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Facebook Eats Everything

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In the metro area, within an hour’s drive of my home, there are a half dozen canoe & kayak clubs, some of which have been around 50+ years. These are (were) strong clubs with many hundreds of members, active cruise schedules, paddling classes, safety classes and presentations.

A couple days ago I clicked the homepage or message board of several club sites I had not visited in a few years. Many now direct to Facebook pages filled with nonsense BS, photos and little paddling information.

This morning I needed to look up the specs on Millbrook’s poling canoes and clicked on Millbrookboats.com

Gone. Is the Millbrook site simply down, or is it too now solely existent as a Facebook page without easily searchable canoe specs and design information?

If this is the future, or worse, the present, I don’t much like it. I don’t mean to turn this into an anti-Facebook screed, so a direct question:

Are Facebook and “meet-up” groups killing canoe clubs?
 
It looks to be a trend yes Mike. Even if they have their own site it often links to FB. It is a way to get more exposure I suppose.

As for the paddling clubs, FB tends to make the most sense now as almost everyone is on there and we can arrange outings fairly easily that way. On the minus side though, there is almost zero tech info available that way. Even if we have a tech discussion on some thread it usually turns into the narcisssists taking over the conversation.

Sighhhhh.
 
I told John about the site and he said it is up but he would look into it. I guess he didn't have the time to. As for FB it is way easier to do updates there than to modify a website! I don't think they are killing canoe clubs, all the opposite actually, at least for us up here it made the club more visible and have more people exchange and discuss too!! The pages that are full of BS are the pages that the admin don't do there job of keeping clean!!
 
As for the paddling clubs, FB tends to make the most sense now as almost everyone is on there and we can arrange outings fairly easily that way.

Christine, “almost everyone”. I do not have a Facebook page and only in the past couple of years have been able to see much of Facebook; friend Joel logged onto his page using the shop computer, and suddenly a whole weird (and disturbing) social media world became available.

The only good part is that I can now keep up with Joel’s trips, and read Conk’s trip reports. We have a lot of mutual friends, and what I have seen on other paddler’s Facebook pages too often turns too ugly and divisive, an invitation to bring negativity and tribalism into everyday life.

An odd aside to Facebook. One of my sons was looking for an apartment for rent and every landlord or leasing agent wanted to see his Facebook page. I understand why, “I see you are the drummer in a neo-Nazi Death Metal band and practice at home”. But he, like me, doesn’t have a Facebook page, and that was actually a problem. Whoda thunk it.

On the minus side though, there is almost zero tech info available that way. Even if we have a tech discussion on some thread it usually turns into the narcisssists taking over the conversation.

I can see the technical stuff falling buried by the wayside. I can also see the value in arranging pick-up trips. Which may be more exclusive, in the very definition of the word restricted or limited to the person, group, or area concerned”.

Despite my increasing personal discrimination as to paddling companions, that exclusivity may not a paddling club membership make.

I belonged to two local paddling clubs for years. Met some fine people, took some classes, learned a lot, led a bunch of trips and wrote for the newsletter every year.

Most memorably I organized pre-presentation slide show & talk group dinners at a nearby Irish Pub, some of which saw the presenter afterwards on stage half hammered on Guinness, Bangers & Mash. Best paddle making presentation ever; the highly regarded paddle craftsman was holding nothing back, including self-deprecating tales of design failure and sundry screw-ups.

Something seems lost in a Facebook based club, especially for a novice or learning paddler.

The future of one of the strongest and most active of those local clubs suddenly seems questionable. That may or may not be attributable to Facebook; when I looked at the Club Officers, Treasurer, Safety, Cruise Schedule, Newsletter and Membership Chairs, they were, with some minor re-shuffling, the same familiar names from 10 or 15 years ago. Those volunteers were my age or older back then, and probably not expecting a lifetime appointment.

