Hello from Baehr and Curadh a podcast from the Land of Awes Information Services.
I love you Curadh, I love you Baehr.
This is episode 103 of the Baehr and Curadh podcast.
We're going to talk about social media.
We've got an email from a listener in Switzerland, here it is.
At least I think it was from Switzerland, based on the message headers.
Okay.
I'm behind by a few weeks, I just want to drop a note and say thanks for 100 episodes.
I've listened to all of them and really enjoy both of your perspectives.
As a currently struggling gay man, hearing from slightly older men like yourselves gives
me a lot of hope.
If you're open to suggestions for episode topics, may I suggest social media?
Thanks.
I think his name may be pronounced either blaze or blaze.
Okay.
Well, thank you.
I mean, it's a lot, like I said before, and it means a lot to us that we do get emails
from you guys.
At least for only slightly older gay men.
Yeah, slightly older gay men.
But with that suggestion, that's actually what we're going to talk about this week as social
media.
All right, let's go.
What social media sites are you on?
I'm unmasked on.
Okay.
Explain that to people.
I don't think a lot of people know what it is.
Really?
It's sort of like a Twitter alternative, but instead of one big commercial company that
runs it, it's a whole bunch of smaller independent computer systems, but it looks and acts a lot
like Twitter, except I don't know, maybe some of the people are a little bit uppity.
Really?
Yeah.
That's much porn.
I think, oh, you have this funny porn, plenty of porn.
But people will say, like, you didn't put a content warning on that or--
Because of the porn that you post?
You kind of expect that from porn, but you'll have, once somebody will say, I don't want
to see any pictures that have eye contact because that bothers me and I want people to
put warnings on their pictures if they make eye contact in their picture.
Oh, for the love of God.
Which is why a lot of people end up putting a content warning on absolutely everything.
Wow.
But first off, I didn't know you could get much eye contact just through a picture.
They must freak out when they go to the museum with their pictures so that it looks like
the eyes are following you, too.
Don't go to the portrait gallery.
Yeah.
They're all looking at me.
Wow, that's crazy.
I used to be on Google Plus, that's where I started, and it was great.
Really good people was easy to find people with similar interests and whatever, but eventually
Google decided they just didn't want to have it anymore.
So I moved over to Twitter and then here, I don't know, the last couple of years that's turned
into a Nazi hideout sort of, I don't know, it's not good.
I'm surprised you're not part of truth.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
One thing I am not on is Facebook.
That's some part of Facebook.
I think a lot of people are on Facebook just because their friends or relatives are on
there and they want to be in contact.
That's mine.
I think that's why my mother's on there.
But the fact that my mother is on there is the main reason I don't want to be on.
Yeah.
Someone on Facebook, there are three billion people on Facebook, that's almost half the people
in the world.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you didn't know that?
No.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm on Facebook and it's that because of that my sister friend told me, "If you don't
join Facebook, I'm going to send you text messages every day of your nieces, of your niece
and nephews."
What's wrong with that?
That's a lot of pictures every day, it's easier just to get on Facebook and do it so.
But yeah, Facebook, I was part of Twitter, didn't really do much on Twitter, looked at porn.
But I don't think I'm really part of anything else.
Mm-hmm.
Well, you have some friends that get together on Discord.
Yeah, Discord, yeah, I forgot about that.
Play games together.
Play games on Discord, yeah, we do that a lot.
We have a Discord server, but we don't really do anything with it.
It really just repeats my posts from Mastodon.
Oh, okay.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, but Discord is really more of just a group hangout that I get on on Friday nights.
And that's basically what we use it for.
I think one of the guys that's in the group uses the game with other people and stuff like
that, but yeah, we just use it basically to log in and we can all chat together more
of our video games and so.
But yeah, Facebook, I'm on Twitter, was on just TikTok, can I use social media?
I suppose.
I'm on there, but I don't post anything ever.
I don't have a TikTok account.
I think you're never, I have a TikTok account.
I think I'm surprised you could say those words.
No, don't think of commercials.
Yeah, but you can just flip right through them.
You skip right through them, though.
And people say that about YouTube, but now YouTube makes you watch at least one for each
show that you want to watch.
No, see, yeah, this, you can just flip right through it.
You don't just push up and it skips right through it, so you can tell what they're trying
to push because it's like recently, it's the new bad boys moving, so you can log on.
