Don't Be the Butt of an Internet Joke

Have you or has anyone you know ever been in a viral video? 

Kind of a scary thought sometimes, considering most of today's viral videos' content includes embarrassing accidents or other idiocies at the main character's expense. 

I write as a warning to anyone who cares to read this to use the utmost care and discretion when posting content that includes anyone other than yourself. Recently my little brother was the subject of such embarrassment. One of his schoolmates was taking a video of some of his friends doing a goofy dance. Innocent, right? In nature, yes. But this video was taken in the high school boys' locker room, and while the video panned from right to left across the group of dancing boys, you get a great shot of my brother's bare derriere. Thankfully that is the only nakedness seen as he quickly covered himself with a towel (which, if you know anything about the tiny size of high school locker room towels, was still not much coverage). 

While I can be 99% sure that catching my brother's naked rear-end was not the kid's intention when recording the video, the damage was done. He had used the Vine app to take the video and had shared it on Twitter without any consent from my brother. Within hours, girls in his class were alerting him that his bare behind had been plastered on the internet and was being shared all over the school. My brother is a modest boy, so he was immediately embarrassed and furious. At this point, it was too late to stop it. Kids with smartphones showed their friends in the halls or on the bus ride home. High school kids these days do not go straight to the couch to watch TV anymore--they go straight to their computers and log on. There is no way to count how many people watched the video--it had entered the public domain. 

Over the weekend my family contacted Vine and Twitter to have the content removed. We can only hope this stopped the spread. But it is all too easy to download video content and to re-post it via another source. I have been unable to find the video again. While this is a good sign, I can never be 100% positive that my brother's butt is no longer web content. 

I know, I know, it's just a butt. But it's my 16-year-old little brother's butt. Be honest, do you want YOUR butt on the internet for the world to see? No matter how modest you are or aren't, my point is that this content was highly inappropriate. 

Again, I do not really believe that my brother's embarrassment was the intention of the kid taking the video. I emphasize that because I do believe that this kid did not even think twice about posting the video. He probably had no idea how many people it would reach. Since my brother does not have a Twitter or Vine account, perhaps he thought he would never see it and would never know. I only wish he had known how viral internet content can be. 

Every Tweet, every Facebook post, every Instagram photo, every Blog becomes public information the second you post it. I cannot even say that I have not been guilty of indiscretion when Tweeting, etc. I have to beg all of my friends and anyone who reads this to PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE use discretion when posting ANYTHING to the internet, and PLEASE do everything you can to educate young users about how dangerous it can be. 

Pain

Because of the way nerve impulses work, eventually the most excruciating physical pains seem to subside. This is because there is a threshold for the amount of neurotransmitters received by a neuron after which surpassed no more effect can be felt. Therefore, even if you were to pinch yourself for five minutes at the same amount of pressure, after the initial pain is maximized, the rest of the time you would not feel as much pain. There are also other mechanisms that function to divert your focus from concentrated physical pain as such.

But this is not so for emotional pain, in my opinion. For this kind of pain I’ve found no threshold, no distraction. It comes to the point where you would rather endure unending amounts of physical pain rather than continue to feel the torture of the heart-breaking, emotional hurt inflicted.

I think I am correct in assuming that most humans would choose death over emotional pain much more quickly than they would choose death over even the most grueling physical tortures.

Pants on Fire

I really should be doing something productive right now since this week is going to be the Hell that it's already turning out to be, however I am too incensed.

Okay, so I'm a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ liar.

Ugh. I need to go to confession.

When I say I won't ever get married... yeah, BIG FAT LIE. Of course anyone who really knows me knows this is utterly false. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet I make this claim to any person of the opposite sex that expresses any form of interest in that sort of thing whatsoever. And I halfway believe myself. But....

Truth be told I want nothing more. I have all of these goals in my life... graduate with honors, get my masters, get into medical school, be a doctor, be on a hospital board, be a coach.... but nothing, and I mean nothing, means more to me than having a family. The first step, of course, is marriage--a perfect marriage, to someone who wants to take care of me even more than I want to take care of him. And trust me, I'm REALLY good at being that woman who takes care of her man, probably to a fault. I'm not going to even begin to describe my "perfect man" because even I don't know what embodies him. All I know is that he's gonna have to have a heck of a lot of a patience to put up with some of my bullshit (that's a science term). Momma always said it's gonna take some stronger man than most to tie me down.

