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Social Media Proves We Are Stupid


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On a daily basis I see things on my Facebook wall that demonstrates how easily we can be manipulated into believing that something is true, when it should be obvious that it is not.  Facebook, for example, has been putting a lot more video on my newsfeed lately.  I've started to notice a lot of videos that are clearly fake.  However, based upon the comments posted, people believe these fake videos to be true.  It is very scary how easily we can be fooled.
 
For example, I saw a video posted by someone I thought was pretty sharp.  They used this video to prove how skilled the martial artist Bruce Lee was with nunchucks, which is a weapon made of two, foot-long sticks, connected by a short chain.  Here we see Lee playing ping pong using these sticks  This is not to say Bruce Lee was not a skilled martial artist, but the very idea that some people would actually believe this feat to be humanly possible is, itself, unbelievable.

 

 

the same day I saw a video of an elephant painting a picture of a scene with an elephant holding a flower.   It was alarming how many people simply took this video at face value, concluding that elephants are as smart as humans because this video proved they are capable of independent, creative, artistic expression.

 

 

Here is another I saw sometime ago.  I was impressed by the video trickery, but others believed it was physically possible to suspend water in the shape of a glass?!

 

 

Actually, I think all of these video are pretty cool, but the comments are disturbing.  When we see a magician saw a woman in half, noone actually believes the woman is cut in half, but we are still amused and impressed by what is clearly a trick.

 

Why in the age of social media do we lose our ability to reason and simply believe everything we are told?   Is our expectation that everything online is true?  Why?

 

Sadly we are all susceptible to manipulation on things that are much more important than painting elephants.   Because we don't read* and are unable to think critically; we are such easy marks. 

 

In social media we operate, unknowingly to most, in what are called "filter bubbles" where we are generally exposed to information that already conforms to our world view.  This, I believe, is why people in our society can have strongly opposed views on the same issue.  We are presented with completely different information.  

 

We are not all on the same page on issues like climate change, Obama Care, ISIS, corporate control of the government, or anything that is important, because we are all being lied to (presented with information biased to our preexisting beliefs).  We believe those lies because the support what we already believe.

 

Sure there are people who consume information critically and seek out the truth, but these folks are rare.  We used to rely on journalist to do this on our behalf.  But those days are gone.  We are left with entertainment posed as information.  

 

*Reading is not a requirement for critical thinking.  Illiterate people have been some of our best critical thinkers.  In our 21st century culture, literacy and the ability to think critically (I suspect) are highly correlated. 

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I am more in tuned with Troy who implies that the world in general and this country in particular is full of gullible people. As P.T. Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute". And there are the con-men and opportunists who take advantage of this.  I would agree that all outlets of the media enable exploiters to do their exploiting. The social media in particular fosters frivolity, religious piety, and political polarization.

 

As someone who is frequently accused of being negative, I have observed that people who have their inflated aspirations and impractical dreams exposed to the scrutiny of reality become discouraged and frustrated and they refer to those who don't humor them as being "negative".  But there is a difference between being positive and being impractical; a difference between being malicious and being candid.  There are gifted charismatic people who respire with the natural positivity of their talent and they will fulfill their potential.  But there are legions of people flushed in their inflated self-esteem who overreach and fail because they are deluded.  Everybody wants to be a success - a star, and the cream rises to the top.  Unless you're the cream, you are relegated to the mainstream. Those who comprise the cream may not achieve great popularity but, more importantly, they earn the respect of their peers. Yes, there are some lucky phonies who have been foisted on the public by movers and shakers who dupe folks into thinking that what they are promoting  as gold is actually tin.  This is where exploitation  comes in. Those who are bamboozled by hype are gullible. Those who see through subterfuge are realistic, not negative.  

 

Racism is repressive and it denies individuals the opportunity to become the best they can be.  It is genuinely negative because it is instituitionalized and its influence is pervasive and powerful.  Blacks have tried to remain positive in their hopes to overcome, but the reality of the situation is that circumventing racism is all that works. Truth is what sets people free.  And truth is neither positive nor negative; it is real.  IMO

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Richard I agree the internet is a reflection of our society, but everything is exaggerated, distorted to the extent that it is no longer true or useful for anything other than entertainment.  We seemingly don't have the ability to tell the different between truth and lies.  