There's a commercial for bad boys, I hear them using it like me, they just flip right through
it.
But yeah, Facebook, Facebook is Facebook, it's like, it's almost like a necessary evil,
so yeah, Facebook's what I'm on.
Have you ever changed someone else's mind on social media?
I'd like to think I have, but I know I haven't.
Have you?
Probably not.
I mean, okay.
It's very rarely even try, usually if somebody is a big dick, I just block them and go on.
Yeah.
No, I don't think I, I don't think you can people's dead set opinions, they're not gonna
change.
Yeah, and my thing it too is, I hate to say this, but pretty much all my friends on Facebook,
I think anyone that has different political views than mine on Facebook are not friends
of mine on Facebook.
They've been a boxer band, it's like when Trump won, it was like the big outing of who I need
to get out of my life.
I suppose that could contribute to people, what they call groupthink, because they're only
listening to the people who agree with them, they think that that's the only way that there
is.
If you're not exposed to other opinions, you get entrenched in your own ideology.
Yeah.
I know I'm on the right side of history, so, sorry.
No, but I don't think I've ever changed anyone.
I might have brought a different perspective to someone's mind, but I don't think I've ever
changed another mind.
Do you know what I mean?
I have been doing this for maybe since 1975, that's cut it's a long time, and I've never
never ever seen anybody turn around and say, "Oh, you've completely changed my thoughts."
Yeah.
I'm not on there too, to change anyone's mind, I can't really steer clear of it, but we're
going to get into that.
In fact, there are people who fully admit that they get online and write in flammatory
confrontational messages just to get people angry at them.
No, I can't believe it, people are as old.
I don't have a thought.
Imagine if you put that energy into something good.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
Have you ever gotten angry at someone on social media?
Oh, all the time.
Yeah.
That's when I start blocking.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've got angry, you've heard me start causing and stuff like that, but I generally
plot them or get away from it, or I really don't...
It's kind of tough when somebody you thought you knew well, and they turn out to be a turd.
I mean, you keep angry, just in life in general, and you'll be angry at your friends sometimes.
Yeah.
I suppose.
You know, not everything is since you're into rainbow, especially when you're trying to organize
around a cause.
Yeah.
Do you have online friendships or relationships with people you've never met in real
life?
Nope.
Everybody that I'm friends with on Facebook, I've actually met face to face.
Twitter, which I was a part of, and didn't know many of those people, but I didn't interact
on Twitter at all.
I've never posted one thing on Twitter.
I never...
Basically, I got on Twitter to look at porn, that was it.
But, you know, everybody, that's one of my rules about Facebook, because if you're going
to have fun with me, friends with you, I've had to at least meet you.
I've had plenty of friends with quests.
Fun.
Probably from a lot of customers.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't mix business with pleasure, because next thing, you know, I'm
going to be getting messages from them.
"Would you give me this much money for this?"
"No, I don't need that set in my life, so some of them."
And people have asked, "Are you in Facebook?"
Nope.
And it's funny, because they can't figure out my name, my nickname and my real name.
They can't put two and two together.
So, you know what I'm talking about.
So, which is ridiculous, because I couldn't.
It's, you know, I have to be sure I'll come to figure that out.
So, it's just another reason I don't have any friends with those people.
So, as far as online friendships, I ran a gay computer bulletin board in the '70s,
and made a lot of friendships there, and did a lot of organizing around the AIDS pandemic
and the act-up.
And pretty much all those people are dead.
What's that?
Sorry, it's that.
Any friends that I have now, any online friends that I have now, are probably people from
all over the world that I don't have never met in person.
We did have, you and I both had a friend on what was Twitter.
His name was Richard, I won't say his last name.
And I don't think he ever moved on to mastodon, so we don't have any more content with him.
You knew him from Google+ first?
Yes.
Yes, I was.
We both came from Google+.
He sent us birthday presents when you knew him.
He sent me a book.
He could meet some pencils and pencils.
But yeah, I found that to be rather odd at first, but then it was very nice, it was very
sweet.
So, yeah, so I would say, yeah, you have more friendships, well, yeah, I know all the people
there online, but you've seen the virtual relationship with these people.
And I've done it all my life.
Yeah, pretty much, since I was a teenager anyway.
Yeah.
So, you've clicked on social media, affected you offline in real life?
