The Darkly Dark Side of Facebook
From this...
The #DeleteFacebook movement is accelerating in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica fiasco.
...to this.
Aside from stealing data and subverting elections, an overlooked question remains. In a sense, is Mark Zuckerberg...a cyber Santa Claus?
Said another way: Is Facebook like a giant quilt of Christmas cards? Billions and billions of electronic, holiday greeting cards? A digital daisy-chain of bullshit that celebrates Christmas year round?
Cyber Santa: "Ho ho ho!"
Said another way: Is Facebook like a giant quilt of Christmas cards? Billions and billions of electronic, holiday greeting cards? A digital daisy-chain of bullshit that celebrates Christmas year round?
The answer is obvious.
Ah, holiday greetings, mailed or
emailed at Christmas. Here’s a boiled-down definition of many Christmas cards: one-upmanship. Here’s a boiled-down
definition of one-upmanship: national pastime.
We’ve all received that heartfelt card from a faraway friend. Their radiant letter requires sunglasses to read it. Ninety-nine percent of the message is a yearly round-up of the friend’s gilt-edged life and accomplishments, a shimmering success in
every respect, nary a misstep. And worthy of capitalist canonization, whatever that means. For instance:
Dear Museum of Sudden Disappearances,
Merry Christmas! I stayed hammered for two weeks on the beach in Tahiti, celebrating my promotion as CEO of ExxonMobil. When I returned to my Bel-Air crib, I replaced all the chandeliers and bought seven Lamborghinis on a whim. I call them my Mondaymobile, Tuesdaymobile...oh, you get the picture. Then, holy smokes, things finally improved when Columbia Pictures called and begged me to star opposite Jennifer Lawrence in...blah blah blah.
The final 1% of the missive? At the very bottom, the focus shifts, and the missive becomes dismissive. You find this niggling afterthought:
PS: I see you’re still
living at the same address.
Think of that PS as a 9mm pistol equipped with a suppressor. You almost can't hear the shot. It's almost a masterpiece of subtlety.
photo of a "subtle insult" delivery system
Gore Vidal, an honest Ebenezer Scrooge
Enough. Let’s return to Facebook. Let’s imagine a Facebook member whose name is Sonny.
To Sonny, Facebook is his daily Christmas card to the world of friends and unfriends, showing the I-don’t-give-a-shit planet that Sonny’s
life is a nonstop holiday. His posts and updates are digital documentation of his deified destiny. Via pictures and text, we see Sonny as the gold standard for humanoids. A life coach on steroids. Batman vs. Superman? Alien vs. Predator? How about...Sonny vs. Tony Robbins?
Hardly anyone (capable of shame) posts selfies after a five-day binge—tattered bathrobe, bewildered hair, maroon eyes, and a silver string swinging from their lower
lip. Oops. That’s drool, a slo-mo yo-yo.
An honest selfie, the one you never see on Facebook.
Sonny posts photoshopped pics of himself on Rodeo Drive
Sonny's Facebook profile picture
But Sonny fibs. Sonny lives with Cher, his significant other. Sonny’s hunkered down on his PC, on the top floor of a rundown three-decker, with an overheated space-heater that uses two ten-foot extension cords that scream fire hazard. In the tiny kitchen by the yellow pee pad (a flattened newspaper), Cher Nobyl, a Russian Spaniel, is having a meltdown and barking. Translation: “Yo! I gotta poo! Lemme out before I have a Cher Nobyl disaster!”
If you #DeleteFacebook, you eliminate #SelfLoathing. You
regain endless hours of your life. It's an easy, three-step program. Be a three-stepper.
#BuhByeFacebook
#RefuseXmasCards
#MakePeePadsGreatAgain.
Then buy an overpriced MPPGA red hat, and make every day a holiday!
Then buy an overpriced MPPGA red hat, and make every day a holiday!