 

This has always been true as Cynique suggests with that old PT Barnum quote, but it seems to be much worse now.  Maybe the Internet is just exaggerating this issue too.  Who knows.

 

Still it really is painful to watch the net become one giant marketing tool for a handful of companies, while new and meaningful contributions from Black folks are marginalized across the board.  I'm sure the same has happened in all forms of media, but being actively involved with the net and watching this happen so quickly is really tragic and a real shame.

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I tend to think that we all are really kind of failing to realize that there have always been suckers and people have always been duped. The only difference now is that we are able to see more people than ever who fail, or are foolish because of social media. I don't know if anything has really changed as much as had a light shined onto it. We can see everything now and whether it is real or fake, it's available.

 

The net has both empowered and diminished. When Troy states that how marginalized people have become in a short amount of time, I say that people have become empowered. Those who are able to navigate social media are capable of accomplishing things they never could have had social media and certain forms of media didn't exist. I'm generalizing here, but I am basically using myself as an example. I have yet to promote my work as a writer. I recently redesigned my website and made a call for writers through social media and the response was not bad at all. I actually increased my website traffic in one month from 200 uniques to over a thousand without really posting much on the site at all until the final week of the month. I have also utilized Kickstarter (a form of social media) to jumpstart my shoe company. (Which would not exist without me utilizing social media and other tools).

 

I think it's all in the way we approach it. The Black Business collective on Facebook that I joined has been able to list 184 Black owned businesses. When I joined this collective I actually sold shoes to black people. Up until this point I could honestly count on both hands the amount of Blacks who bought a shoe from a non athlete owned Black company named ARCH. More white people bought my shoes than Blacks. The same happened with Kickstarter, of the backers I had, 80% were White.

 

I guess I write all of this to disagree with you Troy. Social Media has only revealed the stupidity that was already there. Do I think people are getting dumber? Not really because those same people can do ridiculously amazing things with technical devices. They may not be able to write code, but they are doing other things that are impressive with their phones. Are they doing things they would have never done without social media? Yes people have become emboldened in both negative and positive ways. I guess it's all in how you look at it all.

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Yes, Chris I do believe we are dumber.  But don't take my word for it look at the data.

 

I don't take my success, or yours as evidence that people are not getting dumber.  I also don't use it as proof that the web, social media or kicker starter has empowered our people.  The success of a few is not reflective of us collectively.  Again, don't take my word for it look at the data.  Most kickstarter campaigns, for example, are simply not successful.  Most people do not profit (or even attempt) from using social media.

 

Obviously, sneakers are one thing books are completely different (you know this better than most).  Do you think the average Black male buys more hardback novels or sneakers? I don't know the answer but, I'd be willing to bet they buy more $100 sneakers than $25 novels.  

 

I make this point because sneakers don't make people smarter, books do.  This really is the crux of my concern.  We are buying more pairs of sneakers, and paying more for them, and buying fewer books.

 

Please don't think I'm trying to disparage your business--I'm not.  I wear sneakers, I just don't buy them very often and I only wear then when engaged in a sports related activity; I don't wear them casually.   

 

Yes, there has always been suckers, and yes we have the ability to see this much more easily today.  Again I believe more of us are suckers than in the past.

 

Believing that Bruce Lee can actually play ping-pong at an amazingly high level, swinging a stick, is just the tip of the iceberg.  There were millions of people who were easily dupped into taking out loans they could not afford to repay during the home loan crisis. There are millions pf people who believe the world is 6,000 years old, etc.  These are not people who do not have access to information these are people who believe these things despite information.

 

I'm glad you found a Black Business Facebook page that benefited your business.  My Facebook page benefits my business, but I have yet to find anything on Facebook, that I could not do before Facebook.  That fact is a point I've been trying to help people understand.  Before Facebook that Black Business Group you discussed would have existed on it's own platform and that Chris is a very profound and important difference.

