Comedy Centered

Hello. Happy Sunday, everyone. It is Tiffany Norton, and it is comedy centered. Hello. I was not here last week. Well, I was here. I spent the day in the house, not talking. I was losing my voice because the day before, it was a friend of mine's birthday party, and we went out, a big group of us, out under the St. Croix, and we were on a pontoon boat, and there was a lot of confusion. We discovered during the trip that the person who was our captain had only ever negotiated a boat. Hey, Jules. Jules, I'm just telling.

Okay, you just joined, so I'll start. So, the reason why I wasn't here last week was because I lost my voice. And the reason why I lost my voice was the day before I went to a birthday party, and we were on the river in a pontoon, and it was super windy, and we had, like. We had, like, hey, we had, like, wakes, and, like, it was white caps, right? And the gal who had arranged this, she had driven boats before on a lake and not on the river, and it was packed, and it was a very chaotic scene, and we got stuck, uh, several times.

And then I had to take over as the captain of the ship, which, uh, I mean, I'm here. Uh, there was a lot of yelling, though, and I ended up losing my voice. But we're all fine. We're here. Um, hey, welcome in. If you're joining, um, comedy centered, you know, this is kind of a little pow wow we do every Sunday. We talk about, uh, sobriety, we talk about neurodivergence, talk about a lot of stuff. My. The thing I kind of want to talk about tonight, though, is, and I don't know if anybody saw it on Cadre, I put a.

I put a post up. But does anybody else feel like they've just been in a month long fight online? I don't know how active everybody out there is in social media. I took a break of, like, almost a year, and I'm thinking I might have to do it again. The problem is, because I'm a performer, and I'm a stand up comedian, media, and I, like, they care. Bookers care. People care. If you have social media presence and whatever. But it just feels like. I mean, I just want to see cat videos, guys. Like, it feels like everybody is abandoning.

You know, Facebook used to be kind of like a. I don't know, more folksye. And it just seems like such a political battleground now, which is not. I always, you know, because it kind of depends on what social media platform you're on. I think of Twitter. When I think of or whatever it is now, I don't like that guy, XZ, whatever. That was always a real political one. There was a lot kind of energy on that, but Facebook was never really like that. And it's just. I don't know. I mean, and it feels like no one wants to listen to anyone.

And we are so stressed that everybody's just hair trigger. Hair trigger response on things. And then because people are sharing something and is such a controversial topic, people will weigh in or reshare without actually investigating whether the information is true. So I've run into this situation a lot lately, and specifically in the last month, it's been very, very chaotic, at least for me, because I've always been vocal about my support for the LGBTQ trans community. I am the proud mother of a transgender child.

Love my son. And I feel, as a mother, it is my job to educate people that maybe do not understand what that can be like. Right. And so I'm trying to not, like, argue with fools, but I'm finding myself doing it, and it's like beating my own head against the wall. So then I. So then I just sit back like I'm nothing. I haven't been on today, and I think I might just have to take a break for, like, a week or something like that and just. Or maybe just post and then, like, get right back off of it, because unfortunately, I have to feed the algorithm if I want people to see my page and come to my shows, blah, blah, blah.

But if I could disengage from it, I would. I really would, because it just feels like everybody now is there to Venta, and you come to a space like Cadre, and it's all positivity. It's all light and love, which I dig, which is why I, you know, I spend time in the community, I hope everybody else does, sharing the posts and checking out all the different creators. But the problem is, Facebook is where I've got a lot of my. The connections, you know, a lot of people that I know in real life, and. Yeah, but then you like.

And then, like, in another example, like LinkedIn, you go to LinkedIn. It's not like that. It's not. It's not all. It's not all aggressive. In fact, my beef with LinkedIn is that it's, like, hash. Too much positivity. Like. And I'm wondering, and this is where I'm going with it, but I'm wondering if people are reserving their hate for specific social media sites. Right. Because I noticed, and I'm, of course, not going to say who, but I noticed that a person that I'm friends with in real life. This is an old co worker from many years ago, a couple decades ago on LinkedIn.