I don't think they are killing canoe clubs, all the opposite actually, at least for us up here it made the club more visible and have more people exchange and discuss too

I have no grounds to b*tch about the status of local clubs, my memberships lapsed years ago, and aside from leading trips and writing newsletter trip reports I never stepped up to volunteer for any club position.

It may simply be that I still live in the social media Mesozoic era, resistant to change. And will go the way of the dinosaurs, without ever tabulating my Facebook friends and likes.
 
It IS annoying to find that any businesses only website is niw only on Facebook
I suppose it is because they do not have the funds stream to keep a real website
I am on a FL jaunt and seeking good local restaurants to have dinner at. I despise finding the business website on FB and as its hard to find a menu I often bypass anything using FB as a website
I also value true websitesfor paddling info
Fortinately there are several devoted to the Hillsborough Paddling trail which we are currently exploring
 
The evolution of the internet. I just want a princess phone, a newspaper, and a mailbox at the road.

Neighbors have that. They actually have a black rotary ohone too

We lack the old phone
And when the interweb goes down and cable I hate it when all out radio stations have minimal staff and give you little info
They do say go to sonething.com

AARGH
 
Hey you kids, get off my dang lawn! (overheard, being yelled at some nice kids with their smart phones by a certain M.M.)

Just get a facebook account Mike. All the cool kids are doing it. Don't be that guy. Be like Rob. He's been on facebook for ten years. Rob is hip. Mike is dangerously close to being a curmudgeon. Don't be a curmudgeon. Be cool. Get facebook.

cbrH4Sw.jpg
 
My dad resisted FB for years. Thought it was the dumbest thing and full of drama. Why would people want to be a part of something like that? Finally he caved in and joined. He reconnected with friends and family long lost and some he never even knew about. He uses it all the time now and enjoys it very much.

People who live on drama will find/create it no matter where they go. It used to be teenagers screaming at each other on the phone and ringing up huge long distance bills. Now they do that on FB. Before FB they did it in chat rooms and blogs. It's certainly still done on internet forums. You don't have to look very far on the internet to find drama and BS outside Facebook. Facebook isn't much different than using the rest of the internet. Be choosy about the groups and people you associate with. If one of your "friends" constantly posts things you don't like or that annoy you then you simply click the button that says "unfollow" and you never see those things unless you directly visit their page.

Would love to see you on the dark side.

Alan
 
Mike, I don't do Fakebook and never will, but I am already a curmudgeon. Also no twitter, or any other social type site and no Smart Phone. Isn't the only really smart phone the one you don't have?

Karin
 
The evolution of the internet. I just want a princess phone, a newspaper, and a mailbox at the road.

I do not have a Princess phone, but still take all my calls on a landline. I do have a cell phone, an ancient Nokia flip phone that lives unused in the Tacoma glove box. I charge it up every 6 months or so for emergencies, and last made a call on it in 2014. I am not sure I remember which buttons to push to make or receive calls. IIRC the button marked “End” is pushed to send a call, so, yeah, design-wise that makes absolutely zero sense.

YC, we lose power at home at least once a month. All of our phones are portable landlines, which do not work without electrical power, so we have an old cord-connected handset just for that. The stove is electric, and I may want to order a pizza by candlelight.

Mailbox at the end of the drive, yes. And I still mail letters and packages at least once a week. Every two days I drive - some distance - to pick up the Washington Post and NYT (Science Tuesdays in both papers, I was out this morning).

Just get a facebook account Mike. All the cool kids are doing it. Don't be that guy. Be like Rob. He's been on facebook for ten years. Rob is hip. Mike is dangerously close to being a curmudgeon. Don't be a curmudgeon. Be cool. Get facebook.

Too late, I can barely see curmudgeon in my rearview mirror. He’s wearing an old man hat and giant wraparound sunglasses, leaning forward, hands clenched on the steering wheel at 10 and 2 and, Christ-on-a-crutch, he’s going even slower than me.

Would love to see you on the dark side.

