The author, Brooke Crump, is a lawyer and mom in Mt. Gilead. She calls this column “an unvarnished look at what marriage, parenting, work and friendship really look like.”

I’m no historian, but I think 2020 will be one for the history books (that is, if schools were adequately funded and still had updated history books). A global pandemic. Protests. Impeachment. Record-breaking interest rates (even I just got approved for a new credit card). And then there’s this thing that I probably shouldn’t care about, but I really, really do: Rachel Hollis’ divorce announcement.

During all this history in the making, we’ve been stuck at home internetting. Some folks – like Rachel Hollis – are really good at the internet. I, on the other hand, am not. For example, I paid for a website but can’t get the company to deliver it (yeah, SpotOn, I’m talking to you). I don’t have a website for my blog and my instagram content is weak. I never take my kids to see a professional photographer and I don’t bother with filters. I deleted my twitter account once people attributed the salty things I said to me … even though I wrote it under a pseudonym (the nerve of them holding me accountable for my own words).

Through it all, Facebook has been my boo. Truthfully, it’s my main source for news updates. Problem is, it seems like everyone on Facebook thinks they have it all figured out. People will share an article and could never, even for a single second, fathom that they could be wrong. Now I know I’ve been called a know-it-all a time or two (shoutout to my mom) but you’ll never hear me claim to be an expert or your spiritual guide in any of these areas: housekeeping, interior decorating, nutrition, exercise, sports, art, theater, music, science or the stock market. But I do love to read articles and learn from the experts on some of these things. In fact, I’d be embarrassed to know how many hours I’ve spent on Pinterest during quarantine. (I’m afraid it would rival that guy I briefly dated in college, who spent 91 days out of 365 on World of Warcraft in a year). 

I believe in an educated society. I think the more people read and learn, the more they grow – even if it’s a Facebook article. But the tricky thing is, Facebook creates our feed using data about us and shared by us that it knows that will get us hooked. Your news feed looks completely different from mine, because we don’t like the same things, we aren’t interested in the same people and we don’t have the same beliefs. And that’s okay. The real problem begins when fake news appears on a timeline and a person shares it to the point where it eventually goes viral. Then we end up with folks forming opinions based upon false information. 

Fake news. It’s a thing and it’s real. But not in the way that a lot of people think. When I taught middle school, I watched something with my kids called CNN Student News – a 10-minute segment geared toward kids. I actually learned a lot from it, and it was also the favorite part of my day – a glorious breather with the lights out and quiet teenagers. I particularly remember this segment about Fake News. Bottom line, there are actually people who create fake news articles for profit. This was particularly relevant as a teacher because we teach students to be mindful of their resources in research. As always, .gov and .edu are considered legitimate sources for information, as are known news stations. (The Charlotte Observer would be a verified source.) 

I feel comfortable in sharing my opinion on fake news because I’ve spent years of my life studying politics, communications, education and the law. I actually have degrees or certifications in all of these things. If I don’t know something for sure, I either refrain from commenting or I preface it by saying that I’m not certain. It’s hard to admit we don’t know something (my husband has a very difficult time doing it) and it’s never fun to admit that we’re wrong. That’s why my timeline became filled with so many people who are so sure that they know so much. People have made millions from knowing it all, becoming life coaches and business coaches and encouraging us to trust and rely on them.

Which brings us back to Rachel Hollis. She’s one of those life coaches/authors who, despite not having certifications for her claimed expertise, has made millions by coaching others in self-improvement. The main tenets of her system appear to be exercising, eating clean, drinking water, waking up early, practicing gratitude and having a strong marriage. These are all things that I’m interested in so of course I was pumped to get some coaching on that. Rachel’s thin and ran a business with her husband who she claimed was her very best friend, very favorite person, and I thought she at least had the grit to do what it takes.

Aside from the fact that we all know these things are good for us but some of us aren’t wired with the self-discipline she appears to possess, her marriage did seem pretty strong. They had a marriage podcast, a daily morning show where they gave folks marriage advice. They worked out together. They had date nights. In her daily gratitude practice, she mentioned that she was grateful to have a makeup session with her husband during quarantine (which I was yesterday old when I realized was code for something else). People paid thousands of dollars to go to her relationship seminars. By all appearances they seemed to have it going on and I can see where a lot of people struggling in their marriages would gravitate toward that. Y’all know that I am not afraid to admit that my marriage is less than perfect, so even I was picking up what she was putting down from time to time, when I wasn’t too lazy to care.

Why am I talking so much about this chick some of y’all never even heard of? Because this self-made relationship expert millionaire who claims to be an open book announced her divorce and asked for privacy only weeks after posting that they had the crem-de-la-creme of marriages. Her husband simultaneously announced that they had tried to make it work for years but the marriage had run its course. All the while they were making millions off of telling folks to pull their marriages up from their bootstraps. For years, y’all. I really don’t find joy in another person’s pain, but as a litigator I’m not one to accept someone profiting from fraud.

So here’s the deal. There are lots of things going on right now – the pandemic, protests, death of George Floyd, etc. – that will have long-lasting impacts on this country. I understand that a pseudo-famous person’s divorce isn’t important in comparison. But it’s all a part of our discourse online, and we have to be mindful of what we take in on the internet because it all forms the basis of our opinions and who we are. We’ve got to do better in our internetting. And that means that people with a voice, claiming transparency, have got to get real because our society is holding on for dear life.