 

I'm not saying social media is the cause of our increasing stupidity, but helps it along and certainly makes it more apparent.

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I do realize that people are getting dumber, but I also see a lot of creativity in a lot of kids now that wasn't there. I guess I'm looking at the total picture in relation to me, as I said, and I'm witnessing a lot of people who are accomplishing some pretty cool things. Now granted a lot of it is in fashion and design, but nonetheless things are happening. I can give examples. I had a student who helped me shoot a movie when I was teaching high school. All of the teachers there were saying the same things that you are saying in regard to social media and kids being dumber. I tend to think the kids and adults are waiting on better instructors. This kid with his classmates, wrote a script, then using editing tools they created a short film which is something I don't think our generation could have done or even would have attempted to do. Are they dumber possibly, but stats never tell the full story. Are the teachers worse? In my head yes.

 

I'm not special or gifted, but I'm connected (was connected as an educator) so I was able to pull things out of my students that other teachers couldn't. But that's not the fault of social media. I've talked before about digital chunks in writing and that students now can't write without checking Facebook. This is not going to change. It is the evolution of our society, but I don't blame social media, I adjust and teach in a way that models the choppiness they are used to, and then I can create longer blocks of attention over time.

 

Where you see stupidity is where I see a kid like Nick Conyers who parlayed social media into a viable source of income shooting video for people here in Memphis. While it is true that those platforms would have existed without social media, we all would have had to pay to play in some form to get people to our places of choice so that they could find us. The only thing different now is that social media outlets are garnering all of our money, but honestly some people are better off and some people aren't. Overall, I've never really had a lot of success as a writer, but I never, never really gave it the time it deserved and that's on me. I've already started planning out a strategy and we will definitely be able to tell if social media works in regard to books.

 

I wrote some really strong articles about Facebook and it's ability to really garner business for small business people, but I recently wrote another report that almost contradicted everything I said negative about it. That's the way these things are. We see a rise in the amount of dumb things people promote because that's what is placed in front of us. It has always taken people going beyond to find information. We just have to take the time and go beyond a lot more now.

 

In regard to the lending crisis, that had zero to do with social media. That had everything to do with greed and lack of knowledge by first generation homeowners. The system used ignorance to capitalize. The system has always done this.

 

Our job as parents/educators is to tell the next generation how to be smarter and better and I have to be honest, we are not doing a very good job of educating the next generation and that's on us. You can't dumb down people when people actually take the time to share information as opposed to not sharing. I can only use a variety of examples to explain what I'm saying based on my experiences. We both know this is not a simple thing. But Black people have to learn how to share and support and that is something we have never been very good at.

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There is a difference between being dumb and being uninformed.  Not having a broad scope of knowledge is what characterizes the Millenials.  Being uninformed is no sin, but having an attitude that anything that doesn't engage you is "useless information" or that anything which happened before you were born is not relevant, is what makes this generation appear dumb to others.   And why they appear even dumber than the preceding generation is because those who came before them had to find out things for themselves in order to do what the present generation relies on electronic devices to do. 

 

Experience is a great teacher but when substituting texting for conversation while avatars become cyber alter egos, what is experienced is shallow.  Shallow people can make good fodder for exploitation.  This contributes to a stratified population made up of  the users and the used.  So you literally have to get in where you fit in and figure out a way to sell yourself.  You win some, you lose some.  It is and always has been a dog eat dog world.  ruff-ruff.  

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Chris please post links to the articles you wrote.  Also, I did not mean to imply the home loan crisis had anything to do with social media.

 

Cynique, if we lost electricity we'd be in deep do-do in a hurry.

 

Chris the teachers are only dumber because everyone is dumber.  It is a vicious circle.  There structure of our system make this so. The best and brightest usually do not peruse the teaching profession.  In many places you have to get an advanced degree, which today is very expensive, only to start out making very little money.

 

In less affluent environments the profession is very stressful and often inefficiently run.  Only amazing people achieve under these conditions and there are very few amazing people. 

