My 30 Day Facebook Vacation

My 35 Day Facebook Vacation

By John Ceccon

I’ve never been on an international vacation. Never cared to. Europe doesn’t impress me. Asia is too close to Fukushima. Africa is too hot and beheadings totally rule out the middle east. I’ve been to Mexico a few times, but that is only because it’s 27 miles away and I wanted cheap Viagra. I’ve been in Canada’s airspace for a few hours on my way to Alaska, so technically, I’ve been there too. I have Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and a 4K TV, all of which can take me anywhere I want to go. I’ll just watch Anthony Bourdain or Andrew Zimmer go to these god-forsaken places on the Travel Channel and consider it a visit by proxy. I don’t like flying, especially after 9/11 (yeah, I’m one of those). I don’t want to deal with funny money exchange rates. Don’t want to deal with a “language barrier” or road signs written in squiggly line font. If I have to sit on a plane for more than 5 hours to go to your country, then, I’ll pass, and I’m on the fence about Hawaii for this very reason. I’m still enjoying exploring the good ol’ USA because there are a ton of places I haven’t been to yet, and I can drive to all of them. Just visiting all the “ooooh we have to go there” burger joints I’ve seen on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives alone will take years.

My most recent vacation was the best. It was from Facebook and I departed from La-La land on Feb. 25, 2017. I wasn’t sure I could do it. 35 days with no Facebook? I feel so refreshed.

What did I miss? 1) Family stuff. I’m a very lucky man in that both of my kids and grandson live within a few miles of me. I get to see them all the time. Despite that, I still love seeing whatever they post, even if they are uneventful pictures of them doing meaningless stuff. I hate selfies, but if they are selfies of my kids, then they get a pass. I hate food selfies more than people selfies, but if they are my kids’ food selfie, once again, they gat a pass. 2) Some of my comedian friends. I say “some” because, some of my comedian friends stopped being comedians during the 2016 election because apparently Donald Trump put something in the water that caused them to loose their friggin minds and as a result, they stopped being funny. It didn’t stop there either, so I’ve developed a New Rule in the spirit of Bill Maher who btw, is one of the few comedians that knows how to mix politics with comedy and make it work. If you are a comedian doing stand-up, try this one – tell some jokes and MAKE ME LAUGH, that’s your job, otherwise STFU. 3) Silly animal videos. If you are having a krappy day, or you just saw a picture on Facebook of a mutated Fukushima animal or human and need your head flooded with happy thoughts, this is your ticket. Don’t believe me? Click on this. 4) Recipes. Some of the best food I’ve ever eaten has come out of my kitchen, cooked from recipes I got off of Facebook. Keep em coming. Deserts, casseroles, ethnic food, stoner food – all good. Your grandmothers recipes from the “old country” will always be OK with me.

What I didn’t miss – the short list.. This one took a lot of thought, because after over a month of no Facebook, I realized that the things I didn’t like far exceeded the things I did like. So, I had to narrow the list waaaay down or else this rant would end up looking like Tolstoy’s War and Peace – a total snooze-fest BTW, and I would like for you to make it to the end of this drek without falling asleep. Let’s get this boulder rolling and start with the major annoyances. Major annoyances are defined as things that make me want to come to your house and break all of your fine china and then leave without saying a word. The first one might actually make the list of the most annoying things EVER, and that would be Selfies of you only. Just so we’re clear, I’m talking about that moment when you go “wow, I think Facebook needs to see yet another picture of me from 2 feet away”, and then act on it and decide to share it with us………again. There are two things worse than a selfie of you only – 1) daily selfies of you only, and 2) any selfie posted by any of the Kardashians, anytime, anywhere. I need to see another expressionless selfie of Kylie Jenner like I need a lump on one of my testicles. Food selfies. We get it. You know how to place food in some type of heated cooking vessel and then relocate that food onto a plate and take a picture of it. Most ten-year old’s can pull that off. One of these recent abominations featured a paper plate with the some delicious iceberg lettuce topped with a dollop of ranch dressing, a stunning glob of red jello, and a half-dome of something that may have been potato salad, not really sure. The caption read YUM! Who could disagree? If you are posting a food selfie of food that has been placed before you and prepared by a Michelin Star Chef, or the winner of Master Chef, you get a pass even though it’s still annoying. The “don’t you wish you were me” selfie If you just bought a Ferrari, or you just bought a 10 carat diamond, or you have a dream home on a hill overlooking the most beautiful beaches in Hawaii, and you are constantly posting pictures of that krap, know this – most of the people who clicked “like”, including your family, hate you. Great job dummy! Now, lets move to the minor annoyances. The nobody gives a Krap post. I get it. You want to stay in touch with all your Facebook friends and there is nothing wrong with that, but do I really need to know that you just got home from work and are thinking about ordering a pizza, then follow it up with an LOL. Trump Haters. Holy Krap, you guys really really hate Donald Trump. I’m not crazy about the guy either, but GET A FRIGGIN LIFE PEOPLE or you’re going to end up in a padded room down at County Mental Health. Get a hobby. Get a therapist. Do something that will not lead to some type of stress induced illness, or even better, an aneurysm. My favorite is a girl who goes by the name of The Trumpslayer. She makes a dozen or so postings a day and apparently likes to use the word Nazi when referring to Trump and his lemming followers. If you really want to slay somebody, the sticks and stones strategy probably won’t do it. Another one knew that Hitler was a really bad person, also knew that the Nazis killed a 6 million Jews, but didn’t know that Hitler was a Nazi.

What Did I Learn

1) I stayed off of Facebook for 35 days, I lived, and you can too! 2) It is much more beneficial to do a Facebook cleanse than one of those overpriced kale based snake oil scam cleanses you find at Whole Foods. It was like having a high colonic, but instead of flushing impacted food poop out of your colon, you flush impacted Facebook poop from your head. 3) People will repost anything, true or not, just so they can get likes from people they don’t know. I don’t like these people.