By Richard Medugno

Once again, relatives of mine have messed up on Facebook. I don’t know why they keep forgetting that social networking sites are public places. Especially when I keep reminding them with sage advice like this:

“Don’t say or do anything that online that you wouldn’t do if you were on stage in front of an audience made up of your mother, both your grandmothers, a clergy  person, your high school English teacher, and the interviewer that stands between you and your dream job.

I don’t think this concept is that difficult to grasp, do you? Maybe my expectations are set too high. So let me tell you about what the two Knuckleheads in my family did recently:

KNUCKLEHEAD #1’s STORY –

This guy likes to pretend he is a gangsta and post jibberish on his Facebook status. I’m not sure if these postings are code to his gangsta buddies, but I’m pretty sure that most of the 1000+ people who are connected to him don’t have a clue as to what he’s trying to say.

[Note that I didn’t call these connections “friends” because it’s impossible for anyone, especially a Knucklehead, to have that many “real” friends.]

Smoking weed photo

So Knucklehead #1 posted a photo of himself smoking weed. While this may have impressed his gangsta buddies, it didn’t impress his mother. She found out about the photo from one of Knucklehead #1’s relatives (not me!), who informed.

Knucklehead #1 was under the assumption that the picture would not be seen by his mom, because though he was connected to her, he had blocked her from seeing his posts with Facebook’s privacy options. Poor Knucklehead #1 must still have been stoned when he made a bad assumption to go with his bad decision.

Needless to say, Knucklehead #1 got an earful from his irate mother and suffered some kind of financial penalty.…So Knucklehead #1 responded by updating his status with a gripe about being reamed by his mother. And guess what, she found out about that, too, and gave it to him again. Oh, poor Knucklehead #1, when will you ever learn and listen to your wise elders?

KNUCKLEHEAD #2’s STORY –

This guy started Mother’s Day off right by posting good wishes to all the moms that were members of the family’s Facebook page that a cousin had set up a couple of months before.

In case you weren’t aware, Facebook allows you to create group pages where you can limit communications to just those who are members of the group.

Dropped the mother of all F-bombs

So Knucklehead#2 received some comments about his nice post. When someone in the family asked if the good wishes applied to step-mothers as well, he replied with a curt, “No.” Of course, this led to some objections from others. This provoked Knucklehead #2 to drop the mother of all F-bombs on the group. Apparently, Knucklehead #2 has issues with his step-mother and was trying to be funny.  However, the extended family doesn’t need to be exposed to it or his indelicate language, especially the younger teens who might consider Knucklehead #2 some kind of role model.

When I weighed in with the statement that he basically ruined a good post with a foul one, his response was the expected non-apology apology: “Sorry you don’t have a sense of humor.” Of course, anyone who isn’t immature knows that 99% of time you can be amusing without being profane.

Okay, class, repeat after me: “The Internet is a public place and anything I do or say online can and probably will come back to bite me in the butt, so I will think twice before posting anything that isn’t nice.”