Last night, something flickered across my Twitter feed. A 15-year-old girl dying of cancer wants to be a trending topic! Retweet! Now! Yes! And oh, the retweeting - I saw it over and over again, from famous and non-famous people alike.
Then Neil Gaiman, always the voice of reason, poked through. He noted that the girl in question actually never said anywhere on her blog that she wanted to trend on Twitter. In fact, she never mentioned Twitter at all. (I don't know how Neil found her blog, nor do I have a clue how ANYONE found it. I do sincerely hope it's real and not a hoax, by the way - I believe it's real, I just have been taken before...) The girl had a wish list, but it was devoid of Twitterage - instead she wanted to spread awareness for bone marrow donation, get an iPad, and meet a band, among other things.
But no, nobody wanted to hear that. They wanted to click retweet and have a hashtag "trend." A hashtag that didn't mention the girl's last name. A retweet without the all-important blog URL attached. Did anyone know where she was from? (She's in the UK somewhere, apparently.) Did anyone know what kind of cancer she had? No. Just hey, click and retweet! Make her happy! But...did anyone care if she was even REAL? Apparently not, as the tag did trend, and as I saw people pat themselves on the virtual back for helping to make it happen.
Martin Luther King Jr. "said" something and whoosh, it spread all over the Internet like wildfire, with the only sources being random quote pages that took their information from...misinformation. And then in situations like this, I look like the ass, because I took 5 extra seconds to dig into the story and find out what the reality is. And then I get all frustrated because TEH INTARWEBZ ARE WRONGZ! (Admittedly, it's easier to get angry at THIS sort of harmless-ish misinformation than it is to get worked up about crap like breastfeeding myths or people using the R-word willy nilly - those actually hurt...) I usually try to correct it for a few minutes and then walk away. (Sure. I really do. I swear.)
I don't know what I'm trying to say. Just venting a bit. I was about to retweet too, by the way. I'm not perfect, I would've thought "Oh, this kid will be pleased as punch to see a hashtag referencing her name!" But a famous author stopped me in my tracks and made me realize that there was more to the story, and more that the girl actually wanted, and an awareness that actually COULD be shared and spread about a cause that was actually important. And in fact once he tweeted that, he got TONS of people sharing bone marrow donation information - and THAT could hopefully make a difference.
And some people did correct the retweet, and some tweets did contain her URL. So she DID get attention and awareness spread. But the vast majority of people will never know what was behind that tag.
The Internet makes things happen so quickly. I'm hopelessly addicted and yet I wish I could just go away from it for a month. But I'd miss so much...
Showing posts with label touchy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label touchy. Show all posts
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
It Only SEEMS Like I Haven't Been Blogging - April 11, 2011
No, really, I actually have been blogging. I just haven't hit "Publish Post" lately. I don't know why I'm feeling skittish again - but I am. I have a few posts that are more emotional or that discuss having a child with special needs, they're just not ready to come out just yet. But maybe soon.
Also, we just finished a very long Spring Break week of no preschool. For some, Spring Break is an exciting time full of fun and parties and perhaps even a trip. For us, it was a week with no break at all. Fewer therapy sessions (private PT and speech, but that's all). And lots of racking our brains figuring out what to do to entertain a kid with a short attention span (but what kid doesn't have a short attention span?)? It makes things oh so much more fun that I have to carry her most places and she's over 30 pounds now.
So, for example, going to the bouncy castle place one day meant me carrying her from castle to castle, trying to help her climb the biggest one (of course that's what she wanted) while neurotypical older/bigger kids raced all over us, trying to keep her from knocking other kids down or being knocked down. Playgrounds? She'll sometimes happily swing for a half hour - other times she wants to switch the swing she's in (I wish I knew why) over and over, will cry and cry until I take her out of the swing only to point back at it and sign please and go in it...lather, rinse, repeat. I envy every parent who can take his/her kid to one of these places and sit on a bench while the kid...plays.
We did find that a local "work-and-play cafe" is VERY welcoming of my kid and I plan on taking advantage of their services in the near future. A year ago I wouldn't have even considered checking it out but she IS more stable and more communicative and more social thanks to preschool, and she took to the playspace and the staff there immediately. So perhaps that will offer some relief for the summer.
The...summer...with no preschool for two long months. I can't even wrap my head around it. Camps don't work for us - she's either not disabled enough (she doesn't need medical care or nurses, she wants to be playing) or too disabled (most camp offerings). Give it a few years and we'll find our way through that dilemma, I'm sure, but this summer creeps and crawls its way toward us laughing, "How many days can you go to the pool, really?" The pool, the library, the farmers' market, walking around town...and then I'm not sure. (I have a driving phobia - isn't that CUTE? - that I'm working my way through and improving upon every single day, but it still limits some of our options.)
I didn't mean to get into all of this today. I just meant to assure you all that I'm writing, you just can't see it. You all = all...10 of you? Ah, the blogging life.
Also, we just finished a very long Spring Break week of no preschool. For some, Spring Break is an exciting time full of fun and parties and perhaps even a trip. For us, it was a week with no break at all. Fewer therapy sessions (private PT and speech, but that's all). And lots of racking our brains figuring out what to do to entertain a kid with a short attention span (but what kid doesn't have a short attention span?)? It makes things oh so much more fun that I have to carry her most places and she's over 30 pounds now.
So, for example, going to the bouncy castle place one day meant me carrying her from castle to castle, trying to help her climb the biggest one (of course that's what she wanted) while neurotypical older/bigger kids raced all over us, trying to keep her from knocking other kids down or being knocked down. Playgrounds? She'll sometimes happily swing for a half hour - other times she wants to switch the swing she's in (I wish I knew why) over and over, will cry and cry until I take her out of the swing only to point back at it and sign please and go in it...lather, rinse, repeat. I envy every parent who can take his/her kid to one of these places and sit on a bench while the kid...plays.
We did find that a local "work-and-play cafe" is VERY welcoming of my kid and I plan on taking advantage of their services in the near future. A year ago I wouldn't have even considered checking it out but she IS more stable and more communicative and more social thanks to preschool, and she took to the playspace and the staff there immediately. So perhaps that will offer some relief for the summer.
The...summer...with no preschool for two long months. I can't even wrap my head around it. Camps don't work for us - she's either not disabled enough (she doesn't need medical care or nurses, she wants to be playing) or too disabled (most camp offerings). Give it a few years and we'll find our way through that dilemma, I'm sure, but this summer creeps and crawls its way toward us laughing, "How many days can you go to the pool, really?" The pool, the library, the farmers' market, walking around town...and then I'm not sure. (I have a driving phobia - isn't that CUTE? - that I'm working my way through and improving upon every single day, but it still limits some of our options.)
I didn't mean to get into all of this today. I just meant to assure you all that I'm writing, you just can't see it. You all = all...10 of you? Ah, the blogging life.
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