There was a post, yesterday, that led me to consider the culture of oversharing/TMI prevalent in online media. I'm not interested in discussing that particular post, but why people feel the need to disclose so much personal information in these public media and the effects.
Case in point (Nota Bene: I'm disclosing this because it's very relevant):
My family is from the West Indies and we are mixed race, Black Catholics. My father's brother chose to marry a lower-class woman against the advice of his own parents. This uncle's wife's family, including my 2 female cousins, have fully assimilated into lower-class, Black American culture.
One of these cousins has just had an illegitimate child with this Black American Protestant with a sketchy career and even sketchier appearance -- he seems to have also been illegitimate. His family had the nerve to have Baby Shower to herald the birth of the little bastard, as though this was the most beautiful thing in the world. My cousin constantly shares everything about this public sin she's committing from the ultrasound (!), to baby shower, and baby pictures. She also electronically invited us to the Baby Shower.
Obviously, none of my very conservative family members has "liked" any of these facebook posts, or attended the shower. We've simply asked her in private when they planned to be married.
Her sister has also married a Black American Protestant 20 years her senior -- that in and of itself doesn't seem bad. However, we are learning he has multiple illegitimate children, and may or may not have been previously married -- I didn't know these things when I attended their pastor-led wedding (with a female pastor with dreadlocks, no less), my cousin's tattoo blazing on her back in her white wedding dress. We learned later that she was pregnant during the ceremony. Yet again, they feel the need to post everything on facebook, particularly the Protestant baptism of her son. Again, none of us "liked" her post or attended.
The point of all this is that with this constant need for personal over-sharing actually leads others to sin. It's boastful, course, and self-indulgent. It encourages vice.
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Years ago, I was coming back from France to the US, and bought an English paper. The author was lamenting the loss of their very dignified, reserved, "stiff upper lip" culture and how it is widely reviled and condemned. He went on to explore all the benefits of that type of culture that does not revel in emotion and emotional displays, affection, and self-disclosure. I saved that article for years and it really caused me to change how I conduct myself. I think here, in America, we could learn a great deal from that type of culture.
Topic: Oversharing In Online Media (Read 696 times)