I dream of memes with sources cited...

You know what I'm not looking forward to? The 2016 election. Politics used to be my thing. Back in 2004, I got to cover the election beat for my university's newspaper and it was fascinating. I was able to interview the candidates, attend rallies, and really go in depth on the issues in a way that I hadn't before. It was a lot of fun.

Then social media came. Don't get me wrong; I love me some Facebook. I could post pictures of my baby on there all day long. I get to stay in touch with my family that lives far away and I get to torment my in-laws when my sports teams beat theirs. It's pretty great. Until someone throws a pass when they should have run the ball and the apocalypse happens.

What I don't love is the propaganda. And half-truths. And sometimes downright lies. I don't like the memes that don't cite their sources so I have to go do googling to find out if it's accurate or not. This stuff is bad enough on a regular year, but during an election year? OUT OF CONTROL.

I get it. Emotions run high on this stuff. It doesn't help that our media likes to pander to the extremes so we get a "one side or the other" view on information. Moderate, well-researched information doesn't really cut it in the entertainment-over-news society we live in right now. As a result, we tend to get pretty fired up about topics that may not be so black and white as we were led to believe. It's a bad news bears situation and it makes bad politics. Because then stuff doesn't get done, and I hear that getting stuff done is part of our politician's jobs. (I think.)

So here's my request: research before you post/share. Take the few minutes to google it. And don't just go to that one news source you trust because sometimes they don't have all of the information. Many of my friends post really interesting well-researched articles I wouldn't normally come across otherwise. Social media can be great for that, if it's used correctly.

And if that happens, I'll be able to focus on the important things, like mourning that stupid pass. Seriously, WHY WOULD HE THROW THE BALL?

I'll get over this someday...