 

Our preoccupation with social media, and texting, in particular, is fascinating.  

 

Of course there are bright spots.  With people who have garnered some success, but I'm concerned about us all.  Collectively we are in a heap of shit.  

 

I agree with Chris; we do have to figure out ways to support each other.  While we are not big on doing this today, we do however have a history of doing it--even here, in the United States. Up until end of the Civil Rights era, it was the only way we survived.  I did not witness this, but I've read about it....and not on a social media website.

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Social media, in my opinion, doesn't prove we are stupid.  A lot of social networking sites, however, are putting us on a path to the land of "idiocracy".

The steps we are taking are as follows: 

We want to remain connected to our peers and one way is through our shared beliefs. Yes, even something as simple as belief in an optical illusion of a viral video.  If our peers believe something is true, many of us do our best to see the truth in it too.  For example, look at religion - there's very little in any of the tenets of the three big religions that is "factual" or  even can be proven - but it doesn't stop each of those three big religions from having billions of believers. 

 

Our beliefs are our fellowship.  

 

Same can be said in social media networks.  Look at your "friends" , your "followers"  clearly there's something that connects  all of you. What ever that connection is there is a trade-off and that is the challenge with social media;  we are beginning to "share belief" in the mundane to remain connected.  Eventually without questioning those beliefs we will undoubtedly become mentally weak.  

Today's Social Media, such as facebook, doesn't serve as space to engage in critical thinking nor problem solving - it serves as a place for us to be seen.   What we share there is a reflection of us.   Oops!  :P  I've just proved your argument didn't I?  

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The Bruce Lee video isn't Bruce Lee, I think it was a commercial, "There's a sucker born every minute., and two to take him." I don't know if my mother added that last bit or she heard it somewhere. Troy there are positive things on the net. But just like reality reality they require some effort to find. Check out this independent news site.

https://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml

 

 

There are several sites and Youtube videos where people are freely giving information. Even if this is a teaser. And the big one to me is the people that upload movies and songs for people they never meet. What's their motivation.

 

Troy you sound like you are losing you optimism. Maybe it's time to unplug from the MAtrix and head over to Zion.

 

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A few articles about the digital chunk syndrome: http://techliberation.com/2010/02/03/som-thoughts-on-pbs-digital-nation-documentary/

http://losangeleslink.blogspot.com/2010/02/digital-nation-on-pbs.html

 

This is the discussion I was addressing about education in the social media age. It's a must watch show if you can find it. I'm still writing and doing research on the ineffectiveness of Facebook to prove a point. Which is bit off topic but here it is and it is following suit with what I've known and what Troy has been preaching about social media.

http://www.cbpublish.com/business-why-you-shouldnt-worry-about-your-likes/

 

I'm in the middle of launching my new apparel for my running shoe company so my interaction is sparse here, but I try to check in from time to time. I'm also going to finally begin working on being a writer again so I spend a lot of my time on CBP. I bring this up because I want to explain why I haven't been dropping in. Troy is right that we are getting dumber, but I still have to say that in a lot of ways kids are getting smarter in regard to technology. I guess the teacher in me has to find a light somewhere. But the realist in me has pulled my kids out of school and we homeschool our children now, which speaks volumes about what I really think.

 

It's a difficult thing to admit, but the reality is that we are getting dumber and it is by choice. But our dialogue here is what has to be done to help change thing. If we interact with one person we have done our jobs and that is the only way real change occurs anyway.

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Del, I agree there are GREAT things on youtube and the net in general.  However, this great stuff (especially the Black stuff) is increasingly crowded out by things that are largely irrelevant, but very profitable for corporations.  

 

Porn for example, dominates the internet, but it does so without stomping out other things.  This is because people don't let it happen.  Meanwhile, we (Black folks) still idly by while Black platforms are dropping like flies, along with the important content they produced.

 

No Del, I'm not optimistic, because I know what we have lost and what continue to lose.  However, I continue to fight as I do not think all is lost.

