Ok, first post. Sort-of.

This my blog, obviously. I'm going to assume someone is reading this because... Well just because. It's on the internet. That's a likely enough reason. Anyway, I'll update when I feel like it because last time I checked there's not a whole lot of people waiting on me to churn out impulsive whiny criticisms of whatever I've had an impulse to whine about and criticize. That's is just about the entirety of this blog's subject matter. If you expected something different... well what the fuck, why are you even here? In short, I'm going to think as little as possible before I post something on here. It will be filled with misspelled words(maybe), poor syntax(likely) and mediocre grammar not excluding an overabundance of commas(certain). Know what you're getting yourself into, or not. I don't really give a shit. There's probably going to be like 3 maybe 4 people that read this that I didn't command to. I'm aiming high here. I think the main point of this is to complain and be a conceited little shit about stuff that I'd like to think people would want to read. So, with plenty of further ado, I guess here is a blog that the majority of people would prefer not to read.

Facebook: An Internet Love Affair

Facebook: An Internet Love Affair


This is a personal message to whoever decides to read it, so…
Dear you,

Facebook has alienated me more and more in recent months. I can only seem to wrap my head around a few of the reasons besides, “It just bothers me.” These include, primarily, its slow, steady diminishing of interpersonal relationships outside of a cybernetic setting and its migration to even the simplest of cellular phones. Allow me to elaborate on these two, among others.

First of all, let’s consider this idea of “status updates”. Even the idea is inherently egocentric. Excluding the ability to post links, embed videos, etc., the process generally happens like this: a person writes out a relatively short statement or, in some cases, a lamentation on their current condition. Then, they post it and it acts as an invitation to a text-based conversation that usually revolves around the statement made but it is free to diverge into other topics. These conversations are completely open for reading by anyone in your “Friends list” (another topic I will get to). Given the nature of the conversation that happens, it is far from intimate. You never see the other person face the entire time, you don’t see how they actually react to whatever you say, and what both of you actually do say is a carefully crafted statement and is likely not what he/she first thought to say (probably because almost anyone can read the words they put there).

Then, we have this idea of a “Friends List”. First and foremost, it seems as a way to boast; to say, “Look at all these friends I have. This is precisely the amount of people that I know and I can tell by looking at your Friends List that the number is far larger than yours.” Also, to suggest that to request that a person add you to some list makes you their friend is preposterous. I know in many cases these are people you actually have met, but would you really call them your friend? What of those that you haven’t met? Could you call them your friend?

There is also the issue of its portability. You might say, “That’s no issue! I can see all the things that my friends complain about over the internet, but now on my phone! And, I can look at all the people they claim to know and see the arguments that they have over something else on Facebook, rife with spelling errors, poor syntax and overall bad grammar!” Is this necessarily a good thing? Because of the fact that it is so easily accessible now, it has become very deeply ingrained in almost all of our lives. Like the heroin addict that believes his self-destructive and resilient bond to that drug is as weak as that of his soft drink preference, you can say that it’s just a website and that you can stop using it whenever you choose. But that’s just it, isn’t it. You aren’t going to choose to let go of the hold you have on this website. Go ahead. Delete your account. I bet you can’t. Or, if you do, it won’t stay that way. In a week, maybe a month’s time you’ll crawl back to it. You won’t be able to resist the temptation of seeing what people say when you aren’t around.
This all might be the mad ramblings of some butthurt kid. I don’t know. But what I do know is that in an act of strange and trivial hypocrisy, I still access and use Facebook regularly. Hell, I might even post all this that I’ve written here onto it. It’s a troubling idea to think I’m conceited enough to believe anyone would care about my opinions of Facebook. But in the end, maybe that’s all it really is; an outlet for everyone’s conceit. If this vain sense of self-importance is an inescapable part of our lives, perhaps Facebook is a necessary evil that acts to both encourage and contain this infectious conceit that we all have. I am both curious and scared to see how far this website will spread into the other areas of our lives. Perhaps it will go the path of Myspace and fade into the shadow of some other social-networking website. I suppose all we can do now is speculate. But until then, perhaps it is best to simply adopt an attitude of apathetic submission towards the wave of transparence that will wash over and invisibly consume out lives