My 3 Biggest Personal 2016 Rants

I rarely rant on this blog these days. I try to keep things positive, mostly because I don’t like to rant. It’s counterproductive and I’d rather be productive.

With that said, there are some things that got on my last gay nerve this year.

First, what’s up with THAT author who becomes your best friend on Facebook, never stops commenting on your status updates, treats you like you’re a member of his/her family, and then vanishes into thin air one day, only to be found doing the same exact thing to someone else? It’s happened to me several times over the last 15 years and I never understand it. Who does that? Who just befriends a total stranger, treats them like a best friend for months at a time, and then vanishes as suddenly as he/she turned up? It’s always so hard to realize that you’ve been duped by someone you think of as a friend.

Second, don’t let anyone take over your social media accounts. If you’re an author…or anyone with a public profile…don’t let an assistant or an intern or ANYONE represent you on social media. It never works out. I’ve seen that before, too. I’ve seen it several times in 2016. When I do see it happen, I always wonder what that person with the public profile is thinking. Do they really think that anyone can represent them as well as they could represent themselves? And, do they really think we don’t know?

Posting a status update or a tweet is the easiest thing in the world a person with a public profile can do. All it takes is a phone, a password, and a finger. The biggest celebrities all do it themselves and they don’t rely on managers or assistants to do it. I wouldn’t even let Tony post on social media for me. That’s my identity. So don’t let anyone else represent you on social media because you might wind up being misrepresented and no one’s going to tell you. They’re going to look at the Facebook statuses someone else posted for you, and they’re going to roll their eyes.

Third, 2016 wasn’t the best year for me, but not because of politics, and not because of celebrities I never met dying. I lost my father in May, I lost one of my dearest lifelong friends (Mary) in March to ovarian cancer, I lost two old friends this summer, and just recently I lost one of my closest friends to cancer. It was so sudden I still find it hard to believe. He was diagnosed 3 weeks ago, and he was gone the Sunday before Christmas.  I don’t post these things on social media when they happen because I prefer to keep them private. The only reason I’m mentioning them now is to make a point.

We also lost Eric Arvin on social media. Eric was an author who battled a rough illness with courage and dignity. I never got to know him personally, but on social media I knew him well and I found him to be an inspiration…for years. He was a real life hero.

I realize that a lot of the 2016 complaints are laced with sarcasm, and I get that and I know how to laugh along with it. There’s nothing wrong with sarcasm and I’ve done it myself. But when I see people posting seriously about the fact that 2016 sucked for them because their political candidate didn’t win, or some silly celebrity they never even knew died, I can’t help but make a face and wonder WTF is wrong with that. I can only assume these people are too young to have experienced much real sorrow in life, or they have no feelings for people who have suffered valid real life losses. The former I can forgive, the latter, no way. There are a lot of people who have experienced real life hardship and real life sorrow in 2016.

Grindr’s New Publishing House

According to this article, the hook up app, Grindr, just launched a new publishing house, and just released a new coffee table book.

Home features a series of portraits of gay men who Lambert connected with through the app, as well as other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. In true Grindr form, the models are all young, thin, and naked, with a tendency toward Anglo.

You can check this out here. The book cover itself is actually done in very good taste. I’m not sure about the rest, though. But it is interesting that even Grindr has a publishing venture now, too.

Why I Might Be Starting To Love James Franco Again

I’ve always been on the fence about James Franco. I love his fiction, but his other projects make me wonder. As far as we know, he’s straight, and yet he’s always working on something gay related. I don’t totally get that. However, he is consistent, and I like that. He continues to create gay films when no one else in Hollywood is doing that.

Two years after its much-publicized Sundance premiere, Justin Kelly’s I Am Michael is finally hitting theaters on January 27th. Hark?

James Franco plays Michael Glatze, the gay activist who wound up becoming the face of the ex-gay movement after “finding God” and deciding to do an abrupt about-face and marry a woman.

There’s more here, and there’s a trailer of I Am Michael. The comments are not kind, and they do make a few valid points. However, the topic itself is interesting and I probably will see this when it’s released.