Facebook Gangsterism is an epidemic. It eclipses obesity in the amount of people it infects every day. Unlike obesity however, FBG, isn’t something you can tell a person has just by looking at them. The insidious nature of FBG is one of the main reasons why it needs to be studied and written about so that we can all be prepared to deal with it.
Let’s begin.
Facebook Gangsterism: (noun) A condition in which grand proclamations are made via social networking sites, specifically FB but not limited to it, regarding the nature of one’s ability to retaliate, commit violence against or outsmart another individual or group. In essence all statements made are hollow, false and do not indicate what the reality of a physical meeting between both parties would entail. FBG allows someone to transcend the limits of their actual abilities and present a grander more threatening version of their wak ass self.
FBG Status Update Examples:
“Ya’ll don’t know me, son! If I see you in the street, I will CUT YOU and your whole family.”
truth: I really wish you liked me and I don’t understand why you don’t. It makes me feel unworthy.
“Yo bitch, I know you’re talking that shit wait til I see you. Imma be lookin’ up n down the block fa ya ass, bitch.”
truth: I trusted you and you gossiped about me. Now I’m home on my computer trying to figure out what to do with all my feelings.
“Keep actin’ like I don’t know who you are. I’m not the one, kid. Straight up on everything I love and my godson’s LIFE, if I catch you, Imma drop you. Run tell dat.”
truth: I have a godson.
Facebook Gangsterism is a tolerable state for children between the ages of 12 and 17. Seriously, after that, enough is enough. Fucking stop it. Here’s the thing. Yeah, it’s your FB or twitter or whatever but then you blast that shit out into my life and I just can’t handle it. Mainly cuz it’s all LIES.
I’ve NEVER EVER seen anyone I know that’s guilty of FBG actually lay down the law on someone. For all the tuff gal, rude boi talk that comes from certain people’s status updates, you’d think everyone would be able to successfully communicate their feelings and aggression to deserving parties, right? But no, sadly, no. When it comes down to it 99% of people who actively indulge in obscene amounts of FBG can’t handle any sort of confrontation.
“you know the type. loud as a motorbike but wouldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight…“
hova understands.
So then there’s someone like me. I am not a Facebook Gangster. I am not any type of gangster at all. I am some chunky homo rican nerd that daydreams about clouds and eats coconut popsicles. I fear only babies and spirits. No man or woman or fist can keep me from being myself. In that, if I have feelings and want to know something or express something, I will. I will call you. I will come to your house. I will set up a meeting to wop it out. So I find it SO fucking funny when I confront top level FB Gangsters and get a voicemail box, or catch their ass running out the club or once I get them on the phone, it’s all jokes and “I was just kidding” and “It wasn’t really like that.” Oh rllllyyy? Be about your Shit, son.
BE ABOUT YOUR SHIT. hahahaha C’MON!
just COME on….who am I anyway? No one. So if I’m coming to you for clarification about something, be real. But No…I guess that’s the foundation of FBG, the fact that people can’t own up to their bullshit, right? Cuz see I can admit right here right now, that I’m not a fighter. In fact, if you tried to fight me sober, you’d probably win. Also, I’d probably wanna write a poem about my defeat but the difference is that I’d step into the ring. I’d go down trying. I’d try to talk to you first. I wouldn’t sit in the fucking stands hiding behind my keyboard and my momma’s ass hoping not to be called out.
So what’s worse? What’s the bigger defeat? Getting your ass beat? Or dodging the fight?
I’ll always take a licking. Ha. Yup that’s exactly what she said, kids.
I’m just over the grandstanding that doesn’t equate anything actually happening in someone’s life.
What can you do about FBG?
Well if you’re the one afflicted with it just fucking stop. Sit your ass down. Turn off your computer and think about why you spend so much time being a fake-ity fake fake. Ponder why it is you can’t just tell people to their faces why you feel a certain kind of way.
If someone you know, love or tolerate is suffering from FBG, here are some tips to help you cope and maybe break the ugly cycle of addiction:
1) Call them OUT. If FB is their platform of choice, then feel free to say something like: OH REALLY? are you really gonna slice that bitch? like so when we go out tonite and you see him/her/them out, you’re actually gonna say something like using this alleged knife of yours?