No.
Well, you're fortunate you can say that, because I can't.
No.
So, you have it?
Yeah, AIDS.
No.
That's the thing.
Organizing people is difficult.
I mean, you've always got outliers, you've got people who are there just to cause trouble.
People vehemently disagree on things and, you know, they're not willing to change their
perspectives.
I think people, when they're online and they're behind a monitor and a keyboard, they get
brass balls.
They tell say things and do things that they would never do and say, I think that's more about
group think.
You think so?
Because you see it like a bunch of bullies who are egging each other on, until one of them
will do something they wouldn't normally do.
Yeah.
I do.
Yeah.
It's a group think, and I think people think that they can post whatever they want without
pre-progressions.
Hmm.
In some cases, maybe that's good, sometimes it's bad.
Yeah.
Like anything else.
Hmm.
Have you lost friendships over things said and done on social media?
Yeah.
A friend of mine that I grew up with, as I told you about this, we grew up in a very close
to our high school, and then she found me on Facebook a few years ago, and this was before
the 2020 election, and I hate losing friends with politics, but the shit that she was posting
was just ignorant.
And I'd wonder, I gave her warnings because she was posting things, but I would pro-Trump,
and stuff like that, comparing the Democratic Party to the Nazi Party, and that's a no-no
to me.
I don't think we should post anything, comparing either one of our political parties to the
Nazi Party, even as much as like Trump, I don't think.
There's just a certain mind you don't cross, and I'm wonder plenty of times, and they say,
what, and finally, there was something she did that basically broke the camel's back, and
I said, you know, I warned her before, and I said, uh, I've lost contact with you for 20 years.
I don't think I'm afraid to fucking do it again, and she posted something else and murdered
off and blocked, and I haven't cared less since, so I'm figured I didn't have any contact
with her for 20 years, and she changed obviously as a person, or I changed obviously as a person.
So, no love loss, didn't you also lose a friend in Discord for something he said?
He mouthed off on the phone, where we still talk, but I don't consider him really important.
We're acquaintances now, and I'm finding that I was talking to my sister earlier this week.
This was a childhood friend that I grew up with, and another thing, you know, when they're
not in front of your face, and basically called me home, or when we were playing video games
one night. So, he's going to be in a real waiting room, I see him again, and he gets busted
in the jobs, and he's out of, he's mouthful of the check that his ass can't catch, so, he's
going to be in a real waiting room when I run into him again, but, yeah, pretty much, he was
a lifelong friend, so now he's just in the, more of an acquaintance type of thing, so, but,
you know, but you didn't block him or anything?
No, I can't block him on Discord, he got thrown off the other friend who runs the Discord
group, threw him off for a little bit, but he's back on there, which is fine, but everyone
was a politician from, a politician, I think, from because he was drinking, and I think that's
a lame excuse. If you're drinking, and all you're doing is spouting, what you truly believe,
so, I'm not going to fall for that, so, but, yeah, yeah, how about you?
I almost certainly have, but I can't think of anything else to dump your head.
Well, you never know when somebody's going to take a slight offense or a big offense to
a slight thing that you posed, and they'll just block you and you never hear from him again,
and so, you know, I'm certain that it just probably happened, I just don't know, I can't
think of a particular example. Well, you did that to me on Twitter, okay, so no one in
particular, no sort of event that you can think of. No, have you ever been publicly ashamed
on social media? More times than I can remember. You know shit, sir, aren't you? Well, I have
a particular kind of sense of humor, and sarcasm is sort of a specialty for me. You have
a very biting tone, it could be very demeaning sometimes. And every once in a while you get
somebody who thinks that I absolutely believe that, whatever, whatever I've posted, and they
want to let me see the light of the air of my ways. Well, I like to recently, you did both
of this thing about the diabetes commercial that looks like a play. Someone thought, "I'm
mad at you for that." See, I don't even remember that. Well, it's like the diabetes commercial
words that you're singing, and it's all this like... I said diabetes is a musical. Yeah.
Someone got mad at you for it. Yeah, I don't even remember that. I do remember I posted something
like, "Dip me in honey and feed me to the Baehrs," and some woman saw that and took it literally,
I think, about how dangerous Baehrs are. And also she said, "I don't want to have anything
to do with honey because I'm a vegan." Oh, my God. You know what all vegans haven't come
in? What? They'll tell you they're vegan. So, I guess I don't want to shame people back,
but... I'll go ahead if they deserve it. Sometimes people take jokes literally and just don't
understand humor. Yeah. And I have a standard response now. It's actually on my profile.
