MidDay Rambler 6/22/12-2/3/16

There was a point in all of our lives when we didn’t have any social media. Mine was later than many, and I only reluctantly signed on with FaceBook in order to support my blog—The Electric Kool Aid Real Estate Test. My intent was to take over the internet with a home-made WordPress site on which I posted indulgent creative writing odysseys loosely-based in/around my career as a real estate agent. When the blog was largely ignored, I just started re-posting cat videos just like everyone else.

I didn’t have to fight off unwanted friend requests from high school classmates, however, because I had registered at FaceBook as someone named Mid-Day Rambler— the infinitely glib pen name of my blog. I endeavored to have social media and autonomy too!

But eventually, Meta came looking for me. They said that if I couldn’t show them a birth certificate proving my legal name was Mid-Day Rambler that they were going to kill my page. And as much as I wanted to find out what that even meant, I also feared there was useful content attached to the page which I didn’t want to lose forever. There was four years of musing posted there by now and I didn’t want to have to comb back through it and cut/paste everything I was too anal and sentimental to lose forever.

In the end, I conceded— agreeing to kill The Mid-Day Rambler and play by Meta’s crooked rules. But first I had to write an obituary.

MidDay Rambler, the mysterious and enigmatic internet complainer and real estate blogger, has died after a brief yet courageous battle with FaceBook. He was 1,369 days old.

Mr. Rambler’s death was confirmed by his Administrator Jeff Braimes (Decatur High School class of 1982) in a statement hailing Rambler as ‘a pants-down Ranter of the highest order. A real malcontent.’

Rambler burst onto social media on June 22, 2012 with a FaceBook post reading “New here. How do I work this?” which was quickly liked by seven people. From there it was directly to the roof of the WWW. Weekly posts were often read by up to dozens, illuminating such topics as Aldo Nova, gnats in the bourbon and Major League Baseball. Rambler was known as a prolific Liker and poignant commenter, often chiming in with an earnest we know about this or LoL.

MidDay Rambler leaves behind 486 friends and a selective index of liked pages, including Michael’s Rare Books of Bellingham, Yardsale Bloodbath and Put Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He logs out for the last time with 178 pending tag requests and 6 pending friend requests.

When alive, MidDay Rambler always maintained he was only on social media to support his business and creative ventures, and not to “understand what was going on in the world” or “stalk his children.” But in the end, the digital record will show he was every bit as fucked up as the rest of us LoL.

Rambler’s inconsiderable internet legacy will be carried on posthumously through his blogs. The widely unread Electric Kool Aid Real Estate Test will be maintained by the Administrator, Braimes. And sicblog.com, the digital companion to 2014’s best-selling 3-dimensional paper book [sic] was programmed by Rambler during his life to discharge pre-scheduled content into the moist, eternal blackness of the internet for years to come whether or not anyone likes it on FaceBook. In many respects, it will be as if MidDay Rambler had never died, let alone lived. 

Reactions to the surprise demise of MidDay Rambler are pouring in from the four corners of the internet. “Oh yeah that dude,” commented Scott Weller from Salem, Massachusetts. “He had me at sodomy,” recalled Bellingham’s Aaron Jacob Smith. “LoL,” said Julie Isenhart from Bellevue. “LoL...”

 In an email, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders referred to Rambler as “a great American like you.” Comedian Louis CK called Rambler “a fathead” (which is actually a compliment in CK). Wilson Motors recommended a full 9-point service inspection and tire rotation. And calls to the ‘newsrooms’ of The Bellingham Herald and the Cascade Radio Group were not answered or returned.