A Meditation on Facebook
Notifications. Inbox messages. Friend requests. Event invitations. The little things that make our hearts go pitter pat when we log on to the universe's best modern time waster to date: Facebook. Ah, the early days of Facebook were great ones indeed. Before everyone's mother/little sister/great aunt Bethel had a Facebook, it was a place for social networking with your age group...and maybe even a little bit of rebellion for a few of us. This was one place where your language, political views, and pictures could only be viewed by the elite few you deemed worthy by accepting their friend requests. Your statuses could contain explicit language, your pictures could show crazy parties...hell, you could come out of the closet and only let your closest friends know, if you wanted to!
But then something happened. Slowly but surely, the privacy and elitism of Facebook started becoming diluted by the endless outpouring of MySpace trash who decided to take Facebook over and treat it like any old social network. It started with the tweens posting half naked pictures of themselves in seductive poses in their bathrooms. Mothers hearing about this "Facebook thing" and getting one for themselves, initially to check up on said tweens and their inappropriate activities. Soon enough, everyone's moms started friending each other, then telling their real life friends to get profiles. BOYS even started getting Facebooks so they could post about their new cars/sports events/wet dreams/whatever.
Facebook was forced to make a change. They couldn't keep up with the number of people joining and keep everyone occupied and happy. And so they invented the worst gadget of all: The app.
All of a sudden, you couldn't log onto Facebook without receiving 343920 notifications. While attempting to control your excitement, you would click on the notification flag and...Bobby Jill wants you to play Mob Wars! Jane Sue wants you to use Compare People! Herb Tyson wants you to use the Masturbation App! YOU CAN'T GET RID OF ME!!!
As if that wasn't bad enough, it became possible for groups and events to send Inbox messages at the drop of a hat. What happened to sacred space, huh? Spamspamspamspamspam. Everywhere. Facebook became a watered down, trashy, pathetic husk of the place it once was. You always have to friend your mother, or she'll come over from her personal computer into your room and demand to have personal time to peruse your profile. Your little cousin posts cleavage pictures of herself and names her photo albums things like, "Lesbian Sex with Cigarettes and Stuffed Animals." Your grandmother even has a "MyFace" even though she never uses it. Your mother, after deeming your profile unacceptable, proceeds to get tagged in fabulously incriminating photos involving trees, pole dancing, and obvious intoxication. Every five minutes someone's status pops up saying, "Veronica Slutbag misses her boyfriend SOOO much! I love you baby! Your my life!" Obvious grammatical error aside, Veronica Slutbag's status is offendingly personal and obnoxious, and is often the cause of the more single Facebook crowd's downward spiral into a cynical-blog-post demise. Of course there is also the Constant Updater, whose statuses go unchanged in intervals no longer than an hour or so, and whose entire wall is covered in their own status updates, along with the occasional Mob Wars update. This person is almost never doing anything interesting, but always letting you know about their status regardless. People like this are the reason I think Twitter would induce in me a murderous rampage of epic and unprecedented proportions.
There is also the issue of Facebook drama. Here is an example:
Sarah Whorebreasts is out with Gary! :-)
(Comments): Gary Cheaterballs at 10:09 PM
:-)
Sarah Whorebreasts at 10:10 PM
:-)
Holly Garysgirlfriend at 10:11 PM
GARY WHAT THE FUCK.
Holly Garysgirlfriend is going to KILL THAT FUCKING SLUT WHORE AND HER CHEATING BOYFRIEND.
Though this sort of drama rarely unfolds in such a timely and convenient fashion, we generally get enough snippets here and there to form a nice, big, scandalous picture in our heads and start the gossip. Another classic Facebook drama is the "Paul Branford and Rita Kennedy ended their relationship" followed by several million "Oh my God Rita if you need anything I'm here for you, babe! Stay strong!" comments.
And so we come around to the issue of Facebook stalking. Come on y'all, we're all guilty. Whether it's in a large group setting to make fun of a certain girl for posing the same in exactly all her pictures, or privately to look at that girl you like without anyone judging you or to see if your ex boyfriend has gotten the clap from his whore new girlfriend (fingers crossed!), you have Facebook stalked at some point in your life. No shame in it, boys and girls. Welcome to the Age of the Creeper.
But here's the kicker: Facebook is like crack. It's terribly bad for you, wastes unbelievable amounts of time, has no tangible benefit, and yet you can't get away from it. Despite its flaws, Facebook is an irresistible addiction, providing you with a constant flow of information and stimuli not unlike the idea of the Matrix. We need to be "plugged in" or we'll miss important stuff! Where would I be if I didn't see five million albums of various friends' travels abroad while I stayed home, or that ex boyfriend's status that says he has unprotected sex upside down in lava with his whore girlfriend and LOVES IT, or that post from my mom that basically states that she wishes I was a mute so we would argue less?