2) then call everyone you know and have them show up and make sure that your FBG friend knows that the entire night is dependent on whether they’re gonna be real about their shit. Watch what happens or what doesn’t.
3) Make a mock status reiterating their statements but make up scenarios even more fantastical. Por ejemplo:
Bitch when I see you out in the skreet, imma gather up all my LIONS and FALCONS and we are gonna rumble. Swear to god, b, like tear at your flesh and shit. and then imma CAST A SPELL and turn you into a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich and then i’mma EAT YOU!
(make sure to tag said FBG in this post and me too, so i can laugh my wheezing ass off.)
And so maybe you’re a grown up and you don’t care what other people put on their FB status and that’s cool. #clapclapbravo
Maybe it’s cuz I live in the Bronx but I deal with this shit way too much from people.
FBG slips into people’s real life attitudes about themselves and that’s where the trouble begins. Also, it’s contagious and if a group of friends or family all get infected then it’s a no win situation. You must remove yourself from the group or be forced to realize that you too have become someone who is completely full of shit and so full of shit that you believe all of these ridiculous things about yourself and cannot comprehend the fact that you’re one big fucking joke.
I’d have told you this to your face if you would have picked up your phone/answered your door and been about your shit.
life motto: Be About Your Shit.
last but not least: leave FB alone. it didn’t do nuthin’ to you and doesn’t deserve your lying stupid bullsnap.
feel freel to share your stories with FBG in the comments. make me laugh ya’ll.
Like this:
i need a job. i just want to be a teaching multi media artist. so i made this video to apply for an awesome job. i won’t say anymore about that but this video was fun to make.
much love to myo campbell for shooting this with me.
hunched back spine horseshoe posture snaps vertebraes
wrists bent arched at forty degrees suctioned over black and white square keys
fully bulbous beer bloated sack of weight resting over weary thighs
skin wrinkled in between cracks in between veins that weren’t there before
fuck you for reading this
thank you for not reading this
please don’t not read this again
sit in square position don’t call it indian style don’t admit to not shifting out of it for 36 hours
add four hours of sleep, make forty beats your resting heart rate, divide nothing
take pleasure in word play, play yourself until violin strings tear until lungs wheeze from parliaments
from government sanctioned arthritis, drug catharsis in white boxes shaped perfectly for streamlined coffin
if poetry is the phenomenology of the soul, then self-hatred underscores the myth of self and creates vortex of lost couplets
none of this makes sense
all of this means nothing
mean something sense of this
arrange complex structure without foundation to confuse climbers, cause chaos and crash crash crash tweak
she did this to me.
i did this to she.
we killed each other.
if poetry wasn’t dark, poetry wouldn’t be alive.
poets would have nowhere to hide onstage
sewers would overflow.
it’s better to scatter words onto blog, into air than confess, than to spew sickness into ears, minds of concerned hearts
better than speaking english
better than speaking
better than
this is not finished
there is no end
continue fucking yourself
Like this:
women always have and always will be the ones who help me through the most of my anxiety. also, my brother, but he’s a princess so I don’t separate him from the aforementioned category.
maybe it’s too pretty out and too much of a holiday weekend to write about anxiety but whatever.
anxiety runs in my family. my aunts are nervous, always on the move creatures ready with a joke and a beer to dodge the inevitable blast of nervousness, of anxiousness. the women in my family are naturally loud and on edge and sometimes I feel like Latinos look at anxiety as just a hyper way to live. Like it’s ok and shouldn’t really be acknowledged, like take a xannie and drink a beer y todo eso. my grandmother lived with high blood pressure, hypertension and anxiety like forever, you know until she passed and stuff. parkinsons. which is like the physical manifestation of a brain living on anxious…
which is one of the things i fear i might die of…cuz dying is on the brain, cuz puerto ricans living in new york don’t seem to live as long as the ones on the island do. cuz i’m convinced i’ve got less than 25 years left on this earth, if i make it that long, si Dios permite…
so this anxiety thing is strange because it’s gotten better. it used to be worse. it used to be sliced up the arm, dripping with whiskey, rides in cars with strangers looking for a way out, curled up on the bathroom floor heaving type of anxiety…anxiety that turned into rage that turned into bruised fists and apologies i could never spit at myself cuz i was too ashamed.
