Make copies, win races, stay with me, go places

Most people I know -- okay, everyone I know -- around my own age are computer-literate people. My generation, for the most part, has had access to computers since the day we were born, grew up with the Internet, and were weaned on its various privileges and dangers. We're savvy techno-users, to boot. We all used AOL, later mocked anyone with AOL once we discovered Internet Explorer, and then ditched IE for Firefox or Chrome. We all had MySpace pages, and then promptly deleted them, moved on to Facebook, and mocked anyone still on MySpace (musicians excepted). We're the people Baby Boomers talk about when they complain about the entitled, digitized generation, annoyingly and obliviously tapping on our smart phones. In fact, computer literacy is so pervasive among my peers that kids five- to ten years younger than us have already invented a new, crack-cocaine variety of technical proficiency in order to show us up. (How do teens manage to simultaneously check-in at and tweet about every single place they go, while sending 50 texts to seven different people, without falling into manholes?)

Because of our expertise and in-depth knowledge of the webz, pretty much everyone I know is aware of the fact that behavior on the Internet is governed by social rules. This seems obvious to us, despite the fact that back in the '90s, there was ongoing fear that the Internet would amount to nothing but a frightening, anarchic, hedonistic den of pedophilia and slash fiction, due to the fact that the World Wide Web doesn't require you to disclose your true identity. While it could be argued that some of those fears were/are justified, generally speaking, my generation has used the Internet as an extension of our grounded, real-world identities, rather than for Mr. Hyde alter egos. We recognize that practically everything we do "anonymously" online can, eventually, get traced back to our human bodies, and that's put the fear of God in the majority of us.

So anyway, the online world is implicitly governed by various social guidelines, similar to those you find in real life. And, like in the real world, most of them help you avoid soul-crushing social embarrassment and/or ostracization: Don't post anything you don't want others to read. Don't break up with someone with a text message. Don't openly brag on Twitter about spending the day rollerskating after you've called in sick to work. Think twice before posting that maudlin emo photo. In a plugged-in world, all of the above actions have a high probability of making you look like a doofus, and this is common knowledge.

For this reason, I find myself shocked and dismayed on the occasions when people my own age -- sometimes multiple people -- flagrantly break a rule that I believe to be one of the simple and finite Rules for Not Sucking on the Internet. We who have been Interneting most of our lives simply have no excuse for being ignorant of the Rules -- no more than we could honestly claim ignorance of how to negotiate a crosswalk. Peers on the Web: I expect better of you.

I'm only going to say this once.

Stop posting photos of your awful, gory injuries on Facebook.

Shame on you for needing me to tell you that. There are so many good reasons why I should never be obliged to view a slashed-up thigh or recently-operated-on kidney. Would you (compassionate, sane person that you are) ever consider printing out physical copies of your bloody, gangrenous wounds and forcing your friends to look at them? Of course not. Yet you, an expert Internet User, nevertheless persist in casually posting your retina-searing flagellation photos on Facebook, knowing damn well that they're going to show up on my news feed. Cut it out.

Are we understood? Okay then. Good day.

I said good day!