Beyond the analytical data sharing with advertisers, the more I read about how Facebook (and others) are deliberately structured to ping an endorphin release with “likes” and “followers”, the less I want to be a part of that. I’m already addictive enough with beer and tobacco and weed, and partake of other internet giants.

It would be near impossible for me to avoid Google and Amazon. I order from Amazon, especially used books but other stuff too; it is a long drive to most specialty retailers.

I Google historical events, people and places several times a day, whenever my curiosity is peeked by something I read. That ability to instantly look up anything, to me, is the best part of the net.

A couple weeks ago George Will used the word “tergiversations” in a column, and threw down the gauntlet by following that up with “Sorry, this is the precise word”.

I had to look it up. It was the precise word.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tergiversation

A Facebook page ain’t never, ever gonna happen.

Another inter-net appreciated wonder of our times, a loan request in to the county library system.

https://www.amazon.com/Zucked-Wakin...8/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

At least I’ll be able to hardback read about what I am “missing”.

BTW, I am up to four “Like” bars on Canoe Tripping, and am already starting to channel my inner Sally Fields

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl_NpdAy3WY
 
Mike, I think I have the solution to your problem, and you can trust me because I am a doctor. Take one gallon of this by mouth three times daily and call me in one year.
 

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Mike, I think I have the solution to your problem, and you can trust me because I am a doctor. Take one gallon of this by mouth three times daily and call me in one year.

Didn't work did it?
Gee a herbalist vascular surgeon?
 
Mike, I think I have the solution to your problem, and you can trust me because I am a doctor. Take one gallon of this by mouth three times daily and call me in one year.


Pete, I believe that prescription is contraindicated by my current regimen of 12 fl. oz of 6.7 abv C2H5OH taken q 1h po.

Preferrably a nice hoppy IPA.
 
Do you install a catheter for canoe tripping?

Bailer. Nuff said.

Hey you kids, get off my dang lawn! (overheard, being yelled at some nice kids with their smart phones by a certain M.M.)


I may need a hat like that. I definitely need to increase my C2H5OH intake; I feel another rant coming on. A Facebook rant in part, but a smart phone rant in particular. As in people who are addicted to their dang smart phones.

People in the shop, helping while I work on their boat “Oh look, I have a call”, yadda, yadda, yadda for 10 minutes while I stand there holding a drill. Companions on car rides, hearing one side of a conversation for 20 minutes while I have the radio turned down “Uh huh”. . . “Yeah”. . . . “He did what?”. . . . .”No, really?”.

Unless that is some family or work emergency, which it has yet to be, I want to throw their #@$%& phone out the window.

Worse, maybe worst, people on trips, sitting around the campfire conversation and suddenly, “Oh look, I have a signal” before they fall into an I-phone trance checking their e-mail or Facebook status and sending updates. “I’m just sitting around a campfire on the lake shore, ignoring everyone”

Seriously? You are out in the woods with friends. Unless that’s Publisher’s Clearinghouse and you need to answer in the next 60 second that crap can wait.

The first time I encountered that smart phone addiction I had never seen such a thing and was perplexed.

I was driving a young woman and a half dozen other paddlers down to a canoe race in the van and we were, as usual, talking about strategies and tides and route peculiarities. She had never raced before, only done some test paddling trips in the canoe I was loaning her. I thought she would have been curiously attentive and maybe ask questions, or at least pretend to pay some involved participation.

She was buried in her Smartphone for the entire three hour ride and said not a word. She still managed a good time, and enjoyed the day. She was a bit more engaging on the ride back, I expect after posting her 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] place woman’s rec finish (3 entries, 1 DNF) to Facebook. If only she had put the phone down, listened and not cut those corners into the sandbar shallows.

So yeah, I am running out ASAP to get a smart phone and sign up for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And Pintrest, so I can show you photos of my diner breakfast.

Oh look, there’s the Plaid Prancer on Grindr

(OH GAWD, I had to look up that site name on Google. What have I done to my data analytics?)
 
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