It says sarcasm is a precious resource that too often goes wasted. And other people will
get it, but often the person that directed to doesn't still get it. They don't still get it.
Still insults it, so. Yeah. That's funny. Have you ever joined in a public
shaming of someone else? No, no. I don't think I have. Your friends on Discord get that, didn't
they? What? When you were called the homo? No, I mean, they just texted me personally so they
talked to them and they gave me a bounce. He got thrown off the chat line that night and then I think
everyone kind of pulled them aside and texted messaging, but they didn't get on Discord. So, it wasn't a
public shaming, it was a private shaming. I believe I probably have done that, but I can't think of a
case and it had to been an especially egregious offense when you do that. Yeah, you don't seem like the
boy kind of... Yeah, I don't tell people that they didn't put a contact warning because they had a...
They made eye contact with the picture. That blows my mind still. That's so ridiculous.
Have you ever reported a tweet or post? I probably have, but I don't ever remember doing that
because when you do, it's an unsatisfying experience. It goes off into oblivion. Most of the time,
you never would hear anything bad. If they came back and said they didn't agree with you, then it just
makes you even more mad. Yeah, I just block. That's... I mostly snooze people for 30 days.
The people that I think they have the equivalent of that are masked on.
Well, Facebook, you can be welcome when you need to leave them or you put them on snooze for 30 days.
And most of the time, I put them on the sleep for 30 days. I sometimes will block somebody because
they'll post like a hundred pictures from something that I'm not interested in. You don't want to
scroll through all of them. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever been reported? I can't think of the case.
No, I can't think of the case. I was reported on YouTube.
Because I hit post to the video and there was music playing in the background and it was
copyrighted music. Yeah. Oh, I think that's happened two or three times. Yeah, I don't think
I've danced around that line a few times, like the only raid on the edge, but I don't think I've
never been reported. I've never heard back from Facebook about being reported. I've never been blocked
through to put it on Facebook. I've never been putting the Facebook jail.
And those sites really depend on people reporting, I think, to do anything because
when you've got three billion users, they can't look at every single thing. They're doing
that everything slide until somebody complains. Yeah. Yeah. And if you think that they're looking
at every single post, then you got another thing coming. So, yeah. Do you say things on social media
you're afraid to say in real life? No. No. I don't think you're afraid to say things in real life.
No, that doesn't apply to you. That's why I'm kind of juggling you out of motor. Yeah.
No, I probably say more shit in real life than I do. I can see that. How about you?
Oh, I almost certainly have, but I can't think of why. I can't think of anything.
Do you say things in real life you're afraid to say on social media?
Yes. Possibly, but I don't really have any friends in real life. So,
I don't know. I mean, I probably say more things in real life because I mean, but, you know,
give this, I mean, the funny thing is about it is us on social media. We're not all involved in it
all that much. I always like to say. You're all messed up on quite a bit. I get on Facebook for maybe
five, ten minutes a day, but it doesn't consume our lives. We don't have followers. Like I said,
I basically get on there. I basically call Facebook. It's like legal stalking. You can find
only a friend's rub too without actually dealing with them. That sounds horrible, but it's the truth.
I don't have to go to the bars and hang out with them. I can see what they're doing on Facebook, so.
I think that there really shouldn't be a difference, but everybody's different in different circumstances.
You don't use the same language in front of your friends as you do in front of your parents or
grandparents. That's true. So, everybody's different. And I'm kind of a big guy. If I picked a fight
with someone, they probably would back down. But I'm definitely not the kind of person to ever do
that. You're a pretty peaceful gentleman. Have you ever lied on social media?
I don't think so. I pretty, you know me. I pretty, pretty straight shooter. If I don't like you
and I think you're an asshole, I'm going to tell you I don't like anything you're an asshole to
your face. So, I really don't have any reason to lie on social media either. But like I said, I mean,
this really goes back to the fact that we're really not all that active one, either one of them.
So, have you ever lied on social media?
I have never lied about how massive my penis is. You've such a mess. I love you.
