Just the other day, a friend and I were talking about whether or not social media has been a good thing. We both agreed that despite its name, it has made us less mannerly in our social interactions.

I was thinking about that as I watched Gilmore Girls marathon this weekend and as I casually flipped through social media posts about the show. Here is the thing, if there is anything that you love, don't go look it up on social media.

Why? People write the most absurd things and get into huge fights over the most insignificant things about everything. Gilmore Girls for instance. There were entire diatribes about the main characters on the show on social media sites from FaceBook to TikTok and beyond.

As a person who earned a degree in English, I know a little something about taking a good hard look at a piece of fiction. But what these Internet people do to works of art is so over the top that it is inane.

When I watched the show as it was running on television, I loved it.

That is not to say that sometimes the characters didn't do things that made me think a little. Good television should do that. But over all, it was a light story about a mother and her daughter in a quirky little New England town.

To read some of the posts I saw this weekend would make one believe that my beloved characters of the mother and daughter in the show are evil contriving temptresses set on having their will and way with everyone and everything. So much so that I wondered if we had all watched the same show.

Unfortunately, now that I have read all of that, I can't see those characters the way I once did and that lessens my enjoyment of the show.

Sadly, this is not the only thing I have seen ripped to shreds this way.

I have watched over the past few years while everyone from Jane Austen to JK Rowling got the same treatment. There is a difference between analysing something to get the most meaning out of it and in ripping something apart to be as mean as possible about it.

So a word to the wise, if you love something, just love it. Spread that love of it, but be careful where you go looking for other people's opinions of it.

 - TNS