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Running the Blockade with Rihanna

 Historically, blockade runners were ships that brought supplies to areas that were blocked off from supply chains usually caused by war and conflict.  If a ship was a blockade runner, it was definitely going to encounter danger. Blockade runners were ships that were known for their speed and their excellent and resourceful crewmen.  They were also known to benefit financially for such risky endeavors.


If you remember from the famous film (now seen as very un-pc) Gone with the Wind, Rhett Butler was known as a blockade runner, among other scandalous pursuits.


These days blocks and blockades have an entirely different meaning.  Road blocks on busy highways often denote construction or accidents.  Blockades are sometimes used in modern war efforts, but not often.  They are perceived as unhumanitarian because they are.

But let's be honest, what do most of us think of when we think of blocking?  Blocking a scene on stage?  Running a scary boat mission?  An MMA fight?

Nah.  We're talking about that Zuckerberg empire of Facebook and our ability to block other users from our profile.  

If you're a pro like me, you know how to block, unblock, use dummy profiles, use additional names on one account, use business accounts.  Trust me, dude, you don't know stealth better than me. I've still got that investigative reporter in me until I die.

But recently I realized something, there are legitimate reasons to block users online.  Legitimate threats to personal security.  Privacy concerns for minors and protected classes.  Deportation issues.  Really....there are lots of reasons.

But the reason most people block others is for one simple reason: to hide.

I did it myself.  For a long time.  I hid from people I didn't feel safe from because they had hurt me in some kind of way.  I didn't want them to see what I was doing or where I was.  I didn't even want some of them to know I existed.  If people from my past thought I had dropped off the face of the earth that was fine with me.  I was that hurt.  I was that discouraged.

And then something hit me one night as I tried to search for an old colleague.  I had to do that whole thing of jumping from one relative to another on Friends lists and found lots of connections and Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon I hadn't even dreamed of!  And really, while some of us hide really well, some of y'all almost make it too easy!  

But what I realized was that Facebook is today's phonebook of the old days.  Remember when you could look up someone's phone number in a big old paper book?  When you were a kid, most of the time it was under their dad's name.  So you had to at least have a vague idea of where the person lived and at least part of their dad's name or first initial.  Now on FB you need to remember their first ex husband or their oldest child and maybe where they went to high school!  It's fairly similar.

So I realized while I was searching for an old friend that maybe she had been searching for me too.  And who have I been hiding from?  Some old shitheads who broke my heart?  A girl from high school that was rude to me in an online forum?  An old coworker that damn near terrorized my existence?

Nuh-uh.  No more.

I finally realized I have no reason to hide.  I can choose not to engage, not to friend, not to message, not to share.  But I don't need to block or hide.  Blocking is for people in true danger and fear.  If users feel like they need to block in order to feel safer and less anxious, I respect that.  I have lived in that situation.  But these days the idea of blocking bothers me more.  I won't hide from the people who have hurt, annoyed or bothered me.  That guilt and pain is on their shoulders now, not mine.  


I realized one of the very few things  I might have in common with Her Majesty Rihanna.  I will continue to exist.  I won't hide.  But I will choose what I share.

And if I'm blocked, I'll say the same.  If you have to hide from me, are you afraid of me?  Or afraid of you?

This might only be a question for the courageous of us out there in the online world.  The real-life Rhett Butlers that keep taking our chances.  Sometimes we wreck our ships and sometimes we walk away with the prize booty.  But either way, we're still sailing, still steering.  And we won't let anyone take our ships down. 

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