Facebook Error 10.0: Cyberspace

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

Devoured?

Yes, most certainly!

For Karma needs payment;

She too can hold grudges

And her price is swallowing hearts whole

Sucking the marrow from her enemies bones.

In the future,

Women and men who hunt others,

Who seek to cause pain from the safety of their homes,

Shall reap what they sow

Karma will seek out their profiles,

Demolishing the micro sized particles into cyber ruins

Crushing the tyranny that is Social Networking,

Forever stopping the cycle of cyber bullying,

Along with all of its cruelty and unnecessary grief.

Facebook Error 9.0: S.P.A.M.

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

People choose to hate because they can hate;

Better to hate a stranger than hate yourself

The internet allows us to live this way.

Online we construct fake personas,

Ready to live vicariously through them

To do wrong as someone other than ourselves.

The lady viper from my past excels at chaos;

Hers is a life sown with anguish,

For suffering is the only seed she chooses to plant.

Someday Karma shall strike her down;

Bearing her fangs in contempt at her rival,

My enemy will be bit squarely in the chest

Flesh torn away to expose her heart,

The sum of which most likely coal.

Facebook Error 8.0: Unwired

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

Still, anger remains within my breast.

Though months upon months later,

I cannot ignore my feelings of disgust

I seek answers where there are none.

The only wisdom to be had is this:

Trust should not be easily bestowed,

For the human heart is a strange beast

No quirky status update is going to save you,

For people lie on the internet

Even more so than in the land of the unwired.

Facebook Error 7.0: Cyber Justice

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

Hell-bent on revenge,

For she blamed me for her unhappiness;

No longer a member of this social network,

Since I brought her bad behavior to light

She being the victimized in her eyes,

A distorted image her truth,

The rationalization for her lies.

I ignored this loathsome person,

Flagged her insults on the message board,

Logged off from the social scene,

I embraced the peace of my room

And the serenity of silence instead.

Facebook Error 6.0: Cyberbullying

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

In the cyber world accounts can be banned;

Wrong doers can be branded as foes,

Their pseudo web based identities terminated

And, this was my retribution to her

The manipulative minx from earlier.

Yet, the net is a fickle place.

People can easily rejoin internet locals,

No longer pariahs under a different name

Ready to manipulate some other poor sap;

Calculating their next move against their quarry.

Following my troubled experience,

I plunged headfirst into old habits;

I engaged in a forum discussion

The topic of choice,

Most repulsive horror films.

Suddenly, an anonymous member emerged

They too wishing to join the debate,

But clearly had other intentions

One being to identify me,

The other to belittle me in front of an audience.

Again, it was she who tracked me down;

My one time friend turned oppressor,

Weaseled her way into my affairs once more

Facebook Error 5.0: Virtual Blackmail

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

Pulling forth private information,

Disclosed during a confrontation with this feral female,

They sought to publicly destroy my reputation

To reap the praise and rewards for my mistakes.

Regretful, the words I spewed online,

But it was I who made them,

And it was I who would own them

Wearing them like a badge of honor,

For I am human,

A mere mortal prone to missteps

I am not without blame,

Yet I was provoked.

Taking my words out of context,

These two terrorists sought glory out of scandal.

Backstabbers!

Betrayers!

Blackmailers!

Hurt though I am,

My faith placed in false camaraderie,

I decided not to crumble under the weight of their cruelty;

Instead, I planned to stand tall

To let the virtual games begin.

Facebook Error 4.0: Cyber Assault

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

I, myself, was not left unscathed;

The woman who betrayed me continued to berate me

And she was not alone.

Merely an hour after our first cyberspace brawl,

This wicked woman brought another,

A man unstable

His mind weary from depression.

Suffering from extreme loneliness,

He quickly came to her beck and call

Determined to please

Ready to assault me.

