As a longtime social-media detractor, I’ve never had much respect for those who lard up their personal emails or public essays with things they’ve already uttered in their Twitter bleatings. Or at least I didn’t, until I joined Substack Notes. (Hypocrisy, thy name is Matt Labash.) Yes, I feel sick about it, too. But can you even call it “social” media if only about twenty people use it? And besides, Slack Tide doesn’t sell itself. Turns out, I have to write it and sell it. Speaking of, buy a paid subscription now, freeriders, so I don’t have to get a supplemental job at ICE, who is recruiting, btw. (All those brown people aren’t going to lock themselves up.) Nobody wants to see me joining washed-up Superman, Dean Cain, on the obstacle course.
I therefore finally and shamefully succumbed, figuring while Rome is burning, why shouldn’t I head for The Fiddle Shoppe, too? But I will now selflessly use my own character deficiencies as a cautionary tale of exactly why I’ve always hated social media. Just look:
See that? I read a headline or two, got my Irish up, and instead of going fishing, or at least letting my passions cool in quiet contemplation, I impulsively reached for the flamethrower, comparing F.C.C. Chair Brendan Carr to a ferret of dubious ancestry. Which is ugly, beneath me, and grossly unfair. And I realize now, in the stark light of morning, that I owe a sincere apology to ferrets, who have never done me any wrong. And who Wikipedia sources assure me are mostly harmless creatures who go about their business: burrowing, sleeping 14-to-18 hours a day, copulating for longer than one hour at a time (those naps are paying off, ferrets!), and releasing anal-gland secretions when they’re startled or scared, not unlike your average Twitter content-provider.
I will not be apologizing to Brendan Carr, however. Who actually bears stronger resemblance to a weasel than a ferret.