By Epic Guest Blogger, Andrew Lenza
Growing up in the seventies I’d pass many a creosote-soaked telephone pole on Victory Boulevard on Staten Island, running home as fast as my Chuck Lapchick black ankle-high Converse sneakers would carry me.
Clutching a paper flyer in my sticky hand -
“Dad, can I adopt this puppy?” I said, gulping for air. “He’s free!” I yelped, grenading the flyer over the newspaper he was reading while he sat in a lopsided easy chair.
Anticipatory pause.
“Nah, I don’t want a dog,” the old man would drawl, “but he is cute. He’ll find a home.”
Try to put an average dog or cat on Facebook today. Poor orphans don’t even get a “Like.” Post that Pekingese twice on your Status Update and you could get hidden from several friends’ walls.
Where’s the puppy love? Problem is that Social Media rewards the bizarre. Promotes the innane. Challenges us to consider the impractical. Craves the exotic.
Post this on your status: “Caring home wanted for moody Burmese python. Answers to Snedly the Deadly. Warming up to children.”
Expect a series of questions.
• What do Burmese pythons eat?
• Can I keep him in a laundry basket?
• Do you think he’ll mate with my Komodo dragon?
• Will he wear a bowler hat?
• My sister is getting married and the belly dancer needs a partner.
I love the advances of technology. I wax nostalgic, however, for the loss of the typical. When did banality lose its place?
If Social Media has become this generation’s telephone pole for mass communicating, can we at least make it smell like a New York City bus?
*Thank you to Adele’s Staten Island cousin for sharing your thoughts!