Daughter's Day Debunked

Trending on social media today has been #NationalDaughtersDay. The interesting thing is, though, that people have been posting about it for the past three days? So when the hell IS National Daughter's Day? I was curious, so I did the Google search only to be left more confused. According to www.nationaldaycalendar.com there is no such thing, but when searched for in their engine you are given National Son's and Daughter's Day which is celebrated on August 11th. This day is apparently also shared with National Presidential Joke Day and National Raspberry Bombe Day. I know, right? What the fuck is that? I learned that "a typical bombe contains sherbet, heavy cream, sugar, chopped nuts, candied fruit and a dash of rum.  It is layered in a spherical mold and frozen overnight creating a centerpiece dessert." How has this information been hiding?! I mean, it's no secret, it's been out there! (If kids want to know how to make a Bombe they can find out!) Why are there not Bombe parties happening? ("You can't say Bombe on a plane!!") And how the hell did a random dessert get a national day, even if there IS rum in it and it has a punny name? Especially when there technically isn't a day for daughters?  More importantly, what the hell is going on? My search continued! 

On www.WhatNationalDayIsIt.com it says that National Daughter's Day is indeed September 25th, 2015 because it was apparently referenced 6,296 times on Twitter. This site just counts tags to see what national day is trending, though, basically. I learned that on today, other than Daughter's Day, some of the other national days mentioned by people on Twitter included National Pebebe Wave Day, National Comic Book Day, National Lobster Day, National Hug a Vegetarian Day, National Punctuation Day, and National Coffee Day, which I feel would totally get more than 419 mere mentions if it really WAS today, right? See, nobody knows what the hell is going on! 

On the site www.happydaughtersday.in, it said that National Daughter's Day is always celebrated on the 4th Sunday of September, which would make it the 27th, so that is CLOSER but people are still confused and so am I. This site also claimed that it is sometimes celebrated on October 1st, which only made me madder. Come ON! I have no idea where this information came from. It very well could have been pulled straight from an ass, because there were several people claiming in comments sections to have INVENTED this day themselves. One of them in July?! Grrrrr. 

I did find a good article on the same thing I was going through, though. Ronda Walker wrote about the confusion of the "D" Day trend. She makes a good point by stating that it's easy to check sources and we are supposedly in the Information Age but we tend to rely on trends and memes as facts and forget to check sources. Fair enough, but how did this all get started? Like most things on social media...probably with a cute picture and a hashtag. People probably didn't want to seem like asshole parents by not publicly doting on their own daughters when they saw their friends doing it and others obviously just didn't want to be a jerk like I'm doing by saying something about it. 

What I learned today is that what is #trending is definitely becoming synonymous with what is #true. This just goes to show that you can't believe everything that the internet tells you and it's never a bad idea to look things up. It doesn't really matter, though, it's always nice to see people posting about how much they love their children, so it's all good! I will be curious, however, to see when National Daughter's Day is celebrated next year. When will that elusive day be? The World Wide Web may never know. The truth is, though, that every day is some day, so celebrate with your dear daughter. Be a good parent and teach her how to make a Bombe! ;)

SOURCES: 

National Calendar Day

http://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-sons-and-daughters-day-august-11/

When Is Daughters Day in 2015

http://www.happydaughtersday.in/2014/07/when-is-daughters-day-2014.html?m=1

What National Day Is It

http://whatnationaldayisit.com/day/daughters/

Ronda Walker: Celebrating National Daughters Day

http://altoday.com/archives/5865-ronda-walker-celebrating-national-daughters-day

BOOK REVIEW: Finding Body Peace

Body Prayers: Finding Body Peace by Rebecca Radcliffe is a short little book about body image and self-worth. It deals with denying the societal pressure to base your self-esteem on your personal appearance while also accepting and loving your body. It's written in an interesting format and is a little cheesy but was still an inspiring read.

When I first started the book, I didn't like it much. The majority of the book is a series of journal-like entries on each page and they start off as pretty negative. My first thought was geez, this is making me feel terrible and these thoughts are so pathetic and sad but then I realized I could easily be reading some of my own journal pages. I have to say that after I reached this conclusion, reading through the book actually made me feel less alone in my feelings.

Each journal-like entry is paired with a snippet of statistical information on the top of the page about societal weight issues, media, and body image. In a way, the writings are responding to these. They all start off pretty negative, but as I kept reading I enjoyed it more as the author started to unabashedly deny the societal view and spoke more encouragingly about her body. Again, I found this was inspiring as it is pretty much where I find myself now. 

The last part of the book is a collection of women's prayers, poems, and affirmations. Again, a little cheesy, but there were some good morsels in there. All in all, I would say this book was an inspiring read and I'm sure I got something out of it even if it wasn't life changing. It's incredibly short, at only 136 pages, so I'd say read it. I will probably read some of the passages from this book again sometime. I would probably give this book 3 stars, but it is worth a read if you struggle with body image. 

