Feb 28


Get a clue, Facebook

by Terry 28 February 2009


poetry stuff app from Facebook

I’ve been playing around with Facebook lately (if you want to get in touch with me there and play some Scrabble, email me about it), and tonight I got a “gift” from a friend through Poetry Stuff. This giving stuff is not really my thing, though I thought it was mostly harmless. Until the Poetry Stuff tonight. One of the things you can choose to send to a friend is “Lithium, a little salt for the brain.”

Lithium is prescribed almost exclusively for bipolar disorder and this treats it like a cheap joke. That pisses me off. Ask anyone who has ever taken it; it’s nasty stuff. I can’t decide which is worse — implying that poets, by being emotional, are mentally ill, or implying that BPD is something cute and harmless to be laughed at.

I’m sure the person who wrote this add-on didn’t intend to insult anyone, but I’m offended none the less. I can make jokes about my illness, and I’ll generally find it acceptable from those who love me, but from a stranger it’s a slap in the face. That’s how this feels. Had a friend sent this little “gift” to me unknowingly, I would have been devastated. As it is, I’m just mad.

Am I being overly sensitive, or is this truly in bad taste? What do you think?

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6 Comments

6 Responses to “Get a clue, Facebook”

  1. Ahistoricality on March 1st, 2009 8:10 am

    Insensitive, yes.

    But I’m looking at the whole page: it includes other gifts which are clearly intended sardonically, and which could be troubling if sent to the wrong person: “booze” and “Bell Jar” are at the top of that list. “Arsenic Lobster” appears to be a poetry journal, as well as a fatal dish, and if someone didn’t know the former (I didn’t, until googling), might mistake it for the latter.

    Some of them are poems (or poets, in the case of Dante), but whether you’d want to get them as gifts or if you’d consider them a slap in the face would depend entirely on context. “Time to write” seems harmless enough; “pen and paper” seems like a nag, to me. “Detroit” and the “Brooklyn Bridge” seem decidedly unpoetic gifts, but what do I know?

    It’s clearly the result of a brainstorm session by people who want to give their users the opportunity to be both kind and harsh (and abstruse and Poetic).  (Quote)

  2. Terry on March 1st, 2009 8:04 pm

    I know I’m quick to take offense at these things, but over the years I’ve gotten very sensitive to the fact that humor often masks derogatory intent. Lithium is so very targeted that it really set me off. The whole “creative = crazy” and “bipolar = crazy” thing is so frustrating to be because it’s so deeply ingrained in the popular culture. I write not because I’m bipolar but despite it – of all the drugs I’ve taken lithium is the most thought-crushing of the lot. It makes it harder to write, not easier.

    I’ve got to learn to stop looking at these things.  (Quote)

  3. Ahistoricality on March 2nd, 2009 6:09 am

    humor often masks derogatory intent

    Hell, it relies on it, more often than not.

    I’m really not defending Facebook here: I think the entire page reflects a culture in which “teasing” is supposed to be considered “good fun” even when it is quite cruel.

    That said, the moodiness of poets is supposed to be one of their literary resources — it’s a stereotype of the genre, more than of people with bipolar per se — but it’s also well-established that they can be self-destructive (especially if they take themselves too seriously) and some of the most famous clearly needed some kind of intervention.  (Quote)

  4. Rebecca Clayton on March 4th, 2009 5:40 pm

    I keep coming back to this to see if it still seems as broadly offensive as it did at first glance. Yes. It is still does. And not a bit funny.

    Well, I’m old, and I don’t “get” social networking sites. They don’t seem very interesting or fun. Guess I’ll go see what the folks are doing on alt.humor.emacs  (Quote)

  5. Burrow on March 5th, 2009 12:19 am

    I find it flat out offensive and I don’t think you’re being too sensitive.  (Quote)

  6. Sherry Chandler » Blog Archive » Facebook Eloi? on March 26th, 2009 11:20 am

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