My Recent Foray into Facebook Comments and Replies
- Thomas Witherspoon
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Or, for the love of God, Tom, please don’t do this again!
I have been online in one form or another for over 30 years. I wrote and posted bad poetry (and made some lifelong friends!) at the Usenet forum “rec.arts.poetry”. I remember logging on with a 9600 baud modem and thinking that was the coolest. When I upgraded to a 14400 setup, I thought I was in heaven!
From the moment I started interacting with other people online, other strangers, I quickly came up with two rules :
Make sure my communication is clearly received.
Don’t comment on something unless you can add something to the conversation.
Following those two rules has kept me out of a lot of trouble. I’m not going to claim perfection; I broke those rules many times. And when I did break those rules, I usually landed in some sort of trouble. Not life-threatening trouble, thank goodness, but I’ve been kicked out of more than a few online groups and forums over the years.
So, this story is about the most recent time I broke my own rule number two.
I was scrolling through Facebook, as one does, when I happened upon a post from a Miami television station. It was a post about a recent story that centered on the latest vehicle acquisition for the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP).
The post:
The vehicle in question is the latest model of Corvette, a C8 if you want to sound cool. It is the first mid-engine designed Corvette in the history of the car. This means that the engine is not located in the front of the car, but more toward the rear, tucked in just behind the driver. Many European sportscar manufacturers have been doing this for years, claiming improved handling based on weight ratios. American car companies seem wedded to the front-engine design, so for a mid-engine Corvette to emerge is a pretty big deal.
Now, mid-engine cars do have one big practical disadvantage: they cannot carry much cargo. There is no traditional trunk like you would expect to find in an ordinary car. Up front, where we are used to the engine being located, there is a small storage compartment. Car enthusiasts refer to this as a “frunk”, and it usually cannot hold anything much larger than a small backpack. You will not be using a Corvette C8, or any other mid-engine sports car, as a “daily driver”.
So, with all that background, here is my comment:
As you can see from my highlighting, most of the folks who interacted with my comment found it funny. So, that’s good! Nice to know my sense of humor is operating well within set parameters.
Here are some examples (names redacted):
Some comments were requests for information:
Some comments were of the “well akshually” variety:
Honestly, did this guy think that I thought this Corvette was the ONLY car that the FHP had at its disposal?
Far too many people thought a “free” car meant “free” maintenance, fuel, and insurance. Boy, I’d like to live in THAT world!
Some replies could not buy a clue:
This is the STRANGEST reply I received. Name not redacted:
Some comments were insulting:
I’m going to ask this question again: Have conservative people lost their senses of humor? There were MANY comments and replies that clearly supported this assertion.
I’m not sure which part of the comment offends me more: the puerile insult or the atrocious grammar.
And some were out and out threats:
Now, to be absolutely clear: this reprobate has been reported and blocked by yours truly. However, the comment was not removed. It did not raise any alarms of the Facebook content moderation staff. Make of that what you will.
What conclusions can I draw from this foray into seemingly innocent Facebook commentary? Well, the overwhelming majority of people who interacted with my original comment about a Florida Highway Patrol vehicle that looks like it came out of a Matchbox multi-pack liked what I had to say. I’ll take the win but might not offer my humor so freely in the future.
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