Why I Don't Like You Anymore (on Facebook)

Why do you not “like” something on Facebook? Is it for some passive aggressive motive, snubbing only certain people on your friends list while liking everything else? These people are out there. (You are aware that people can SEE the things you like on Facebook, right?) Is it because you simply don’t like it? Of course, a very likely reason! Is it because you are thinking about what it’s contributing to the algorithm? Doubtful. Wait...what? I’ve seen all of these things, but passive aggression is not MY reason. While I think that it’s very unlikely, it is possible that people may have wondered about my lack of likes for the past couple of months on Facebook, but I assure you that I am an equal opportunity non-liker. I’m not liking other things while not liking yours. I didn’t stop liking people’s stuff because I have something against them or because I don’t like their pictures or stories. I didn’t stop liking only certain people’s posts or pictures to be intentionally snubbing or socially cruel. I don’t “like” anything on Facebook anymore, period.

Some of you might have read either of the two articles back in August from the people who both liked everything on Facebook for two days and DIDN’T like anything on Facebook for two weeks. I was intrigued after reading these two articles. I was intrigued about our ability to manipulate the algorithm Facebook uses to determine our news feed, if we pay attention to what we are feeding the bots. I wanted to free up my news feed; I wanted to see what would happen. So I experimented on my own and stopped liking anything on Facebook...well, mostly. I probably liked two things since I stopped, only because they were posts that needed the support, which is different than an ego boost, AND I do still like comments under posts. This does not seem to affect the algorithm as drastically, although I’m sure that it still does in its own way. EVERYTHING is affecting it. Big Brother Book is always watching. Isn’t that a little scary? I wasn't sure anything would even happen if I stopped using the like, so I used my main account for this and not my Musing Through account and the results of my personal experiment were actually impressive. 

What I found at first was how hard that it was NOT like to like things. But I like it?!?! Nope. Don’t click it. How do you let people know that you like it? You don’t. OR...you actually interact with them and post a comment on their status or picture. GASP! Yes, I started commenting on things that I liked, or sharing things that I liked instead of just simply clicking like. This led to me commenting things such as “Word!” “Right on!” “Yes!!”, “Love it!”, “<3” or at times even just “LIKE!” As a blogger, I can see where actual written responses are more important feedback than a mere ego stroke with the like button. I would appreciate feedback in word form by one person more than I would a bunch of people liking something without saying a word. So not liking led to more interaction, which is a good thing, right? Elan Morgan, the writer who stopped liking things on Facebook, said it best: “The Like is the wordless nod of support in a loud room.” This is very true. So without that silent nod we are forced to either ignore something we like or actually chime in with a word or two about it. We are forced to go from nodding at each other at the party to having an actual conversation.

As the man who “liked” everything for 48 hours painfully discovered, over liking decreased the amount of actual human beings in his news feed and made it a big cesspool of advertising and propaganda.  I found the opposite to be true; once I stopped liking things that I even did like I was noticing a lot more posts by people and pages that I honestly didn’t even realize that I was friends with or followed? This can be even more confusing when these people have since changed their names?? Who is THIS?! I haven’t seen anything from this person in over a year. Do you assume that people just aren’t posting status updates? WRONG! These people are alive!! They are alive and well, hidden in the recesses of your news feed cesspool. FYI, even if you actively LIKE something on Facebook, it will still only show you a small percentage of the posts coming from that page if you aren’t actively interacting with it on a constant basis. If you run a page you know how frustrating it can be when you post something and see it has only been “served” to 3 people out of all of the people that “like” your page. The algorithm really is a bunch of shit! So imagine what you are missing when you don’t even like or interact with it for months because it’s hidden in a lower tier beneath all of the things that you “like”. Actually, I probably have more pages that I follow on Facebook than actual people. My news feed consists mostly of articles and the like but now it's a more even mix. I enjoy this; it feeds me more. (See what I did there?)

Facebook is always changing things, anyway, and they reserve their right to run their site in the most asinine way possible. NPR shared how the social media giant had been manipulating our news feeds in order to conduct psychological experiments on“positive” and “negative” moods, tracking any changes in wording by its users in their statuses, etc. Am I the only one who thinks this is severely whacked?? BUT like everyone else, I checked that box in the agreement, allowing the Big Brother Book to basically do whatever they want, right? What it comes down to really is that Facebook is what it is, and it is also what you make of it. For me, personally, Facebook is the Walmart of social media sites. I also like to refer to it as the “high school hallway” and have big dreams about further explaining my metaphor one day with a blog post. It is a good place to keep up with family and friends, indeed, but we all use it differently and get something different out of it, don’t we? It's a different monster for every one of us, an entirely personal experience! I like to maintain my stance of “I READ IT FOR THE ARTICLES!” Riiiiight. And you just go to Walmart for milk and bread too. Damn the man!

