Pet Peeve

I spend a lot of time on Facebook, not posting so much, just reading. And I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of late. People using old, perhaps relatively unknown, stories or poems and creating smarmy Facebook posts from them and riding on the coattails of someone else. Let me explain.

I’m sure there are lots of examples out there, but the first one I noticed (a couple of years ago) was a poem that was attached to a picture of a really old man lying in a hospital bed and the caption read that the poem was found amongst his things after he died. I’m sure you’ve all heard the poem before:

“Look at me nurses, what do you see?
What are you thinking when you look at me...”

The thing is, that poem was one of my mother’s favourites some 30 40 many years ago. It was actually written by a woman named Phyllis McCormack, who lived in Scotland, in the 1960s. I was rather appalled that this was being used to generate “likes” on Facebook and just how many people were buying into the idea that this was a recent occurrence.

Just recently I watched a moving video account of a young man who was orphaned in the Philippines 30 years ago and was adopted by an Australian couple, and who was seized by the desire to find out what happened to his parents all those years ago. So he went to the city he was adopted from and found his birth mother. Sound familiar? If you’ve seen the movie Lion, or read the book, it should.

A few days ago I watched what was supposed to be a video to inspire you to think of others. It told of a young married couple - she had long hair and he had a broken pocket watch. He sold his watch to buy her new combs for her hair, and comes home to discover she’s sold her hair to pay for the watch to be fixed. C’mon people, do you live under a rock that you’ve never heard of O. Henry’s feel good Christmas story called The Gift of the Magi? One of my all time favorites, it’s both touching and humorous. And I really resent the fact someone ripped it off for another smarmy Facebook post. They ought to be ashamed of themselves!

There are lots more examples, but I think I’ve made my point. Between stuff like that and all the political stuff going on, I find myself going on Facebook less and less.

And does anyone else find the way the internet keeps track of where you live and what you’ve been looking at creepy? The hubby and I were looking at ceiling panels for the kitchen and suddenly I keep getting ads for Home Depot popping up in my Facebook feed.

/end rant. ;-)

Last week wasn’t exactly a stellar week writing wise, but it was certainly better than the week before. I got all of my blog posts done, some of them even posted on time, plus I did a story and a poem for the Brazen Snake Books weekly prompts, AND I managed to get a super short story done for my monthly picture prompt.

But that was pretty much it because it was a holiday weekend and a busy one at that. And considering the wet, depressing week during which I was suffering from a sinus cold and migraines, I think I did pretty good.

This week’s goal is to get my blog posts done, at least attempt the Brazen Snake prompts, and actually get some of those word things in on one or more of my current WIP.

So tell me .... what are some of your pet peeves?