about a band but still perfect
many things have aided in the lessening of my anxiety. primarily, the ex se fue. like boom bye bye and not having to deal with anyone’s alcoholism and associated behaviors eases the triggers. it eases the level of naturally occuring anxiety in the bloodstream. sometimes i want to thank her for leaving, in all honesty, because i don’t feel like i’m going to die of a heart attack tomorrow and i don’t have black out panic attacks anymore. so if you’re reading this, no disrespect, mad love, but seriously, thanks for packing up and moving out cuz i’d probably still be white knuckling through life.
but the anxiety still lives and rises and enters the domain of my crib, of my heart. now it’s all mine though and it feels good to finally claim that to look my anxiety dead in the face and say “The only reason you’re here is because of me.” I’ve been needing to claim this bitch as mine and now we just go toe-to-toe.
so normally the anxiety comes when I need to be awesome. the second I have a thing where it’s all on me to shine, perform, to be most myself the anxiety slips in and sucks away all of my life. i’m wracked with the inability to focus on anything which turns into being pissed off at myself for “dicking around” and i’m stuck banging my head. banging. banging. it against all of the bricks that make up the wall that make up the space i can’t free myself from. nail biting. beer drinking. cigarette smoking. zoning out. zoning. zoning. and then well, still, the moments of staring at pictures of people who aren’t alive anymore and wondering why I can’t be with them. i pace the living room into the bedroom wishing it was a moving walkway to somewhere else. pace. pace. knuckles cracking. see then these tears come out that i don’t recognize cuz they’re coming from this place i don’t ever like to visit. but they stream anyway and they claim the pinkish peach sized cheeks that cradle my face because something has to and because they have no way to fight such aggressive tears.
most times i reach out. in a small way. via txt. hey i can’t focus. hey i need you. or just, hey. the women in my life reach back. the lifers like marcela have been there before with me. like when my anxiety is so high from work that i can’t handle driving into the city, that i just need back roads and dark streets and so she drives us there. anywhere, she drives so that i can breathe. women that text me all night long to make sure i’m ok and these texts turn into phone calls turn into ‘let’s get breakfast’ which really means: hey, i’m checking in on you cuz i was worried.
see the power of anxiety? i’d rather it not be that. i’d rather it be cuz of positive things that there’s an exchange between me and my lovely ladies. (there is but i’d rather the anxiety NEVER be a part of it). but i find that reaching out is better than shutting off switches and darkening rooms and finding people in dark bars to get close to so that i feel far away.
but also, why is it when I need to be my best? why is it that this thing keeps me hostage until the 24hrs i need to do said: show, job, interview, article, showcase etc etc etc all of the things that I do because this is what i do. why then? it’s like i should name my anxiety cuz it’s a thing with awareness and understanding. it sees the moment of weakness and invades. i always feel like this will be the last time and it will take me and i will quit. i get so close to quitting and giving in to allowing it to manifest in its own greatness.
then I don’t. then I say fuck that. then greatness comes from me and I run with it, into it and blast forward. wondering if the anxiety was a dream because it feels blurry around the edges like haze on the side of clouds in august, like maybe it didn’t happen. but it did because look at all those beer bottles, look at all those text messages, look at all the time you wasted and you still pulled it off.
i wonder what would happen if I could skip the anxiety and just give in to the creativity. what would come out of that? without the middle man?? It stops me because I can’t imagine my life without anxiety. even if what I experience now is the little brother of what I used to experience. What if I could just do away with it all together? Who would I be? What would I do?
Can this be done…? Maybe if I live through the next 25 years, then maybe I’ll know the answer.
Like this:
i’ve got feelings. can’t really get to the bottom of them. lyrics do a better job.
so cliché that they’re ani difranco lyrics but stereotypes always come from some truth.
