This post is about Facebook, you know that social networking tool(?), and why I decided to quit it after one week.
It raised alot of very interesting questions for me, seeing as I had decided beforehand to only give it a five day evaluation and then decide if it was, as many friends had told me, an excellent and powerful tool for connecting and interacting with friends. Or, as I had told myself, yet another foray into the self-lobotomising toilet that is The Hype.
I like writing, and putting some thought behind what i write, so i've tried to give you a very honest and holistic account of my experience. But who am i kidding huh? the short story probably makes for far better reading: See, i met this girl at a kids party last sunday and felt my heart smiling as I spoke to her. She left a very gentle, creative impression on me and i would have loved to have seen her again. Again turned out to be Facebook, which I promptly joined the next day and skipped along to her profile, whistling and beaming and followed by singing white doves.
Imagine then, the pain and dismay, at seeing her current profile: Status - In A Relationship.
Bugger.
It was clear as day then, why i couldn't like Facebook no matter what. It wasn't because it was fake and nothing like real life. It was because it was exactly like real life. Ooeeerrr missus...
Okay, so thats the short story. If you're late for something then go, the rest is pretty boring.
There are plenty good things about Facebook. Once those lines from American Pie stopped ringing in my head ("Well, I know that you’re in love with him, `cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym.") i decided to treat Facebook more like a social anthropology project. That, and it actually did look quite cool. So many of my friends where already in it. They where cool, but was I?
Within minutes it turned out that I was the twentieth person from my year at high school to join. Alot of Facebook is pure voyeurism, and I must say, once you actually remember who those people where its pathologically satisfying to see who they are now. Like picking at a scab. But not as rewarding. The few people i remembered turned out pretty much exactly how i thought they would. Bygones.
The voyeurism theme is prevalent though, I could now see my friends, and theirs, and theirs, ad nauseum. And people could find me too. Indeed, the best thing to come out of all of this was a "Friend Request" from Lee Darby, my bestest mate from Std 6 & 7. The first time I went to jail or threw a skateboard at my brothers head was with Lee. He lives in New Zealand with his wife now, Big thumb Lee, nice one.
Another nice touch is searching for your own name and seeing what your namesakes look like, what they do. In retrospect I can't actually remember what they do.. There was one in London who had a really fucked up cut n' paste picture though. ha ha that made me smile.
By day two I was addicted. Unlike GMail Facebook doesn't update automatically, so you have to go to it every couple of minutes and press refresh. Once I figured out what my wall was and where it was i could read stuff. Short stuff from friends. This was nice. Ish. No deep musings or electricity bills, just people taking ten seconds out of their day to remind you they where still alive. Facebook isn't the kind of place for anything or anyone too deep. I couldn't imagine a scribble on my wall starting with "Jesus Christ says .." you know?, (except actually i can, it would be something like "Jesus Christ says if you wanna ride, its gas, grass or ass!")
But these short scribblings, at first fun, then time consuming, and finally quite irrelevant, highlight another theme of Facebook - this 'slogan culture' we've developed over the last fifteen/twenty years.
No longer do you have the time, or create the time, to communicate in the lush and descriptive intensity that you are capable of. Because Facebook communication is all about quantity, not quality. It comes down to someone telling me "Just do it" (replace with any facebook comment here), and i think, "Do what?, and why?" Sorry, but 99% of this slogan culture is so bleak, and I like details, I really do. My life isn't made richer by the ones and zero's, its made richer by truly connecting with other human beings, and trust me, its usually the shit about yourself that you think is totally insignificant that's like nectar to someone else.
So I seem to moving to the dark side of Facebook. Lets look at a double edged sword now, the posting of pictures, of yourself and of your friends. The moment someone tags you in a pic, its broadcast to everyone that knows you. They get a link and you hope that, at best, it's flattering, and at worse it won't lead to any arrests for public indecency or vandalism. I'm not too bothered about what i look like anyway, but admit it, there have to be some photo's you've just cringed at? (Right now i'm thinking of a New York cab six years ago, aaiieeee..). The kind of nice thing with this, although i never actually did it, is the ability to post some severely unflattering photo's of your Least-Liked-Friend-Actually-She-Fucked-Up-My-Life-So-Fuck-Her-Friend. And although I could only really think of one person i'd do this to, the idea of perhaps posting a shot of a sweaty Uruk-Hai from Lord of the Rings, and tagging it with her name, was consoling in the most conniving of ways. Like a belly warm from cognac and cigar smoke.
But ultimately, it was Facebooks failure to pass my acid test for anything in my life that gave it the thumbs down.
Did it make me happy?
This isn't an easy question to ask, remember details, details, but i think the final answer to this was no.
I think, given the time, it would become a responsibility instead of a release. The pressure to constantly stay active, and look like you're Hey Wow! Fully! YEAH Man! is fake, and the quickest way to morose is fake. Last night i went to yoga, went home and made fish. I played some guitar and then i went to sleep, content and happily average. If I'd spent that time on Facebook, so occupied with what other people are occupied with, I think my brain would be smaller today.
So, at the end of all of this, I think we can all agree that the short version was alot better.
