The Great Pretenders

The Great Pretenders

Some time ago, I wrote “Facebook Gangsters” in which your average working guy could transform from being your co-worker with the pocket protector, to a modern version of Vlad the Impaler. Not the Bram Stoker version in which he turned into Dracula, but the actual person, who would rip his victims heads off and impale them on a very large stick on what I can only call his front lawn.

Maybe the new-fangled telephone tough guys are not quite that dramatic. However, along with them, there seems to be a new trend in social media, which for the lack of a better choice of words I can only call sad; the purveyors of fables.

People have conveyed stories since we wrote on cave walls before we could even speak, but I wonder if they ever drew that they harpooned two buffalos instead of the one they actually got. If they did, who the hell did they think they’d impressed by it, some archaeologist who might see it four thousand years later?

This brings me to the Zap Tale at hand. Do the new storytellers give thought to what they’re spinning, or who is reading it? What the heck is the purpose of creating and conveying fables about everyday life? If you’re a housewife, be a housewife. I tip my hat to you as,  It’s far more challenging than most other full time jobs.

If you’re a single guy, and went to bed last night at 8:30 because you were exhausted from working all week, so be it. There is no shame in doing the 9 to 5, or any reason to turn your much needed rest into an alleged tryst with the entire Dallas Cowboy cheerleading squad.

Then we throw the film “Catfishing” into the mix. It is sad that someone was able to create an entire movie exclusively about pretending you’re a completely different person. I guess if you just wanted to remain anonymous it’s all good, but when you start reinventing yourself simply to do damage to someone else, that’s not cool. I was tricked by an impostor a few years back and I am still uncertain of the extent of the damage that was done. That’s not counting all the other people  who might have tried contacting me.

The personal computer is becoming almost toxic, and definitely addictive to some people in a drug-like sense. It enables the average housewife to go from vacuuming to a reality TV star with the click of a mouse. It allows mentally ill people to take everyday events or ailments, and turn them into epic sagas, with them (once again) being in the spotlight. Their real thoughts or emotions have to be fictionalized to the point where everything is sensational or there is no rush to it. It is like doing that first line of cocaine, which, after you develop a tolerance, grows more and more out of hand.

For example, I once dated someone with this exact ailment, and I sat back and watched until it was out of control. Everyone involved knew her excuses were pure bullshit, and I only got upset that I couldn’t spin my Zap Tales with the same creativity. The final straw was when she actually died, but came back to life and just wanted to let me know as much. “Yeah, I went to the funeral home and they really did me up great, speak to you soon.”

When that person was at the end of her rope (that’s the making of a fable), they simply shut off their page, and reinvented themselves the following week with a different set of issues, a new name, and a new eye color to match.

One of the worst vices is advice, and I certainly am not in a position to dispense anything, but why can’t these people be content in who and what they are? They were able to sleep in their own bed, clean their own home, and raise a family. In short, you should just be you.

Those Dallas Cheerleaders are not all that anyway…