybe Jodi is contagious? We know that everyone and everything she touches is destroyed and corrupted, kind of like the opposite of the Midas touch. Perhaps all of us who have been watching and who have invested ourselves and our hearts and our time in this trial have been dirtied. 

This the dark side of the not-trolls. These are the self-proclaimed troll deputies who try to boss you around and tell you who you should or should not befriend. They bark orders about how you are allowed to speak and who you are allowed to speak to and what questions you are allowed to ask. 

They are constantly reminding you of their importance and social status. These are the tweeters who think they rule the twitterverse, or even the world Ah! Ah! Ah! who use all kinds of strategies to make themselves seem much more influential than they really are. 

These folks are very cliquey and mean and if you don't pass the test you are quickly and publicly ridiculed and accused of being a liar, a traitor, a bitch, a Jodi Arias supporter, somebody that you are not, or having an "agenda". It's narcissistic and paranoid to think that I give a damn about what you think or how many followers you have. Recently someone who knows absolutely nothing about me accused me on Twitter of being a liar and of bashing disabled children. What if I told you I have a disabled child. You don't know, do you? So stop judging others and acting like you are better than they are. You are not. Far from it.

Then there are the really sneaky mean ones. The ones who act like they are the victim. The ones who never own-up to their deplorable behavior and say "who me?" The ones who are obviously so miserable in their own lives that they waste away their lives hating others. The ones who will never learn. The ones who poison themselves with their own venom.

I've seen lots of new strangely suspicious twitter eggs coming in and lots of accounts being suspended. Funny how when an enemy is suspended it's because they deserved it. But when you get suspended it's "not fair" and you "didn't do anything". Funny how when you are rightly accused of dragging people into your twitter wars you chime in "yeah! I hate those assholes that do that!" What a joke. Your tweets go unanswered by your high-profile alleged besties and yet you continue to try to make yourself relevant. And the weak-minded who aren't paying attention follow right along. I have learned on twitter how gullible and easily mis-led otherwise sweet or cool-cat people can be. These followers are just looking for someone to follow.

Funny how it's all just some kind of big popularity contest. The more followers you have, the more important you are. I don't buy that. A quote Ive seen online that sums it up is "Hitler had millions of followers, Jesus only had 12."

It's a matter of quality not quantity. I did a quick case study and randomly selected 1000 followers from somebody who brags about their "thousands of followers" and was surprised (not really) to see that nearly 60% were either purchased follow bots, auto followers, spam, corporations, fake, parody or duplicate accounts, inactive, or otherwise bogus.

To finish, I present to you an excellent video to ponder. I have posted this before in tweets, but I think it is so true and I want to share it again here. This is my favorite French musical artist, Stromae (get it? Maestro), who has a song that just happens to be called "Carmen". There are subtitles but they do not do it justice, so i have also included a full translation. The song is called Carmen because Stromae is my boyfriend and he wrote the song for me all about my pursuit of justice and kindness on the internet. Haha no, of course I'm just kidding, it is called Carmen because the lyrics mirror those of the classic opera Carmen. I played the video for my young son, and asked him what he thought the lesson was. He said "Beware, and don't be corrupted by social media!" He's a smart kid. <3

Limk to video : http://youtu.be/UKftOH54iNU

Lyrics :