Blathr Wayne Lorentz

What is Blathr?

Sunday, August 12th, 2018 Alive 17,274 days

My Facebook feed this morning:

  • An important service alert from a transit agency in some other city.
  • An obviously fake friend request from someone who thinks a Sharpie is an eyebrow pencil.
  • A promoted post from some company Iʼve never heard of pushing something I donʼt care about.
  • “People You May Know” who are all people I donʼt know.
  • Someone elseʼs memory of an event 5 years ago I wasnʼt at and donʼt care about.
  • A post from a “neighborhood” group on the other side of town.
  • A “Suggested Post” about something I donʼt care about.
  • A post in a language that I donʼt speak, but thatʼs OK because I do follow the Yomiuri Giants.
  • A post from the state parks people about a state park 400 miles away.
  • An image caption repost of a repost of a repost of a repost from someone who thinks that lifeʼs problems can be solved by re-posting other peopleʼs refrigerator magnet thoughts.
  • An ad for a coffee chain in another city with no locations within 700 miles.
  • A “Breaking News” weather alert about a dust storm last week.
  • A news item that a local TV station posted three months ago.
  • A photograph of someone I donʼt know who is friends with someone who is friends with someone who might know this person
  • A photo from an actual Facebook friend, but itʼs of his tween daughter in a leotard. Ummm…
  • An ad for a coffee chain in another country.
  • One of those “URGENT! URGENT!1!11!! Please help us find out dog!” re-posts from someone 2,500 miles away.
  • A re-post of a image caption thatʼs been around since the 1990ʼs.

Good job, Facebook. Glad to see the $70 billion spent on “user engagement AI” is working out for you.

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