Maybe my problem is that I have this illusion of everything turning out as "perfectly" as it did for my parents, albeit far from "perfect." But they've been married 25 years with 3 kids, so they had to have found something special. Ha, I even had a timeline of when I wanted everything to happen. Married between 24 and 26, kids by 28 or 30, my own practice by 34... living the good life. Right. But wait, I even have the ring picked out and the wedding gown designed; the whole wedding is planned--sans groom. I'm pathetic.

Okay, so the root of my problem is fear. Typical. (Let me whine for a sec) I'm so over being jaded. I see all of these Facebook posts of all these people from my graduating class getting engaged or staying in relationships for 3 to 6 years at a time... but I can't keep anyone around for more than a couple months? No trouble finding prospects, no. But get past that first few weeks and BAM! they're running the other direction.... So I've taken to asserting that Hell no, I'm never getting married. Seriously, this is but a dramatic conclusion concocted based on my fear of being hurt.

As one put it, I make myself out to be "the devil to date." My response? Well, I can be a bitch (another science term). In my head I have this mental image of a Miranda Lambert song-worthy charade of shooting my revolver at the back tires of a pick-up truck hollering "You get your sorry ass back here!" But let's be real. As Texas Monthly put it in their recent article on Miranda, what girl in Texas that has ever been hurt by a man hasn't wanted to do something like that? She just puts our fantasies into song . So they remain but a daydream and we remain sweet Southern Belles. Take Miranda for example. She sings all of these gunslinger songs about women getting even with good-for-nothing liars, cheats, and fools... but she just recently married Blake Shelton in a picturesque country wedding. So the girl I idolized as the she-woman-man-hater that won't ever need a man even wanted and found it!

So you see? No girl who daydreams about burning down the houses of ex-lovers is really so cold-hearted that she won't ever walk down the aisle. On the contrary, I would reckon that every girl, every human out there wants that companionship. We females just have a stupid way of showing it.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2011-10-01/feature --Link to article on Miranda Lambert, Texas Monthly October 2011

It's a quarter after one...

Of course when I have to wake up in five hours I would be suddenly inspired for a blog posting. Alas, I'll keep it short.

I desperately wish I had some musical talent, or at least some lyrical genius.... Some form of talent that is raw and pure, resonating and perpetual. Something I could entertain everyone, everyone, and no one with until the day I die.

I suppose I shouldn't whine. God has bless me with many talents. I'm generally good with people. I'm a fairly decent public speaker. I have a certain way with animals. I learn quickly. I can play video games. I'm a good athlete and have developed excellent hand/eye coordination. I play collegiate softball and I've done fairly well in my career, but it's almost over. I can't keep playing forever; there's no time, place, or organization that allows average ex-college softballers to stick around and try their luck into their forties like there is for men's sports. Slow pitch just isn't the same. But I digress.

My point is that none of the talents I am presumed to have are stage-worthy. I won't be like Julie Andres or Willie Nelson, dazzling the silver screen until I can no longer make it to casting call or kicking out the footlights until my hands are so crippled with arthritis I can't pick my guitar.

But I used to OWN the stage. I must admit I have no qualms about being the center of attention. Perhaps I thrive on in? I used to sing in honor choir and church choir when I was younger. I got major parts in many of the school plays or holiday performances I did. There's a video that will probably be played at my wedding rehearsal dinner (God willing I even have a wedding) of me at 8 years old taking the mic from a resort band and singing and dancing to La Vida Loca by Ricky Martin in front of all the resort guests. I got a standing ovation. I even won a gold medal in my individual performance in figure skating when I was 10. Uh, what happened?

My singing voice died with puberty. I mean I can get through an average karaoke song in key but my voice just isn't pretty. Acting... I never had time for it and theater in high school always involved musicals and required actors who could actually belt it. I wish I could play an instrument but as the athlete I had to choose between flute lessons and volleyball practice (who wants to be a band nerd anyway?). And it's not as if I'm funny enough to be a comedian.

Maybe I'll learn to play piano. Hell, my little brother practically taught himself how to play guitar online. Still, if I ever had any inkling of a dream of being on a professional stage doing something, that shot is long gone.

Do they have red carpet award shows for doctors?