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Last year I wrote about my loss of enthusiasm for Facebook. My enthusiasm has waxed and waned since that time. Right now [in March 2018], my main thought is that I greatly miss the wonderful discussions we used to have in the Yahoo! Groups. I spent several hours recently running searches in one of the Yahoo! Groups to read comments about Kay Tracey. We had such great discussions in those groups, and members actually paid attention to what other members wrote. On Facebook, members skim or don't read at all, then in response they make inane comments with little substance.
The comments in this blog tend to be much better, so I feel that a higher percentage of this blog's readers are actually paying attention to what they read. Facebook is such a mess.
On Facebook, members make openly critical comments directed towards others. This comes in several forms. Sometimes a member will make a strong statement about how they do not understand why others collect certain books. These statements come across as rude and demeaning. I wonder if the members who make them have any idea how they sound.
Members will also make strong statements about how awful a certain series is. It's not a problem to dislike a series, but these statements are worded in such a fashion that they are guaranteed to upset fans of that series.
I mentioned in my previous post [apparently this post] how members expect low prices for series books since just about the only prices mentioned in the groups are the cheap prices. I didn't mention why the rest of us don't mention the prices. Some of the members who expect low prices would make insulting comments directed at us. It has happened to many of us. We admit to someone what we paid for something, and their response is that we paid too much.
Over the years, I have seen collectors who expect low prices also sneer at others because they feel that books are being kept away from them by the ones who pay higher prices. Just read some quotes from issues of a old series book publication. I mentioned in that post that some of the letter writers are well-known collectors. Some of those people are now in the current Facebook groups and also read this blog. Therefore, it is understandable why many of us reveal very little information about what we pay for our books.
Yet I know some of you read my listings and silently criticize me. Take for instance when a pastedown is flawed. I state that the pastedown endpaper is flawed. Oh, I can imagine the smirks, but I want my buyers to know what I mean. Other times, I dispense with the proper term completely and just refer to damage on the inside front or back cover. Using ordinary language is better when dealing with average people who just want to enjoy a piece of their childhood. Quit being snobs.
I also should know better than to try to be humorous. I let my guard down last summer [summer of 2017], and made what I thought were humorous comments on several posts. I could tell that in every case at least one person misunderstood, thinking I was dead serious. The lesson learned is that I must quit trying to be funny at all. People just can't understand humor online.
Speaking of which, this also reminds me that many of you take my reviews way too literally. When I make humorous (what I think are humorous) remarks in some reviews about how a book tortured me, some of you start comforting me about my absolutely awful experience. Hey, I don't read books to be tortured. If I had been truly tortured, I would not have read the book. Try not to take everything so literally, or you'll discourage me from being even slightly funny. You've already made me pull back a lot.
On the other hand, when I write about what I intend to do, read, or quit reading, then you should take those statements literally. I am not exaggerating or trying to be humorous, so you should not read meaning into the statements that is not there. When I state that I have quit reading something, I get asked for clarification. If I have quit reading something, then I have quit. I probably will never ever in a million years get back to it. I quit reading Grace Harlowe in 2011. I still haven't gotten back to those books. I'm not sure if I ever will. [I never have and never will. I sold all of my Grace Harlowe books.]
Back to the groups, people keep taking them off topic. I'm not just referring to the groups I manage, and I am getting tired of it. Facebook has groups for any type of book you can imagine. Whatever it is, there is a place for it. You don't need to take one group off topic to discuss something else. It is a constant struggle everyday to keep a group on topic. Some people don't like me anymore because they don't like me telling them that certain topics are not appropriate.
The groupies are annoying. These are people who have decided that a certain member is just perfect and can do no wrong. Some people who seem to be groupies are actually just people trying to manipulate a certain person by pretending to be a groupie. All group administrators, moderators, website owners, blog writers, and online sellers have groupies, both real and fake. I have had a few groupies of the fake kind who worked hard to ingratiate themselves by gushing compliments or granting me favors that I did not want or care to reciprocate. Needless to say, those fake groupies are now former fake groupies since I did not respond in the way they wanted.
Other people are real groupies and genuinely love the person they gush over. Most of the time, this isn't bad, and everyone likes to be appreciated. However, the behavior can be excessively annoying when they gush too much. I recall one exchange on Facebook. I'm not going to give details, since both people might be reading this, but if I did, you'd understand how truly ridiculous and nauseating the compliment was. The compliment rang false and was completely not based on reality. I couldn't believe it when I read it, and I wanted to slap some sense into the person who made the fake compliment.
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