“Anticipate”
standing in my view
but I will wait for it to rain
so that I can see you
you call me up at night
when there’s no light passing through
and you think that I don’t understand
but I do
so that we can say later
oh, you misunderstood
I hold my cards up
close to my chest
I say what I have to
and I hold back the rest
’cause someone you don’t know
is someone you don’t know
get a firm grip, girl
before you let go
for every hand extended
another lies in wait
keep your eye on that one
anticipate
dress down get out there
pick a fight with the police
we will get it all on film
for the new release
seems like everyone’s an actor
or they’re an actor’s best friend
I wonder what was wrong to begin with
that they should all have to pretend
we lost sight of everything
when we have to keep checking our backs
I think we should all just smile
come clean
and relax
if there’s anything I’ve learned
all these years on my own
it’s how to find my own way there
and how to find my own way back home
isn’t that really just the best blog post title like ever in life? yeah, i thought so too.
no seriously, it’s time for #feelings cuz I’ve got some and you know I gotta let them out.
One, I’ve been mulling over this post for a few days. afraid to let it out because it was such an intense experience. because I’ve never been inside Lincoln Center before, because AS posted this thing about presenting perfection on the internet and how it fucks us up in the head and also because I’ve been wondering how to navigate what i think and what i write, as if i still had to censor myself to make some other bitch feel less threatened by me.
so tired of that shit.
so here we go.
lincoln center is my favorite side ho because it was walking uptown on her side of the street that put a pause in my ass. a few months ago, right when my faux-mo divorce had finally settled in, when the EX finally fucking left and when i was finally alone, i was in the city. it was one of those nights when pacing our apartment felt like walking around bones, walking around a corpse, walking around a fucking ghost town. when riding the train after midnight seemed like a better idea than stewing in domestic fuckery. so i went downtown. landed in SOHO (see what I did there? how i highlighted HO…anyho…) and walked, walked, walked. walked until i found myself along Amsterdam Ave. walked until I didn’t feel my cheeks anymore. walked until i forgot that i’d shed tears on the pavement and didn’t ever want them back.
i found myself in front of Lincoln Center. you already know what a majestic and perfect place it is. how it represents all of the beautiful things and people that are better than us, than me, than all the shmucks pounding the city. how it’s a place for real art. how it’s all the things i secretly want to be………………….
i stopped there and realized for the first time how serious it all was. how we were FINALLY really for truesies BROKEN THE FUCK UP. how this chick wouldn’t be my wife anymore and how fucking glad i was. how infinitely pleased my soul was to be free from that shit, that misery, that place where all of the WORST of me was all i could be.
i couldn’t move. also, huge also, in that moment, no one in the world knew where i was. my phone was off. it was the middle of the night. none of my 843207401826401823605876230576134756 fb friends or 11teen twitter people and all of that bullshit that doesn’t really mean anything and all of the contacts in my phone that never contact me, all of that and none of them knew where i was and it was glorious.
i was finally part of the anonymous mass that is nyc late at nite. no one. no one. NO ONE knew where i was, i know i said that already, but please let me say it again: nooneknewwhereiwas.
in that moment i could die, could lay on the ground, could cry out every feeling of worthlessness and no one would know. i contemplated walking forever and never ever letting my whereabouts be known again. what would it matter if i drifted into anonymity? from whence i came, right? but instead i just stopped in place. i refused to be apart of any texting, calling, blogging, anything other than staring at Lincoln Center knowing she could see me. cuz places are alive, right? they know when we see their inhales and exhales, quiet as they may remain, they fucking know.
i was used to being clocked. the EX needed to know my every move cuz sometimes my moves were hidden. because sometimes i like hiding and she always thought i was up to no good. no good no good. since when did my actions equal what was not good? since when did i let that be a thing?
it was a thing. i inhaled/consumed/shitted out that feeling of always being two steps away from wrong and being angry about it…and believing it to be so, believing it so hard that i made it true and i sucked and sucked and sucked until i was the worst me ever. until she had to leave or i would have destroyed her like i was destroying myself.
