Give up the venue, not the cause: Activism, slacktivism, social media, my FB hiatus, and AWP/Vanessa Place

Tags

activism, anger as motivation, arguing on social media, AWP, Facebook hiatus, giving a shit, Mongrel Coalition Against GringPo, petition, racism, slacktivism, Twitter, Vanessa Place

I gave up Facebook, but I didn’t give up giving a shit about equality and respect for all people. Photo by Flickr user Sam Michel (Creative Commons license).

The title of this post has to be long because I haven’t been on Facebook and am trying to cram in all that I missed.

Actually, I sort of gave up Facebook and I don’t “miss” it at all.

By “gave up,” I mean, I deleted the app from my phone so I have to check FB from an actual computer, which happens approximately once a day. I do not comment on posts, though I will still like things, give people their bday love (my bday was a few weeks ago and I got hundreds of bday loves and well wishes. Your bday is perhaps the one day a year when FB is worth it.)

I also share my own stuff, my own blog posts. In fact, things I would’ve used as status updates before? They’re blog posts now. I can blog more often–but not about every little thing!–write and engage more thoughtfully, and maybe get some of my existing friends to talk to me here, in a space I’ve created. Last week, three posts got me eight comments. It’s a nice, modest little start.

Friday afternoon, I noticed Mongrel Coalition Against GringPo was tweeting (I’m still on Twitter. Always.) at AWP about Vanessa Place, a “conceptual poet” who is tweeting every word of Gone with the Wind, who changed her avatar to a picture of Hattie-McDaniel-as-Mammy, and who thinks that in so doing, she’s somehow making art.

All the writers are at AWP and I’m updating my Pinterest books board

Tags

AWP, blogging, book reviews, books board, Pinterest, sick bed, staying busy

The post title says it all.

I have a sinus infection, so I’m choosing to look at my absence from AWP this year–a year I really wanted to go, because it’s been a while, and because Minneapolis, and because dang I could use a getaway and/or reunion with the lit world–as “there in spirit,” because you’re all probably gonna come home sick, anyway. I have the sick jump on everybody.

Get the visual here: I’m propped up in bed, shivering under a furry leopard print blanket, tissues everywhere, too buzzed on decongestants to nap very long, and trying to think of ways to stay occupied and feel productive without having to think TOO too much. Aha. To Pinterest!