A New Direction

After five plus years of immersion in a certain website called Facebook I have decided that it is time to pull the plug. Recently the news that Instagram had changed their policy on photos, so that any photos posted to the site would be property of Instagram and they would be free to sell them, without telling the photographer or compensating them in any way. This made me furious. But it was also eye opening. I realized that being a part of social media and getting more and more plugged in all the time slowly made us hooked on these sites and creating false realities, friendships and social circles.

The Instagram headline(Facebook owns Instagram) made me upset for the most part because the powers that be in Facebook are already worth billions. Is it that tough to make it work that you need to pull the wool over the public eye and basically steal their content. To me, it is the same as me using someone else's blog content and not crediting them for it. Plagiarism is very illegal and in bad taste, maybe Facebook doesn't see it that way? I loved using Instagram for a while now, sharing food porn with like minded people, the filters gave my shots an interesting effect. I cannot stomach the idea of supporting a business that would rule like this.

I am also getting tired of knowing what is happening in so many peoples lives. Not that it is bad, for the most part people are doing good things. I have gotten a little bit frustrated with constantly hearing "I saw on your Facebook" or "Did you see that thing on my wall?" I am no saint obviously, and I am not trying to be hypocritical. I would kind of like to meet friends and have something to talk about. I am one who is very observant and can remember things that people tell me very easily. So if you post it on your status, good chance I will remember it. Then when we have a conversation, I feel like I can fill in the blank when people are talking about their lives. This is a good time to bow out and I will be leaving on January 1st.

This maybe a bad move, since I have been involved with creating a social media based projects with this blog and with the Edible Valley podcast. I appreciate everyone who has found my content because of Facebook. My stats will suffer as a result, I know this. I encourage you to sign up for email notifications for new posts to the blog. It is easy and you will be informed each and every time that a new post is published. If you are on Twitter, please follow me @cynicalcyclist. Also consider subscribing to Edible Valley on itunes. Every episode will be uploaded to your device as it is published. We have so many ways to stay in touch. I don't wish to post my cell number or email address on here, but if you email me through the blog, I will get it.

Thanks for the years of fun Facebook, but I cannot support your endeavors anymore and I wish to build community face to face, the old school way.