Probably a lot happier. But a lot less educated in the trivial dramas of my loved ones' lives (and six hundred of my closest friends). And education, dear children, is what America is all about.
T.
But then something happened. Slowly but surely, the privacy and elitism of Facebook started becoming diluted by the endless outpouring of MySpace trash who decided to take Facebook over and treat it like any old social network. It started with the tweens posting half naked pictures of themselves in seductive poses in their bathrooms. Mothers hearing about this "Facebook thing" and getting one for themselves, initially to check up on said tweens and their inappropriate activities. Soon enough, everyone's moms started friending each other, then telling their real life friends to get profiles. BOYS even started getting Facebooks so they could post about their new cars/sports events/wet dreams/whatever.
Facebook was forced to make a change. They couldn't keep up with the number of people joining and keep everyone occupied and happy. And so they invented the worst gadget of all: The app.
All of a sudden, you couldn't log onto Facebook without receiving 343920 notifications. While attempting to control your excitement, you would click on the notification flag and...Bobby Jill wants you to play Mob Wars! Jane Sue wants you to use Compare People! Herb Tyson wants you to use the Masturbation App! YOU CAN'T GET RID OF ME!!!
As if that wasn't bad enough, it became possible for groups and events to send Inbox messages at the drop of a hat. What happened to sacred space, huh? Spamspamspamspamspam. Everywhere. Facebook became a watered down, trashy, pathetic husk of the place it once was. You always have to friend your mother, or she'll come over from her personal computer into your room and demand to have personal time to peruse your profile. Your little cousin posts cleavage pictures of herself and names her photo albums things like, "Lesbian Sex with Cigarettes and Stuffed Animals." Your grandmother even has a "MyFace" even though she never uses it. Your mother, after deeming your profile unacceptable, proceeds to get tagged in fabulously incriminating photos involving trees, pole dancing, and obvious intoxication. Every five minutes someone's status pops up saying, "Veronica Slutbag misses her boyfriend SOOO much! I love you baby! Your my life!" Obvious grammatical error aside, Veronica Slutbag's status is offendingly personal and obnoxious, and is often the cause of the more single Facebook crowd's downward spiral into a cynical-blog-post demise. Of course there is also the Constant Updater, whose statuses go unchanged in intervals no longer than an hour or so, and whose entire wall is covered in their own status updates, along with the occasional Mob Wars update. This person is almost never doing anything interesting, but always letting you know about their status regardless. People like this are the reason I think Twitter would induce in me a murderous rampage of epic and unprecedented proportions.
There is also the issue of Facebook drama. Here is an example:
Sarah Whorebreasts is out with Gary! :-)
(Comments): Gary Cheaterballs at 10:09 PM
:-)
Sarah Whorebreasts at 10:10 PM
:-)
Holly Garysgirlfriend at 10:11 PM
GARY WHAT THE FUCK.
Holly Garysgirlfriend is going to KILL THAT FUCKING SLUT WHORE AND HER CHEATING BOYFRIEND.
Though this sort of drama rarely unfolds in such a timely and convenient fashion, we generally get enough snippets here and there to form a nice, big, scandalous picture in our heads and start the gossip. Another classic Facebook drama is the "Paul Branford and Rita Kennedy ended their relationship" followed by several million "Oh my God Rita if you need anything I'm here for you, babe! Stay strong!" comments.
And so we come around to the issue of Facebook stalking. Come on y'all, we're all guilty. Whether it's in a large group setting to make fun of a certain girl for posing the same in exactly all her pictures, or privately to look at that girl you like without anyone judging you or to see if your ex boyfriend has gotten the clap from his whore new girlfriend (fingers crossed!), you have Facebook stalked at some point in your life. No shame in it, boys and girls. Welcome to the Age of the Creeper.
But here's the kicker: Facebook is like crack. It's terribly bad for you, wastes unbelievable amounts of time, has no tangible benefit, and yet you can't get away from it. Despite its flaws, Facebook is an irresistible addiction, providing you with a constant flow of information and stimuli not unlike the idea of the Matrix. We need to be "plugged in" or we'll miss important stuff! Where would I be if I didn't see five million albums of various friends' travels abroad while I stayed home, or that ex boyfriend's status that says he has unprotected sex upside down in lava with his whore girlfriend and LOVES IT, or that post from my mom that basically states that she wishes I was a mute so we would argue less?
Probably a lot happier. But a lot less educated in the trivial dramas of my loved ones' lives (and six hundred of my closest friends). And education, dear children, is what America is all about.
T.
Hello! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this! Love the way you write. Very funny!
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