Oh, you're terrible. Do you like things that you don't actually like or refrain from liking things
you do like? No. No. God, I'm pretty boring. Do you know what that means? Yes. Okay.
On mastodon, it's called a favorite, I think instead of a like. Okay. The difference is
likes just go to the person and that's it, whereas they have something else where you re-share it.
And that goes on your timeline as kind of like a boost, I guess. Okay. They call it a boost, I think.
And that's kind of like the currency of social media. Yeah, bikes are favorite. So, there's people who
at least in the Twitter days, there was one guy who would like everything that I posted no matter
what it was. And that kind of makes it worthless. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very particular about things that I like,
because like you said, it'll repost it on your page. So, when your friends or family go and see,
I said, don't Facebook anyway, but my mom will get on and see what I post it. And if I like something,
it's basically me re-sharing it. And it says, you know, such and such likes this.
So, you know, I will only do that on something that I would absolutely like, that I would push myself,
I guess, on the same way. So, I'm kind of stingy about mine. Yeah, so am I. Yeah. Do you use social
media for political activism? That's where I started. That's where you started, you know. Yeah.
It makes me kind of wish we had the kind of social media we have now back then. I think things would
have been a lot different. Yeah. I agree. I don't think it would have been the topic, the shady topic,
no one wanted to talk about. You could have really pushed it to the forefront and made people talk
about it and I trust the issue back then. Yeah. I think so. It would be like COVID is now. Yeah. Yeah, very
yeah. It's a shame that social media wasn't around back then because I think things would have been a lot
different. I think a lot of lives would have been saved. Well, my computer built-in board system would
exchange messages with all the other cable boards throughout the country every night. So, there was a
kind of networking activism that was brand new at the time. And, you know, we all felt like we were
right on the edge of something great. Yeah. And it really was just new. But just like 10 years ahead
of its time. Yeah. That's good though. So, you did have an impact. I guess so. That's good. How would you
stay in touch with your friends without social media? I wouldn't. I wouldn't either. I wouldn't.
I'm terrible at writing letters. Like, I'm probably haven't done that since I was told to in school.
Exactly. Yeah. I just want it. I'd have a handful of friends that I would talk to on the phone. And
the other ones I'd just run into possibly. So, I used to belong to a Star Trek Club and we were
fairly tight friends. That was before I came out. And I don't know if nothing like the internet existed,
maybe I would still be doing that. I still have it, you know, a fan club that I would go to. Yeah.
I can see that. Have you ever thought about coming back, Mo? Is there even a fan club right anymore?
I haven't been to a fan convention in well over a decade, maybe two decades.
I kind of stopped because, well, I remember being in line
to do something. And there was a couple of guys ahead of me. And one of them was talking about like,
"Could Mr. Spock be a Superman?" They were having a serious debate on whether a spot could be Superman.
And I thought, "This isn't me." And I'd just stop going. Yeah. My dad could be your daddy checkers.
What's that bumper sticker says? My wrestler can be your honor student, yeah.
Yeah, it's the only way. Yeah. You see people, you know, in the cowboy days,
right massive amounts of letters and stuff back and forth, but that was really the only communication there was.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that I don't know the time I would see my friends if I went to the bar or something like that.
So I don't do that anymore. Kind of like going to a club. Yeah, the only time we go to the bar anymore is
if it's someone's birthday and we go there to see, we go there before everyone else gets there and we eat and we leave.
And that's only for maybe a couple of friends that we do that for. So, yeah, I'm pretty much not
existing anymore, which is fine with me. So, if your friends all jumped off a cliff in social media,
would you do it too? No. No. I'd probably pat him on the bags a good one.
But now I want to number you. No, definitely not. I'm not a living. No, exactly.
So, all right. Well, that was pretty quick. I didn't think we'd get through it that quickly.
Would, um, it's actually been about a half an hour. Oh, really? Okay. So, what's your favorite joke this week?
Don't you call me a lemming? Why should you go to the Plastic Surgery Convention every year?
To get a redo? Oh, why? To see all the new faces. That's good. That's good. That's a good one. That's
funny. All right. We hope you enjoyed episode 103 of the Baehr Curadh Podcast. This is Baehr.
Good bye. Goodbye. You have been listening to The Baehr and Curadh Podcast, a production of the Land
of Awes Information Services. We can be contacted via email using the address podcast@awes.com
and Awes is spelled A-W-E-S.
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