 

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Chris I also teach, and have been for the past two years. I teach a web design class at one of the City's colleges and I also prepare folks to pass the test to obtain their High School Equivalency diploma.  

 

Often I have to tell the younger adults to put their smart phones away.  They find it very hard to disengage from the social net.  I remember a time before cell phone and pagers, and we seemed to get along fairly well without the constant updates.  Even the poorest of the poor has a smart phone, so the impact is quite pervasive.

 

The impact seems, from my anecdotal observations, results in a decrease in the ability to focus for a sustained period of time, which is required for immersive reading. There is also a lack of depth of knowledge.  But this I completely understandable as the way the mainstream media works is provide information in sensational sound bites. A complete picture of an issue is never presented, so people rely on what they think and feel without actually knowing very much. 

 

This is why few will vote today.  They have no clue who to vote for or what that person stands for nor to they have much faith their vote will matter--both are completely understandable (that statement was based upon a survey of students).   If they do drag themselves out they will vote for democrats or the most popular candidate.

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That's exactly what that digital nation video is addressing Troy. You have to watch that. What that video explains is how people are not able to actually write papers anymore. Because I watched that video, I adjusted my teaching methods. This didn't take much for me because I have always taught in chunks because it's easier to build writers in this way. What I also did was allowed technology to be an active feature of the classroom, only after reading aloud and delving into various texts. This created a reward based system. These methods were not fully accepted by older teachers, but the younger teachers attempted to copy, but because they had gone through "teaching credential" programs they were automatons.

 

When I say that the kids are gaining ground in other ways, it has to be pulled out of them. In a 9th grade English course I taught, we read Romeo and Juliet aloud. We then created our own scripts. The best script we took and shot a film that the students had to edit and present to the school using a variety of software. The experience overall was very good and those students also had to write 2 to 3 page papers on Romeo & Juliet using MLA format. I state all of this to say that the students are not dumber, they simply aren't being reached in a way that is both entertaining and educating. The teacher, the overworked, underpaid, teacher has to become an entertainer and technological wonder in the classroom. They also have to stand up and read aloud and kill off the independent reading crap. Students get excited over literature when it has something that connects them. One of my favorite poems to teach is John Donne's "Garden of Love". Why? Because I draw pictures on the board and turn the garden into a triangle shape (pubic hair) and make the path to the garden the split between a woman's legs and then draw curves for the outside of the park as we are reading and discussing the poem (this is at the college level). I then draw a gate at the point of the triangle and barbs and when I'm done drawing there is always a gasp because everyone can see what it is and then they can make a connection to sex in the poetry. Everyone puts their phones down on this and this allows me to move into Shakespeare's sonnets and we have great conversations. Once again though, I didn't go to a teaching credential program. I actually studied writing so I have a passion for it. Which leads me back to teachers who don't love their subject matter and who aren't creative educators. How can you expect to keep the attention of students when you simply don't know enough about the material?

 

We want better readers but we won't put linguists in the schools and we don't require English teachers to take creative writing courses. You have teachers teaching Old English or Victorian Lit and they know what an iamb is BARELY!!!! and they know nothing about dactyls, trochees, and spondees. They can barely tell you what the repetition of vowel sounds is called. So how can we blame a distracted student when the teacher, even old ones, don't really know what they are teaching?

 

Social media is just another distraction, but the blame of dumber people lies solely in the people who are educating. (Now I feel bad about selling shoes and quitting teaching, lol)

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"...the net is giving people what they want."

 

Del I disagree with that statement.  I would have agreed with your before I became more cognizant of how and why material is produced on the web.  Here is a more accurate statement:

 

"The net is giving people what is most profitable"

 

Now I know you are saying, "What's the difference?" The thing that is most profitable IS what people want."

 

In reaction I would say not necessarily.  You see, what people get is what they want AND what is least costly to produce.  This is why we get more reality TV than well written scripted programming.  This is why you get news in sound bytes rather the result of true journalism.

 

This coupled with the fact that so many of us have never been exposed to anything better, so we take what we get.  You, and everyone else, can name more celebrities than politicians because the names of celebrities are constantly shoved down out throats.  

