Things Too Personal

So I headed over to GWOP to share in all the enthusiam for Kate's new show that surely must be building, but I got sidetracked by something that I've been meaning to understand/make fun of for a long, long time.

Every time Sharla posts one of her Open Discussion threads, she posts the same set of instructions --- or, as I like to call them: rules. Because the 21 rules appearing at the very start of the blog clearly aren't enough, we also have rules of conduct for each the Open Discussion threads.

Yes, Sharla, as we know, is a complete rule freak. Which isn't too suprising. If you've bothered to draft the Official Rules and Code of Conduct for something that comes naturally to most species (ie., motherhood), it makes sense that you would devise a dizzying set of rules to govern every other aspect of life.

Dare I say that Sharla might be the only person who is more controlling than Kate? And yet, friends, what is the one rule that Shara so conveniently ignores? That's right, that pesky little Golden Rule.

But I've made fun of Herr Sharla's obsession with rules plenty of times before. No need to repeat myself. Today, I'd like to focus on this bewildering GWOP bewilderment:

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"Remember or try the Facebook Group for things that would be off topic or too personal on the blog."
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Huh?

I guess I need an example of something that is "too personal on the blog" that would not be "too personal on Facebook".

I admit that I'm no facebook wiz, but I do know that most facebook members (except for the GWOP moderators) sign up on facebook using their real names and that member profiles commonly disclose stuff like hometown, current city, school, employer, kid's names, etc. Facebookers will also post pictures of everything you can possibly imagine: their kids, their homes, their vacation plans, their new flat screen TVs, their obvious problems with alcohol, their body parts, their collections of severed body parts -- you name it.

Last but not least, let's not also forget all the idiotic status postings.

TMI, people!

I also know that if you don't take specific action to privatize all that personal content, you're feeding it to friends, friends of friends, advertisers and god knows who else, INCLUDING SHARLA.

So um, facebook ain't exactly private. And for anything TOO PERSONAL, it's actually less private than posting anything anonymously at GWOP. And so perhaps here layeth Sharla's true motivations. Does Sharla want you GWOPPERS to post all the valua ... err, personal stuff on Facebook and not GWOP so that, you know, she has a face, a name, mailing address, and if you wouldn't mind, a social security number to attach to it?

No worries, Sharla's intentions can only be good. Afterall, who can possibly forget how very kind, giving and fiercely protective Sharla was toward PENNMOMMY when her imaginary son fell ill and then died so tragically.