Told you so.
It raised alot of very interesting questions for me, seeing as I had decided beforehand to only give it a five day evaluation and then decide if it was, as many friends had told me, an excellent and powerful tool for connecting and interacting with friends. Or, as I had told myself, yet another foray into the self-lobotomising toilet that is The Hype.
I like writing, and putting some thought behind what i write, so i've tried to give you a very honest and holistic account of my experience. But who am i kidding huh? the short story probably makes for far better reading: See, i met this girl at a kids party last sunday and felt my heart smiling as I spoke to her. She left a very gentle, creative impression on me and i would have loved to have seen her again. Again turned out to be Facebook, which I promptly joined the next day and skipped along to her profile, whistling and beaming and followed by singing white doves.
Imagine then, the pain and dismay, at seeing her current profile: Status - In A Relationship.
Bugger.
It was clear as day then, why i couldn't like Facebook no matter what. It wasn't because it was fake and nothing like real life. It was because it was exactly like real life. Ooeeerrr missus...
Okay, so thats the short story. If you're late for something then go, the rest is pretty boring.
There are plenty good things about Facebook. Once those lines from American Pie stopped ringing in my head ("Well, I know that you’re in love with him, `cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym.") i decided to treat Facebook more like a social anthropology project. That, and it actually did look quite cool. So many of my friends where already in it. They where cool, but was I?
Within minutes it turned out that I was the twentieth person from my year at high school to join. Alot of Facebook is pure voyeurism, and I must say, once you actually remember who those people where its pathologically satisfying to see who they are now. Like picking at a scab. But not as rewarding. The few people i remembered turned out pretty much exactly how i thought they would. Bygones.
The voyeurism theme is prevalent though, I could now see my friends, and theirs, and theirs, ad nauseum. And people could find me too. Indeed, the best thing to come out of all of this was a "Friend Request" from Lee Darby, my bestest mate from Std 6 & 7. The first time I went to jail or threw a skateboard at my brothers head was with Lee. He lives in New Zealand with his wife now, Big thumb Lee, nice one.
Another nice touch is searching for your own name and seeing what your namesakes look like, what they do. In retrospect I can't actually remember what they do.. There was one in London who had a really fucked up cut n' paste picture though. ha ha that made me smile.
By day two I was addicted. Unlike GMail Facebook doesn't update automatically, so you have to go to it every couple of minutes and press refresh. Once I figured out what my wall was and where it was i could read stuff. Short stuff from friends. This was nice. Ish. No deep musings or electricity bills, just people taking ten seconds out of their day to remind you they where still alive. Facebook isn't the kind of place for anything or anyone too deep. I couldn't imagine a scribble on my wall starting with "Jesus Christ says .." you know?, (except actually i can, it would be something like "Jesus Christ says if you wanna ride, its gas, grass or ass!")
But these short scribblings, at first fun, then time consuming, and finally quite irrelevant, highlight another theme of Facebook - this 'slogan culture' we've developed over the last fifteen/twenty years.
No longer do you have the time, or create the time, to communicate in the lush and descriptive intensity that you are capable of. Because Facebook communication is all about quantity, not quality. It comes down to someone telling me "Just do it" (replace with any facebook comment here), and i think, "Do what?, and why?" Sorry, but 99% of this slogan culture is so bleak, and I like details, I really do. My life isn't made richer by the ones and zero's, its made richer by truly connecting with other human beings, and trust me, its usually the shit about yourself that you think is totally insignificant that's like nectar to someone else.
So I seem to moving to the dark side of Facebook. Lets look at a double edged sword now, the posting of pictures, of yourself and of your friends. The moment someone tags you in a pic, its broadcast to everyone that knows you. They get a link and you hope that, at best, it's flattering, and at worse it won't lead to any arrests for public indecency or vandalism. I'm not too bothered about what i look like anyway, but admit it, there have to be some photo's you've just cringed at? (Right now i'm thinking of a New York cab six years ago, aaiieeee..). The kind of nice thing with this, although i never actually did it, is the ability to post some severely unflattering photo's of your Least-Liked-Friend-Actually-She-Fucked-Up-My-Life-So-Fuck-Her-Friend. And although I could only really think of one person i'd do this to, the idea of perhaps posting a shot of a sweaty Uruk-Hai from Lord of the Rings, and tagging it with her name, was consoling in the most conniving of ways. Like a belly warm from cognac and cigar smoke.
But ultimately, it was Facebooks failure to pass my acid test for anything in my life that gave it the thumbs down.
Did it make me happy?
This isn't an easy question to ask, remember details, details, but i think the final answer to this was no.
I think, given the time, it would become a responsibility instead of a release. The pressure to constantly stay active, and look like you're Hey Wow! Fully! YEAH Man! is fake, and the quickest way to morose is fake. Last night i went to yoga, went home and made fish. I played some guitar and then i went to sleep, content and happily average. If I'd spent that time on Facebook, so occupied with what other people are occupied with, I think my brain would be smaller today.
So, at the end of all of this, I think we can all agree that the short version was alot better.
Told you so.
Labels: Facebook
posted by OnRee | 8:37 AM
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