I know that the platform gets all the praise and blame when people discuss social media. Facebook is this and G+ is that - yadda yadda yadda. The real difference, the sizzle, if you will is the people and content that you get to experience.

I know that the platform gets all the praise and blame when people discuss social media. Facebook is this and G+ is that - yadda yadda yadda. The real difference, the sizzle, if you will is the people and content that you get to experience. 
For example -

Originally shared by Alida Brandenburg

[Mini-Memoirs: How I traded three slices of pizza for a duet with a homeless woman, and three of the best hugs of my life.]

I sat in my car as the sobs rolled through my body again and again like tiny earthquakes, shaking me and breaking me apart with each wave, too paralyzed to move. Exhausted after an hour, I wiped my face and reentered the world, careful to first cross the street to avoid the shadowy camp of a homeless person I'd noticed when I parked.

But before I got far, I heard her earnest voice rise up in the dark to accompany the melodic crooning of Vanessa Williams streaming out her handheld radio. "Sometimes the sun goes round the moon..." I felt a tug and crossed the street. I used to love that song when I was a girl.

"That looks like pizza!" the disheveled vagrant exclaimed, referring to the box of leftovers noticeable in my hand as I approached. The edge of hope and desperation in her voice was palpable.
"It is! I was wondering if you'd be willing to trade me it for the opportunity to sing this song with you."

Without another word we both jumped into our unexpected duet mid-lyric, our lungs powered by the frosty San Franciscan air. "And now we're standing face to face. Isn't this world a crazy place? Just when I thought our chance had passed..."

She broke at the end of the chorus. "The man of my dreams just walked into my life!" she exuberated. Her face was beaming with the glow of new love.
"Ah, I am so happy to hear that! My heart is really hurting right now. I was just sitting in my car crying for the past hour."
"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry," she cooed lovingly. 

She walked out from behind her shopping cart to wrap me in an embrace. Without hesitation, I abandoned any classist reservations about hygiene, safety, or questioning onlookers and rushed to meet her halfway. Homeless status be damned. I really needed a hug right then, and this woman was taking me in like a castoff, listless kitten; like I was the one between us who needed help. I guess I did right then.

She pulled me in and I'd by lying if I said it wasn't one of the best hugs I've ever had. She held me there a long time and breathed with me, let me cry, clucked reassuring words in my ears, just stood there with me--human to human, two strangers in the night with hearts that beat, broken and blooming.

We huddled in the dark and spoke candidly for another twenty minutes. I asked her about her new love, her life, her family, her history. She slipped in and out of lucidity, alternating between talks of fallen angels and Harley Davidsons, Isis and alcoholism. But she kept coming back with comforting words for me and my sullen spirit. "Kricket with a K," she said her name was. She told me to light a candle. She was 43 and stood in the shadows.

"Sometimes the very thing you're looking for/
is the one thing that you can't see."

#minimemoirs