Silly, shallow, and childish, I know. Why I post cute things to Facebook

Forgive me.  I am a 49 year old overeducated woman who should know better, but I love cute things. I find them on the Internet, and I post them to my Facebook page.  For someone of my years and education, I should know better. I shouldn't even be playing around on Facebook. If you're reading this, you've probably lost all respect for me (given the course of my life and my trashed career, I may have had little respect left to lose as it is. Oh well).  I once was a serious scholar.  I wrote a serious dissertation, two respectable masters theses, have published several peer reviewed papers, presented my research at professional conferences, and have reviewed a number of  scholarly books.  Yet, I love cute things, and I post pictures and videos of kittens, puppies, and babies to my Facebook page.  Maybe I should be shot? I dunno. It's harmless, though.

Let me explain why I engage in this immature behavior. I have a serious but quite controllable chronic health condition. Most of the time I am fine, thank you very much.  But two years ago, I was in the throes of a severe flare, I was unemployed, I was seriously depressed, and my anxiety level was so high the world felt unreal.  I also had a leg injury that restricted my mobility.  In short, life was pretty distressing.  I was, and am, fortunate to have access to excellent health care through the VA (that's a subject for another post).  In addition to treatment and medications, my providers suggested I find ways to soothe and distract myself.  I turned to Youtube and found videos of laughing babies. It helped, it really helped. I find it impossible not to laugh while watching a baby laugh. And aren't babies about life and hope? My favorite laughing baby videos are Ethan Laughing and Evil eye baby.  Joy is infectious.

I was unemployed for a long time.  Last year, a friend of mine made a job for me.  No benefits, but a great wage. Unfortunately, the job is temporary, and as the end date approaches, I find myself increasingly anxious about the future.  Given the high level of unemployment, I don't know if I will be able to find another job.  I have good health care, but what will the coming Deficit Hawk Congress do to the VA budget?  I fear being a burden on my family.  What is more, the shame and frustration of unemployment is not something I want to experience again.  I read too much Paul Krugman.  And with the acrimony of the US political arena, political candidates hinting at political violence, an American Chernobyl unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, the highest unemployment rate since the 1930s, and two endless, wasteful, useless wars, I started posting distressing news and links to Facebook in a mistaken attempt to deal with my anger and anxiety.  Didn't work, and it annoyed my friends.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) helps people develop skills to deal with emotional distress.  One such skill is called "opposite action."  When one feels a negative emotion, or the desire to engage in a problematic behavior, one can counter that by purposefully acting in the opposite manner.  So now when  I get distressed by something I read or hear on the news, I post something cute to Facebook. Or I go to a site on the Internet and just look.  I know it's a very 12-year-old girl thing to do, but I hope my readers (if there are any) will forgive me.  My favorite site is Cute Overload.  That's where I found the the picture of the Corgi puppy on the right.  (Corgi's are cute even when they are grown up). Famous and fun as well are the LOL Cats at Icanhascheezburger.com

I'm not alone in this idiotic and obnoxious silly and inane behavior.  The video of baby Ethan laughing was posted to Youtube 3 years ago, and has had more than 30 million hits.  Today I was inspired to write this post when cuteoverload.com posted a link to this this little essay by CNN technology blogger Damon Brown.  Brown writes:

"[O]ur obsession with cute animals is a welcome respite from chaotic modern life. Back in the day, cat posters and Stupid Pet Tricks took our minds off Vietnam, the arms race and gas shortages. Today, sites such as Cute Overload or I Can Has Cheezburger offer a sunny break from terrorism, Afghanistan and the Gulf oil spill."

 

I do have my limits.  No cartoons. My cuteness has come from photographs and videos of real cute things (okay, as real as possible in these days of video editing and Photoshop). No geese or sheep with ribbons.  No unicorns, princesses, or rainbows.  No big weepy eyes.  And definitely NO DISNEY!

Okay, so now for the obligatory social theory comment.  Are cuteness sites on the Interwebz (as the LOL cats put it) embedded in the consumer-oriented capitalist system?  Yes, absolutely.  They make money on advertising.  Go to any cute site or blog and you will be overloaded with ads as well as cuteness.  But hey, if I had an audience, I'd sell advertising on my blog.  Money is a way to soothe oneself as well.

I have real life cuteness, too, my mutt Laika.  And I was pretty cute once, myself.

P.S.  For a good example of the combination of contemporary internet culture, capitalism, and cuteness, you can't beat this viral video ad for a local creamery:  Tiny Kitten in Tiny Hat Eating a Tiny Ice Cream Cone