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Are Facebook Statuses the Portals to Our Souls?
Posted by Tanya
on
6:02 PM
If you own a computer, you more than likely have a Facebook account. That magnificent social network that you can't help but have open in at least one tab on your computer. We laugh, we cry and we tend to use abbreviations to express our feelings. It is the place you go when you have nowhere to go on a Friday night, but need to pretend you do by updating you status as "____ is having a BLAST hanging with my best friends!" Even though you are actually laying on your bed eating leftover Chinese food and watching infomercials with your cat.
Then there are those friends, you know who you are, that pour out their every problem and traumatic childhood experience into the status line. You know, the box that simply asks you, "What are you doing?" Then there are those who feel the need to make sure the worldwide web knows where they are at every moment of the day. I can only assume they do this because they are worried they might get kidnapped and they feel safer knowing people know where they are at all times. After all, it's not like people really care where they are ever minute of every day. Then there are the creative, and rather deep friends who express their emotions by using other people's lyrics to express themselves.
But in my opinion, the most interesting portion of this social phenomenon are the comments we are expected to leave on other people's work. If our friends are feeling sad, are we expected to console them in front of everyone and their mother? Or do we settle for a more intimate setting by calling and talking on the phone? Or we could use the crowd favorite, the "like" button, and move on with little to no effort. But then the next time you see them in person, do you awkwardly wave and do a little dance around the fact that you never wrote back to their quasi-suicidal status on Facebook? Too bad Facebook didn't come with an etiquette handbook. It could have saved us a lot of painful and emotional friend deletion. Nothing leaves a mark like being a victim of defriending.
I'm a person who focuses on the face to face interaction. Come on now, I don't know if you are actually laughing out loud, and enjoying our conversation, or if you are just a skilled liar. And if you RSVP as attending to a Facebook event invitation to my dinner party, and I order you a catered dinner, will you actually show up or were you trying to be polite? Because you just wasted 30 bucks of my hard earned money. Do me a favor and don't lie. It's just rude.
We love Facebook because we can be "In A Relationship" without ever having to see the person. We love Facebook because it's cheaper than getting a shrink. And we love Facebook because it will always listen to our petty problems, when no one else will listen.
Peace, love, and good juju,
Issa Pop
Then there are those friends, you know who you are, that pour out their every problem and traumatic childhood experience into the status line. You know, the box that simply asks you, "What are you doing?" Then there are those who feel the need to make sure the worldwide web knows where they are at every moment of the day. I can only assume they do this because they are worried they might get kidnapped and they feel safer knowing people know where they are at all times. After all, it's not like people really care where they are ever minute of every day. Then there are the creative, and rather deep friends who express their emotions by using other people's lyrics to express themselves.
But in my opinion, the most interesting portion of this social phenomenon are the comments we are expected to leave on other people's work. If our friends are feeling sad, are we expected to console them in front of everyone and their mother? Or do we settle for a more intimate setting by calling and talking on the phone? Or we could use the crowd favorite, the "like" button, and move on with little to no effort. But then the next time you see them in person, do you awkwardly wave and do a little dance around the fact that you never wrote back to their quasi-suicidal status on Facebook? Too bad Facebook didn't come with an etiquette handbook. It could have saved us a lot of painful and emotional friend deletion. Nothing leaves a mark like being a victim of defriending.
I'm a person who focuses on the face to face interaction. Come on now, I don't know if you are actually laughing out loud, and enjoying our conversation, or if you are just a skilled liar. And if you RSVP as attending to a Facebook event invitation to my dinner party, and I order you a catered dinner, will you actually show up or were you trying to be polite? Because you just wasted 30 bucks of my hard earned money. Do me a favor and don't lie. It's just rude.
We love Facebook because we can be "In A Relationship" without ever having to see the person. We love Facebook because it's cheaper than getting a shrink. And we love Facebook because it will always listen to our petty problems, when no one else will listen.
Peace, love, and good juju,
Issa Pop
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