Facebook Error 3.0: Epiphany

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

It was at that moment I had an epiphany:

This woman was a bottom feeder

A liar, and certainly no friend of mine

Yet she used a fake persona online

(One of sugar and spice and everything nice)

To get close to me in order to berate me later

To beat me down to make herself feel better.

A river of tears cascaded from my eyes;

The tear ducts soon becoming dry from all moisture lost.

Never had I been exposed to such raw, verbal truth

Immediately I logged off from the Social scene,

Solitary once more

Fearing the pleasures of the internet

Saddened that this battle had even begun.

Facebook Error 2.0: R.E.D.

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

Their words dug into my flesh;

Like the razor sharp edge of a jack knife

A sly, sneaky woman whom I trusted

Deliberately betrayed me!

Marked me with an icy, crest

of passionate revenge.

This wolf in sheep’s clothing,

All kind words then deadly fangs

Bluntly stated that I was childlike;

She wounded my passion and my pride,

Proudly saying I could not write,

All because she knew she could wound me

Violating my sense of self safely

From the confines of her home.

Facebook Error 1.0: Digital Camouflage

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

I, too, was bedazzled by this new internet scene;

I, too, was captivated by such a social craze

Which led me down a path of pain.

It was a Monday evening I was to be hurt,

When I logged into Facebook;

My body unable to remain still while I logged in,

Awaiting that fascinating universe of cyberspace.

I expected to receive a frenzy of notifications,

To read messages of goodwill sent by friends,

To remark on the status of someone I found charming,

Instead I was met with a digital bully

I was virtually ambushed

Social Networking: The Preface 3.0

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

Surprisingly, with the sweet comes the sour

And there were consequences----

Being plugged in did not make you immune to folly;

Trusting strangers (nicknamed “friends”) is hardly wise.

Users soon became the used:

Social media was the internet’s Hindenburg,

Where hidden jackals preyed on the unsuspecting,

Using their online personas to trick the lonely

To gain trust as well as affection-----

If only to covet thy neighbors goods.

Such cruelty ran rampant----

Almost unstoppable----

Leaving behind countless victims.

Cyber bullying,

Sexual harassment,

Death threats,

Counterfeit personalities,

Stalkers,

Sex offenders,

These sins and sinners painted Facebook red;

Left Myspace riddled with bullet holes----

Ruining the entire social networking experience forever.

Social Networking: The Preface 2.0

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

Before we knew it,

Before I comprehended it,

Social networking had irrevocably evolved;

It became a digital sensation.

Hundreds and thousands of websites,

Filled to the brim with accounts,

Were appearing across the oceans of the internet

Gone were simple chat-rooms;

Blasé forums no longer quenching ones web addiction.

As this evolution progressed,

More features surfaced

And the public was tantalized;

The network machine was a carnival ride:

Like spectators ready for the freak show,

Folks gathered ‘round to gawk

And to partake in the festivities.

There were profile pages to customize,

Personal photos to display,

Friends to be found, requested, and harassed.

Yes, and there was music!

Songs to be shared,

Downloaded,

Play lists to make,

And videos to record

All done to impress,

Perhaps to woo a special someone?

To change your singleness to the status of taken.

Because of these “original” features,

People became addicted to the glow of their computer screens;

The only social interactions being made hardly human

Facebook and Myspace forever damaging the greatness of reality.

Social Networking: The Preface 1.0

Written By Glenn McCrary & Jacqueline Webb

It was five short years ago,

And social networking was a virtual embryo

Surfing the channels of cyberspace

Bound to one day conquer its highways;

It has become a wildly popular phenomenon.

Humans engage in its realistic activities;

The web full of new found entertainment,

Thanks to Facebook and the like

The world captivated by every feature

Their innocent, inquiring eyes blinded by the sight.

Finger tips put to good use,

Hapless users signed up for accounts,

Impulsively, and without any delays;

At the touch of their keyboards,

Or the click of a mouse they wired themselves in

Beginning the dawn of the Social Networking age.