until i was alone and in front of Lincoln Center. just me. alone. alone. alone with no money. cuz i never have fucking money. cuz mostly what i have in my wallet is all i have and i most likely will die just as poor. and slowly i’m becoming ok with that and really whatever cuz Jesus was that poor and i feel like he was standing next to me there along with all the other rad, dead, good people that got effed over in this world so…it’s all good. good company. good. alone. physically alone.
i reveled in the fact that we wouldn’t have screaming matches. that i wouldn’t have to see her blacked out eyes ever again. that i wouldn’t have to worry so much that my anxiety would make me puke. that i wouldn’t have to get other people to help me find her in the middle of all the 3ams and 5ams when all the bars shoulda been closed already so where the fuck is she nights. that i wouldn’t have to be THAT FUCKING BITCH at the party talking shit about the woman i was with because there was no other place to let the shit out. or that other fucking bitch who beasts and hounds and pushes and presses until love becomes a word uttered at the end of an apology at the bottom of a bag of coke when the sun has been up and all parties shoulda known better. that i wouldn’t have to live in the reality of always being the worst of myself to myself and to her.
lincoln center.
lincoln center.
in my heart, you are a savior.
you are the idea that life is a burst of energy so fleeting that greatness must be celebrated before it is gone.
standing before you, i had the opportunity to celebrate myself. my solitude. my freedom.
all before i even knew what to do with it. when all i could do was walk cuz it’s a learned action but still an instinct and instincts keep us alive…
i cried. thankful to God, to the Virgin Mary, to Christina, to my dead beautiful grandparents, to all of the things that really make up the sky, i cried.
freedom is when no one knows where you are except for the place you’re at…
because you might not even know where exactly you are but the place knows you’re there
because it’s been waiting for you
because after you leave, then the next one shall be.
and so it is.
Communities are created to help us become the best people we can be. They are here to nurture our awesomeness, foster ideas and be places to ask for help when needed.
Two of the most hard working writer’s I know need help to pursue their goals. They both have memoirs to finish. We have to help. It is our job. So please help by either spreading the word or cracking open that wallet and putting some good into the hands of actual people doing great things.
Shell Fejio – Pigs are People Too: Experience of a Fat Woman in America 
Fat women are everywhere. And we are hungry for honest stories about what it’s like to be fat, for the truth about the conflicted feelings we have for our bodies, for funny empowering tales about body-image, and for the all-too-rare point of view that fat phobia—not just obesity–is an epidemic worth fighting. What if we never lose the weight? What if we love ourselves one day and want a tummy tuck the next? What if the chair fucking breaks? What if we (gasp) have sex! We need some experiences out there that share the truth of living fat, not the sob story of how we got there, or the success story of how we got out, but what we experienced from those around us while we were/are in it; the reality of living as a fat woman in America. We need a new manifesto. Pigs are People Too: Experiences of a Fat Woman in America is that book.
Shell Feijo is the bomb, baby. Please help her story get told and give this remarkably dope woman a moment in this life to fly.
Vanessa Martir - A Dim Capacity for Wings
Vanessa is writing a memoir on her life and homegirl needs to get to VONA. Help her get to VONA!
I have an opportunity to have a master writer work through the book with me, help me see where it is strong and where it is weak, help me see the book in its entirety. The thing is, as a teaching artist who quit her job two years ago to work with urban youth, I cannot afford to go to VONA on my current income. I need help. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from memoir, it’s that I have to humble myself and learn to ask for help and accept it when I need it. So I need it now. And so, I’m asking that you help me raise $2000 to attend VONA.
An excerpt:
“[M]om was so quick with the hands that I learned early on that violence was the way to resolve things, to get your way. And Millie added the commas, exclamation points and capital letters when she took me into the yard and showed me how to throw a jab, how much pressure it took on the temple or nose to knock someone out (“Cuida’o con la nariz que puedes matar a alguien con esa fuerza que tienes. Esas manos son de madera.”) I learned early on that I had to protect myself, that no one was going to do it for me. I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Click here to put Money where mouth is or just spread the word: Vanessa Martir goes to VONA and the capacity for wings grows BRIGHT.