Everything is. My business is growing. My sales team is the best. We just won an award. Ra ra ra, ra, ra, ra ra ra ra. I love my team. Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. And on the Facebook, very different vibe, very different message. And I don't want to say anything controversial or, you know, whatever. I'm not trying to pick political sides or anything like that, but it was a very stark thing that made me think about it. Like, maybe the reason why we are all so stressed is that we're being forced to wear masks all the time.

Pretend, like in LinkedIn or, like, at work, everything's great. Oh, I'm great. I don't know if anybody remembers the old movie. Um. What was it? Uh, don't tell mom. The babysitter's dead. It's a very old movie, um, with Christina Applegate. But she lies and accidentally gets a job, and she's really. She has no idea what she's doing, but she just says all the time, I'm right on top of that. Right on top of that rose. I'm right on top of that rose. And she just always says that. And then she finds other people to actually do the work for her, but.

And then I think people are maybe going to the LinkedIn, or they're coming off LinkedIn, and then they're. Then they're venting on Facebook. So I don't know. That's what kind of made me think about it. I'm not trying to pass this off as this is science or anything. It was just something that I noticed, and it was something that I was thinking about because there's so much pressure socially anyway, right. Just in a group, you know? But with this added, we have to look happy, we have to seem like everything's fine all the time.

And I know that everybody's familiar with this. Like, you know, of course, the Instagram family isn't the perfect family. You know, we know that. Right. You know, it doesn't. Just because something looks good doesn't necessarily mean it feels good, right? But, um, it's just. It's. It feels so divisive right now. But I guess my question is, why are we so ready to fight? Because I am. A little bit. I try to. When I see something moronic, I just. Whatever. A lot of times, I just try to scroll past it.

But, you know, when someone's sharing something that's blatantly a lie and it's misinformation and disinformation, I don't know, maybe I'm. Maybe I'm being too much of a social justice warrior or whatever, but I will power down and say, that is not, that is not true. I'll take a screenshot. I'll show them that it's not true. And you know what happens? Nothing. They unfriend me. I unfriend them, whatever. And then there goes that person, right? Like, we can't even disagree anymore. So. And I've seen this other post being shared quite a bit where they're saying, like, we can all just get along.

Can't we all just, like, have a beer and get along? Well, I understand that argument, right? Like, we shouldn't let politics be so much of, you know, it shouldn't represent that much. Right. Of our time and energy in that. But these are very personal issues, no matter what side you're on. And there's a lot of people making a lot of money on keeping us all scared. Where there is peace, wherever there is peace, people lose money. Right? And we don't have to give these social media companies anything.

In fact, the only reason why I didn't hang all of it up along time ago was because I don't like giving content to someone. I'm never gonna get paid from Facebook. I give them content, they get to go around, turn and sell shares. Where's my cut? I'm funny. Y'all should follow me on Facebook. Don't share any inaccurate articles, though. I might pop up in your feed. And I've had to apologize a couple times. I've been wrong a couple times online. Someone said, no. What about this? I've gone and researched it, and I've realized I was wrong, but I've always.

I don't know. I learned a long time ago it's especially. I did sales for so long. If you screw up, if you, you know, if you. If you screw up, just lay on the sword. Just. Just, you know, just. Just get it over with. Just admit you were wrong. Oh, would you say? Yeah. Agreeing to disagree, it should. It should be the ner. The norm. Um, yeah. Everybody has their own opinion. I know. You don't always have to agree with them. You really don't. You don't. I don't have to agree with them. The. My other friend who I like to go boating with, I was just out with her on Friday.

She's a huge Trump supporter. I'm not. Right. We still get along. We've known each other since 7th grade. But it's funny, but she's. But she's also different. She particularly likes. But she votes for democratic candidates, too. For whatever reason, she just likes him. I don't know. Am I ever gonna change her mind? No, never. And she could, you know what? Cause the odds of her changing my mind or, like, me changing her mind are as good as her changing mine. She's not gonna convince me to vote the way she does, and I'm not gonna convince her, you know?