 
Also, there may indeed be more bars than bookstores, but if you actually considered all of the paces than books are consumed and included libraries you may still find that many communities have the capacity to serve more readers than drinkers.  
 
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Chris I'll check out the video now and get back to you.  I would never every try that drawing of the naked woman with my young adult students who never finished high school, but I could see where that would work well with a different group.  You sound like a creative teacher.

 

Besides in high school, there is a much greater attention on nonfiction literature, and less focus on poetry, because of the adoption of Common Core Standards in New York State, but that is another conversation....
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Here is the video you were referencing.  I try to catch all of frontline documentaries and I probably saw this one.  Since this is 90 minutes on I will watch it this evening on a regular TV.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9uIiWCS3N4

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The poetry thing was with a college course, lol. I did a slightly different approach with high school students though. Interestingly enough, poetry actually provides the perfect access into literature and strengthens the common core better than anything that literature could do. The only book that really does use this method is Cane by Toomer. The book utilizes every aspect of literature in it's disjointed narrative. Like you said that's a different conversation. I can't wait to hear what you think about the Digital nation video. 

 

As far as the net giving us what we want, which is in turn what is profitable, I think that's a chicken or the egg conversation. If you give the people good stuff they don't have a choice but to watch it. ,The problem is they don't give us the good stuff. Well they do, but we don't watch it.

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Man Jean Toomer's Cane was the first book our online discussion forum read back in July of 1998.  It is one of my favorite books.  I'd never read anything like it before. Indeed, I never knew anyone could write a book in that fashion.  In 1998 I was 36 years old, with two masters degrees and never heard of  Jean toomer or anything like Cane. I was blown away.  

 

Again I assert the net, today, gives you what is profitable, not what one wants or what one needs.  

 

It is much more profitable for a Black website to talk about Jay_Z and Beyonnce at a Nets game than it is to discuss the masterwork Cane.

 

How in the world could I know, for example, I wanted to read Cane if no one ever speaks about about it?  I was introduced to Cane through this website and I in turn introduced countless others.  

 

Chris it really is not a chicken or an egg conversation.  The net crowds out conversations about Cane, and shove the Jay-Z garbage down our thoughts.  It is much easier and profitable to post of video of Jay being attacked in an elevator than it is to carry on a conversation about Cane.  There are many people who'd rather discuss Cane than Jay-Z.  But they'll never have the opportunity because of many of the reason I discussed.

 

Also John Keene wrote a similarly styled novel called Annotations that is worth checking out if you liked Cane.

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I also wrote a book similar to Cane. It took me about 11 years to finish. Like all of my other books I've done a poor job of putting it out there. I think we all aspire to create texts that cross a variety of literary styles. 

 

You are right though... the net pushes what is profitable and that's okay. We are doing what we can and if people actually took the time to visit more than 1 "popular" website a day and interact, then everything would improve. The problem is actually getting people to do this. If we can figure that out, things change beyond just this site and our individual circles.

 

Here is an assignment I created for my AA Lit course at Southwest TN. College a few years back. Maybe those lurking will use it as a prompt or as a means of discovering Cane. My novel Archie's Psalm and more directly "It Often Deprives Me of My Sleep" were heavily influenced by Cane

 

http://www.cbpublish.com/jean-toomers-cane-assignment/

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I actually posted about the Fake likes a while back. It is what led me to write about the likes on Facebook in greater detail. I thought I shared it with you on a different post somewhere. It is a great video, but we both already knew it and we both verbalized this a while back. The video does show much more effective it is to place the exact same sentiments into video form.

 

You know I hadn't even checked out my author's page on AALBC. You can drop 100 Black and White questions. It's no longer in print, although there are copies on Amazon. You can also add the picture for A Man's and add One Hour To Wealth. When you can. Here is my  updated page on CBP: http://www.cbpublish.com/authors-writers/author-christopher-d-burns-mfa/

 

I also need to coordinate a campaign with you for one of my books. I don't know which one yet. I need to get serious about writing. At least half as serious as I am about sneakers.

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