Tricia Walsh-Smith is a You Tube star for all the wrong reasons! But she taught us something too.
She ranted about her unhappy marriage, complained about the family members of her soon-to-be-ex, and spilled the dirt on her Broadway mogul busband, Philip Smith.
While the motivation for Walsh-Smith’s YouTube rants can be debated, the motivation of WHY this got so much news coverage and millions of You Tube viewings is easy. The equation is fairly easy:(Pseudo) Celebrity + In process of divorce + Public display of wacky (soon to be ex) spouse giving private and embarassing details about (pseudo) celebrity.
It is noteworthy to post on the “Ramblings of a Marriage Junkie” blog because this seems to be a growing trend: people dealing with relationship issues using technology rather than good old face-to-face confrontation and conflict resolution.
Whether it be teenagers posting put downs on MySpace, youth sharing racy pics on cell phones, gossiping about a professor on Facebook, posting intimate pictures of ex-spouses on websites, or ranting about a former lover on You Tube, and the list goes on. The opportunity to embarass, shame and humiliate a person with a handful of “friends” and intended for private viewing can quickly become public, headline news and viewed by millions.
I caution all of the couples I take through premarital education or speak to at marriage retreats against using email, texting, IMing, or cell phones as a means to deal with their relationship issues.
I guess I need to add a new caution to them, when your mate does something that hurts your feelings, don’t post any videos, blogs, comments, pictures, or anything else that enflame the issue to a bigger audience than it needs to be. Tricia Walsh-Smith shows us it doesn’t do anything more than make fools of everyone!