So. Yeah, like, we just kind of stay away from that particular subject. But we both. But. But when we have talked about it, she's held space for me and for my differing opinions, and she's listened to me, you know, she's listened. Um, and that's what social media doesn't allow for. There is no listening anymore. There's snap. Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. Snapdein. And there's a term in psychology called confirmation bias. And confirmation bias is the bias we have for filtering information that supports a theory we have.

And it's you. You can. You can see an example of this, like, if you've ever been in a situation where you're getting ready to buy a new car, right? All of a sudden it feels like everywhere you see, like, let's say you're gonna buy a Honda, a new Honda, as soon as you go on test drive one, as soon as you start thinking about it, all of a sudden you'll see them everywhere where you didn't notice them before. Well, are there more Hondas? No, they're just. You're paying attention to them now. And we have to remember our.

Our eyes, brains, our body we intake in any given second, like, a hundred thousand pieces of information at once. Like, what is the chair I'm sitting in? Feel like, what am I seeing in the screen? What are my fingers doing? I see. You can't see it right now, but there's a tree outside my window. How many leaves are on that? I'm seeing all the leaves. I'm seeing the other trees with all the leaves. Right. So we have to generalize sometimes, or we would never get anything done, and we wouldn't be able to make patterns.

Patterns. So that we can make informed decisions. Right. So I don't really have any answers other than what I'm gonna start trying to do, especially when it's someone I know in real life, like someone that I actually kind of care about, you know, what I mean, um, I'm gonna just send them a direct message instead of putting it on their post. And I'm gonna say, can I call you? Because I want to ask you about this. I want to. I want to try to use this as an opportunity to have an actual dialogue, because we're really not.

Whoever wins in November, if everybody just stays in their separate camps, nothing's gonna get better either. So people in the recovery world, people who are lightworkers, people who, you know, believe in this crazy experiment we call America, I think we have to try to be better custodians to, you know, the popularism of either extreme side is it's. It's frustration. You know, on one end, you've got people that feel they're being discriminated against, and on the other end, you have people that feel they're being discriminated against right or left.

The. That's. So how do we do a better job of helping people not feel discriminated against? How do we help people in, in lower socioeconomic situations move up? You know, all this stuff factors and the frustrations real. But I have to check myself. Myself and try not to get sucked into those rabbit holes. And just remember, we're all humans, we're all monkeys. We're all out here winking it. We're all out here winging it. No one really knows. We all got a lot of theories about what happens and why we're here and what it all means, but, I mean, no one's proved anything to me definitively yet, so.

But what is real is sharing space with a loved one, a laugh with someone you love. That's real, right? A hug. That's real. That's love. Now, that's not, you know, some other time, right? So I'm trying to think of, you know, and my parents are big. I'm the only, I'm pretty much the only, other than my, my son, we're the only liberals. Everybody else gangs up on us at Thanksgiving. Um, which is fine. Um, but I'm trying to have compassion for it, and I'm trying to foster dialogue because this is comedy centered, and I am trying to bring it.

Let's center ourselves first, too, you know, and also to don't go on Facebook if you're hungry. Right? We talked about that a couple weeks ago. Your, uh, your levels of tolerance and acceptance of differing viewpoints and other people's situations and empathy. Excuse me. It drops severely if you're hungry. So don't, don't, don't argue with your don't argue with your crazy uncle on Facebook when you're hungry, right? Have a snack. And then, you know, and then just give them a call and be like, are you sure you really wanted to post that meme?

That might not look good anyway. Well, that's kind of my vent for today. I hope. Hey, Jules. I think it was just us in the party tonight, but it's always a pleasure for you to tune in, and I hope you're doing good. How was dry July? I didn't get to come in for the last meeting, but like I said. But I got my voice back, which is good. But, yeah, I'm digging the Cadre energy a lot better than the social media and the Facebook one right now. So. Anyway, all right, you have a wonderful night. Hey, thanks for tuning in to comedy centered, and I'm gonna try to think of something fun for next week.

All right, have a good one.