Welcome to My Classic Movie Block Party!

sistercelluloid ♦ September 19, 2020 ♦ 7 Comments

Warning: This post contains a lot of foul language. I usually try to steer clear of that, but in this case I honestly don’t give a f*ck. And that’s the last asterisk I’m gonna use.

If a year can be an asshole, 2020 is one. So you know what? Let’s try not to add to the assholism.

I’m talking about the stupid, silly bullshit I see on classic social media.

First of course there’s the clickbait: Why This Show Produced 70 Years Ago Offends My Narcissistic Millennial Ass, or Why Directors Who’ve Forgotten More About Movies Than I’ll Ever Know Need To Love My Comic Book Epic or Shut Up Like Forever. But there’s also the petty bad behavior.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten to the point where my fuck bag is pretty much empty; there’s just a couple of sticky grandma candies at the bottom and the fluff from some old tissue. If I feel so much as a molecule of irritation, I slap the block button like it’s a mosquito buzzing around my neck. At this point if my Twitter blocked list were a state, it would have, like, 11 electoral votes.

A few examples of my block triggers?

Gratuitious criticism. If someone posts a pic or clip of someone or something they love, you know what they don’t need? Hearing how that actor was overrated, or that actress gives you a stiff pain, or the remake was better, or that song sucks. There’s plenty of room for discussion when you’re livetweeting or just shooting the breeze back and forth. And God knows if someone says they can’t stand something I also loathe, I’m on it like a cat on tuna. (June Allyson makes me want to hang myself with a drapery cord. If you feel the same, come sit here by me!) But if somebody just innocently puts up a pic of a favorite of theirs and you hate it, just back the fuck off.

Being “corrected” when you’re right. Whoo boy, don’t get me started. I research my stories and even my social media posts pretty carefully, including through ancient sources like—gasp!—libraries. So when the “Actually” people pounce, I block them pretty fast. Oh and if I see a real mistake in someone else’s post and they follow me (which means I can message them), I always let them know privately. Doing so publicly is the social media equivalent of screaming across the room, “Hey, hon, your bra strap is hanging out!”

People who feel compelled to talk you out of your opinions. Has this worked, ever, in the history of time? I’m not talking about gamely trying to present facts to your uncle in the Fox bubble (and yeah, good luck with that). I mean when you say you love or hate an actor or film, and someone tries to “educate” you out of it. I can’t stand The Women, even though lots of my friends love it. But only one person ever tried to convince me I was “wrong” by “explaining” to me that, for instance, Rosalind Russell’s character is supposed to be broad. You don’t say so, really?!? Then I’ll just tell my migraine it’s utterly mistaken!

Cattiness. I had kind of a weird example of this recently: The glass came loose on the mirror of my old guilloche vanity set, revealing bits of old newspaper underneath, with stories about what was playing on the long-wave radio and how an 82-year-old grandmother had bobbed her hair. I posted the pix on Twitter, only to have someone comment that “sadly,” this meant the mirror was not original. (Yes because telling me this gave her a huge fucking sad.) But the newspapers were contemporaneous with the age of the set, and honestly I didn’t give a rat’s ass since I was simply sharing a fun story and not auditioning for Antiques Roadshow.

Stealing people’s stuff. Most of us, if we see something we like, will just share or retweet it. But then there are those who download the pic and repost it with a tweak, as if it were their own work. I caught someone doing this by putting a tiny black dot in a copy of a candid pic that I have the original of. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I thought maybe she wasn’t using my photo. But nope, when she posted it, there was the black dot. I’ve since learned that despite having a large following, she does this all the time. Jesus, are there people so insecure and insanely self-promoting that they can’t just retweet or share? Yes. Yes there are.

General rudeness and nastiness. In this Godzilla year, who the fuck needs more monstrousness? I not only block people who are nasty to me, but anyone who’s rude to anyone who comments on one of my posts. I’ve even blocked people who were mean to friends, on posts I wasn’t even a part of. I’m from Brooklyn; you mess with my social media family, you mess with me.

There are a zillion other examples floating around my curmudgeonly head, but thank you, my dears, for letting me vent this far. Heaven knows I’m no Pollyanna, but damn, especially these days, a little kindness goes a long way.