Good or bad? I don’t know. I will say that I have noticed a change in my news feed and that I LIKE this change. I am seeing people I haven’t seen in forever, but am still seeing most of the things from people in my inner circle because I comment on them or they comment on mine. I'm seeing a more even mix of articles and posts from pages that I follow. I’m not a Facebook stalker so I only on rare occasions go to people’s pages and check out their stuff, I rely mostly on what is coming through my news feed even though I am aware this is most likely only part of the story. I was pleased to see a lot of the pages I follow show up again in the news feed as well, because I was led to a lot of interesting articles and reading because of this. I would have missed all of this had I not decided to play with the algorithm. Still, it is really just a crap shoot as to what you are going to see at any given time. Who really knows? I just still find the algorithm a little unnerving; some robot is determining what we see every day on social media sites based on what we click on, calculating and tracking. Besides, they are using our likes for statistical information on products and services. They used to pay people to collect that information, now they just pay Facebook. It is a semi-necessary evil...just like Walmart, even though neither of them are entirely necessary but still rope us in with their convenience. "Everyone is doing it!" "Allllll are welcome! All are welcome!!"

So, does this mean that I will not be liking anything on Facebook ever again? Probably not, it's just an experiment. There is a chance I will start trying to manipulate my feed again and bring certain pages and people to the forefront by liking their content. So you might wonder why I even bother? Well, why not? For one, I like the change in my news feed but also, I like that I am forced to comment on something if I “like” it. It forces you to actually interact with people instead of walking down the great high school hallway of Facebook giving perpetual silent nods at each other. It forces you to say, “Hey there...I like that!” or “That’s cool!” or “How ARE you?” And isn’t that the point of social interactions, to really interact or to dare to connect? Isn’t that what “friends” are for?

SOURCES:

I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days. Here’s What It Did to Me by Mat Honan

“By liking everything, I turned Facebook into a place where there was nothing I liked.”

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/i-liked-everything-i-saw-on-facebook-for-two-days-heres-what-it-did-to-me/

                      

I Quit Liking Things On Facebook for Two Weeks. Here’s How It Changed My View of Humanity. By Elan Morgan (Shmutzie)

 “The Like is the wordless nod of support in a loud room.”

https://medium.com/@schmutzie/i-quit-liking-things-on-facebook-for-two-weeks-heres-how-it-changed-my-view-of-humanity-29b5102abace

Why I Stopped Liking Things on Facebook By Donna B

http://dangerouscupcakedesigns.com/stopped-liking-things-facebook/

 

Facebook Manipulates Our Moods For Science And Commerce: A Roundup by Elise Hu

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/06/30/326929138/facebook-manipulates-our-moods-for-science-and-commerce-a-roundup

Ode to Masks

This masquerade, a ball to most,
With drink in hand, proposing toasts.

Dark eyes obscured by masks grow moist,
Batting against the winds of choice.

Compelled by spirit, called by chance,
They step in time and do the dance.

Dissection of Self

I am transparent;
my glass skin spread open,
flaps of sliced flesh pinned to the ground
for the dissection.
Each organ exposed;
each system, identified and labeled.
The aggressive scent of suspended death
seeps from my shell.
My body, like a raincoat,
strewn across a puddle of blood
and formaldehyde,
Dry rots in the relentless sun of consciousness. 
My eyelids, translucent and futile,
hide nothing from my empty, milky eyes.  
The whole of the world pass by me,
And learn from my body,
Like an information kiosk,
On a city sidewalk.
I feel them pointing; feel the observations.
Each gasp, an icy wind on my bare bones.
Each needle stick, a shining nail in my coffin.

10AM, August 19, 2013

Trayvon Martin: Candy in His Pockets

In a bag or in his pockets,

He carried the last treasure,

That he would possess.

The last booty.

The last success.

The last supper. 

Strolling or skipping away,

Was it night or day? 

Fear targeted his colored face.

The blackness of night was at prey.

Who was the victim?
Who was the criminal?

Who was the adult,

Versus the juvenile? 

In America we shoot first.

In America we don’t ask questions;

Later we dodge responsibility.

We dodge justice. 

We dodge peace of mind.

We dodge truth.

The 911 tapes reveal the most.

The man was on the phone,

As he chased down and encountered,

A 17 year old boy with candy in his pocket.

The gunman shot young Trayvon in the chest,

Killing him dead. 

No criminal charges against him.

If the authorities finally press him,

He will claim self defense,

But what kind of candy is loaded,

With bullets as deadly as his?

- March 19, 2012