There is a ‘sickness’ that is spreading across the Internet. Particularly on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
It is called being a “roller poster”.
A roller poster is defined as the following, according to the Dambreaker Dictionary:
roller poster. noun \rō-lər\ pōs-tər
1. A person who uses social networking websites to express their emotions, feelings, or thoughts for the express purpose to garnish completely unnecessary attention from others to themselves. Especially during times of negative thoughts, feelings, or just simply having a bad day and they make themselves conspicuous on purpose.
Yeah, that! We’ve seen it before. Someone that you know keeps updating their status for the sake of seeing themselves type, and in the meantime they hope that someone else will see it and come rescue them from their keyboards and make “life oh so happy and peachy once again.” So then once they have obtained that attention that they were seeking selfishly, they end up deleting all of their posts and act as if it never happened. They were down, and suddenly now they are up again. But eventually they will go back down again. (The only thing missing is that feeling of how I am about to lose the contents of my stomach while in the middle of the loop!)
It is one thing to be having a bad day and stating that as a fact. Its another to state that you are having a bad day, and you continue to whine about it until someone finally jumps in and tells you that “Everything is going to be okay”, or that they are sorry to know that you did have a bad day.
I’ve said this in many posts before, I’ll say it again. We all have bad days. The difference in what gets us towards a better mental health is how we deal with it. “Roller Posting” isn’t healthy and is definitely not the answer.
I watched one person in the middle of the night change their Facebook status 18 times in the span of 12 minutes or less. Their average post in length was only about seven words. All of it, pertaining to the most awful day that they experienced. It was totally obnoxious and completely inappropriate, not to mention unnecessary.
Personally, for those bad days that I go through? This is a majority reason of why I have this blog! I’ll dump it all in here and let it go. Sometimes I’ll feel better and sometimes I won’t. But at least whatever it was that was bringing me down is now off my back. I will do it all right here in my blog and leave it there. I’d much rather do that than spread it all around over and over again, annoying the pants off everyone.
People write over and over and over again, just spreading it on thick about how miserable they are. All they want is a little attention. Sadly, they’ve got another thing coming if they believe that the attention that they are about to receive is going to actually help them. In reality, its only going to make the issue worse. Instead of giving these people the attention that they are seeking, it is my personal feeling that we who are reading this garbage must offer them something better than “Ohhh I am so sorry to hear that you’re day sucked!”. I am actually leaning towards the feeling that nobody should give them ANY attention at all. Then maybe… just maybe, they’ll realize how foolish they sounded when its all said and done and they just might learn that what the did do, was stupid and they won’t do it again.
But you won’t find me putting my money down on that. Society is messed up already enough as it is.
There’s no magic pill to make everyone happy all at the same time. If there is such a “happy pill”, then I know of several scores of people who need a lifetime prescription. And on a personal note, I will probably have to have a reminder written down some where to tell me to take my own medicine.
I see all of this and witness it from afar. There IS a forest through the trees. Most of the time I roll my eyes and never give a single ounce of attention to people who are being a roller poster. I just don’t feel that it is going to do them any good.
And then again you, the reader, can probably see things that I cannot see whenever I am posting and/or ranting. That’s just the way it is sometimes. Question is: What are you going to do about it? And what SHOULD you do about it, if anything?
So go ahead and tell the world you’re having a bad day. I’m sure that I will start to hope that your day becomes better. But if you are going to clog up the Internet with your mindless short posts, carrying on and on and on about nothing- then I just don’t wish to hear about it any more. Find a friend, or a therapist. Hell, even just come talk to me about it and don’t waste people’s time and Internet space with your totally ridiculous bantering.
In my own personal experiences with Twitter and Facebook, I could say that I went out to eat with my friends for lunch and had a wonderful time. A few people might notice, but they won’t ask about it.
Yet if I say that I lost my keys, people just come crawling out of the walls.
Human nature is seemingly drawn to the negativity of life rather than the positive and uplifting aspects. I do not know why, but I feel like I would be wasting my time and opportunity trying to figure it out rather than trying to experience something that would be beneficial and more positive.
You think my definition is a joke? Read it officially on the Internet. It was composed by a friend of mine who submitted it to Urban Dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=roller-poster
This was their interpretation of the term, “roller poster”.
This is not the first time I’ve coined a phrase. I don’t know, maybe some people are right. Maybe I SHOULD write a “Dambreaker’s Dictionary”.
What do you think???
Dambreaker 