Today I think I would like to talk about people who post on the Internet using many of the social websites. There are a lot of posts which annoy me and I am sure they annoy you too. One of the types of posts which really gets my goat is the type which has a glaring headline about some disaster which is about to befall us. It might be about UFOs which are heading our way or about some natural disaster in which a date is given for the event. There is just so many of these types of posts on the Internet. The truly annoying ones are the ones in which we read the post only to find out this suppose it event was supposed to happen several years ago. These are old posts from other sites and people have reposted them without bothering to read the post, because they saw the headline and wanted to impress us. We all make mistakes, but this type of mistake should never happen. I would never post anything I didn’t read and I’m sure most of you wouldn’t either. Recently I found one person posting several of these posts. Truthfully it made him look like a complete jerk.

The social website where these posts took place states you must be an adult to go on to it, but it has been my experience many people are letting their children post on it. I try and remember this when I see a ridiculous post. Truthfully children have no place on an adult board or adult site. I am not talking about X-rated sites at all, I am just talking about sites like Facebook. Another type of post which really annoys me is the one designed to try and make the person who posted the original post look stupid even though there is nothing wrong with that post. This is called trolling and there is far too much of it on the Internet. Sometimes these trolls make believe they are more than one person and use other names as they attack. This makes it seem like several people think the original poster was stupid, when in truth he just put up an ordinary everyday post.

One of the places which I see the angriest posts is on sports boards. As we know the ability of some players is judged differently by different people. One person may state he thinks somebody is not playing up to his potential and should be traded, which in turn might release a tirade of obscenities on him or her. I have always thought obscenities have no place in comments. People can voice their displeasure without using four letter words, it only teaches the children this is alright. These types of posts sometimes are designed to make the person who posted them feel powerful. I know I am beginning to sound like a psychiatrist and I don’t mean to, but the anonymity of the Internet leads to these kinds of things. Some people are a lot braver when they think you don’t know who they are. This reminds me of a phone call I got many years ago. I was in my office and was talking to somebody on the telephone and the lines got crossed and a third person was also on there. He told me to get off of the phone and I said you get off. He then said he was going to come down and kick my butt, but didn’t put it as nice as this. I began to laugh at the absurdity of the whole situation telling him this was the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard since he didn’t even know where I was or who I was.

I believe some comments are put on social networks just to startle people. Another type of post which really annoys me is the one which states some famous person did something and it turns out it isn’t true. I really dislike seeing somebody’s reputation besmirched when they are completely innocent. Sometimes it’s easy to pick out these types of libelous comments, but many times one has to do a little research to find out if they’re not true and most of us just can’t be bothered and I understand that. If I were to try and research everything which I think wasn’t true I would have no time to do anything else. It is the same for those altered photos which are appearing everywhere. Unfortunately it is far too easy to alter a photo in this present day and age and then post it as if it was genuine. This really annoys me, because it cast doubt on all photos. I remember when I was talking to a famous author who also was a photo examiner and somebody had submitted a photo to him of a UFO sighting in Mexico. The photo showed a large UFO over a building in Mexico City and it appeared in a story with a caption stating the UFO was seen by thousands of people. He told me he spent days analyzing the photo and then realized there was a clue proving the photo was a fraud. It just happened that on the roof of the building there were tiny flags and it was a windy day. All the flags were pointing to the right, because that was the direction the wind was blowing, but the flags under the UFO were not pointing in that direction proving the UFO had been added to the picture. The flags were very tiny and magnification was needed to detect this.

There is another type of post which I call the so-called helpful post. It may give you tips on how to do things or repair many different devices, but there is a danger with some of these posts. Let’s take a particular one which claimed to show people how to remove certain stains out of a rug, but instead makes the stain much worse. The people who posted that must’ve got a real laugh out of what they were doing. Far more dangerous are posts which claim taking certain things for your health will solve your problems. Before anyone ever contemplates following these posts they should investigate thoroughly before doing anything. You certainly wouldn’t want to take something which might make you worse or even kill you.

Then there are the posts which are always asking you to share them. I don’t mind that very much, but I do mind when they say things like, if you love your country you will share this post or if you want to cure cancer you will share this post or something like that. If you don’t share the post it may make you feel guilty, because that’s what it is designed to do. Nobody wants others to think they don’t love their country or want to cure cancer and yet this trend seems to be growing. Think about this, if everyone was to do this we would be so busy posting everybody else’s comments we have no time to do anything else.

As far as I am concerned posting on social media should be enjoyable and many times we may meet old friends this way. It shouldn’t be something that makes us angry and it certainly shouldn’t be something designed to fool us.