Facebook.com and the Nature of the Universe

Before you begin to read I have prepared a brief quiz to help you determine whether or not you should spend your valuable time reading this entry. Because it’s long. Very long. In fact I considered titling it “Das Kapital II: The Facebook Manifesto”. So the point is, answer honestly…

1.) When I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is:
A. Turn off my alarm clock
B. Open my eyes
C. Get onto my computer and check facebook

2.) When I meet someone new my first thought is:
A. What an interesting person, I would really like to get to know them.
B. They are so cool, I could see myself having a long-lasting emotionally fulfilling relationship with them.
C. Alright! A new facebook friend!

3.) I would like to have a boyfriend/girlfriend because:
A. Of the emotional comfort and happiness it would bring me.
B. “The greatest joy in life is to love and to be loved in return”.
C. Then I could update my facebook profile to read “in a relationship”!

If you answered C to any of the above give yourself a point. If you scored 1 point or higher then you are qualified to read this entry. If you did not score any points then you should probably not waste your time with this article because clearly you do not own a computer or otherwise you would know about facebook and therefore be obsessed with facebook. Because to know facebook, is to need clinical help regarding facebook. And if you do not know facebook then might I ask, what the hell is wrong with you? Might I also suggest that you get yourself to a computer and join facebook post haste. Because your life is incomplete.

(Now granted I know the facebook obsession is dying down and writing about facebook is like, so February, but hey it was either this or my article about Ricky Martin and the Latin pop explosion so just be grateful...)

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Thinking back on the 1910’s, as I often do, it’s hard to imagine how our great-grandparents ever were able to interact with each other. If they wanted to talk to one another they had to actually physically travel to where the other person was, even if they only wanted to ask a simple question. Or if distance was prohibitive, they had to write long well crafted letters to one another that would often take days or weeks to reach their destination. If you think communication is crucial to a good relationship now, I can only imagine how vital is must have been back then. And of course all of this is if you were already securely “in a relationship”. The whole process of meeting someone and dating must have been even more difficult. You couldn’t wait three days before calling someone whose number you had gotten and were clearly interested in simply in order to make it seem like you were less interested in them than you actually were. No, if you were interested in someone you had to tell them face to face when you first met them because otherwise you didn’t know when you would see them again and there were no such things as phones to call them on to set up a date later. And since there were no phones, at the end of each date if you wanted another date you had to say so and set one up right then, face to face! That means you had to make your intentions known by telling someone face to face that you were indeed interested in them and wanted to see them again! In fact you had to do EVERYTHING in person!! All of your fights had to take place in person. You had to break up with someone in person. You had to express all of your thoughts and feelings in person because the postal service took too long and was unreliable and the technology did not yet exist to make a mix tape.
(Actually I guess poetry, with its careful selection and ordering of words to send a message to someone on an almost subliminal level, was the mix tape of its day but still…)
The whole thing sounds excruciating.

Thankfully, with the help of current technology, we have progressed as a society. All the important communication in a relationship can now be done solely on the phone or over the internet, allowing you to spend your actual time together for more important business, like sex, or watching TV. And that’s pretty much it. And technology hasn’t just helped romantic relationships, but relationship of all kinds. Now it is possible to maintain relationships for years with people you never cared about in the first place by simply IMing their away message every few weeks. Now all your BFFs from High School really can K.I.T. And best of all, we now have facebook, the website that has made it possible to reduce all human interaction into its essence: a measurement of your popularity. Now making friends with someone in real life is almost secondary to making friends with them on facebook. Now we will tolerate people we hate just to claim them as a friend. In fact now not only can we be friends with people we don’t care about, but we will use them to draw our sense of self worth from how many of them will claim us as their friend. At last, we think, tangible proof that I am indeed popular! And it’s on the Internet, the province of the innately unpopular and the insecure - the very people who worry about such things!!!
Ain’t technology fun.

Now if you’re not a member of facebook, I understand. I used to be intelligent like you. I swore I would never join one of those stupid online community things like friendster or myspace or underagecumguzzlers.com. But then one day I caved. And now look at me. I’m obsessed. Although I’m starting to think that some of the cumguzzlers aren’t actually underage. But that’s neither here nor there. What IS here, one Alt-Tab click away from this very document, is facebook. And it has changed my life, in so much as I am no longer a productive human being. Because facebook, unlike friendster or any of those other services, isnt a way to meet new people, but is instead a way to meet people you already know. And whats more exciting than that!? Plus its the most addicting thing to happen to the world of computers since solitaire. So come join the revolution. Get with the times. Become a part of the website that puts the “super” back in “information superhighway”. But before you do, there are a few rules to being a facebook member you should know.

Top 3 & 1/2 Rules a new facebook member should know:

1.) The first rule of facebook: Above all else, have standards. Unless thou art a Marymount dancer, thou does not have sex with every single person who requests to sleep with you. So why should thou accept every friend request thou recieves? Thou should not. Reject some people and be selective with who you send out friend requests to as well. Thou should have standards regarding other people. For example, thou should never request to be friends with someone who you would not feel comfortable acknowledging in real life. Also, there should be a waiting period between meeting someone and requesting to be their friend. Much like buying a gun, a friend request is a very serious matter.

2.) If thou art poked once by a friend, thou art allowed to return the poke. If thou art poked a second time by that same friend then quickly delete that person from your friends list because they are clearly insane. Somewhat like poking is.

3.) When such time comes that His Divine Majesty Greg Lynch requests to be your friend (which if you are just now joining facebook should be sometime in the next few seconds) bow down and give thanks to him and his almighty friend gathering powers. He is your master. By accepting his friend invite you are now a valid member of the facebook community. Congratulations.

(Editors note: This is not in any way to denegrate Mr. Lynch or to imply that he is in any way pathetic. It is simply to imply that he is much cooler than you. Now drop to your knees and offer your blessings up to him.)

3 & 1/2.) Thou shalt not edit thine’s own wall as that is pathetic. Even moreso than being on facebook in the first place.

So now that you know the rules, go join and let the good times roll, as the kids say these days. Seriously, go do it. Ill still be here when you get back.

You back?
Great!

Now will you be my friend?

No but seriously, by joining facebook you’ve just embarked on a journey that has to do with much more than just obtaining friends.

There are also clubs.

But be warned: the facebook journey is long and tough and it often veers about wildly. Almost as much as the tone of this entry. But spend enough time on the journey that is facebook and you’ll learn a lot about the world you live in and the nature of the universe. Which of course brings us back to the title of this entry. And although facebook can tell us many things about our lives, to me there seem to be, conveniently, 3 & 1/2 main things that we can learn about our world from facebook. And to explain these 3 & 1/2 things I have surprisingly created a handy list:

Top 3 & 1/2 things Facebook can teach us about the nature of our universe:

1.) Our taste defines us.
What’s most interesting about facebook is that through being able to view the profiles of people we may not already be friends with it allows to “meet” people and get to know something about them. Now that facebook has become a verb, whenever someone tells you a story or an antidote about someone you don’t know you can immediately go “facebook them” to find out more about them. And what is this “more” about them that you can find out? What is this information that often is the sole basis for your judgment of them as a person? Well, besides their picture, who they are friends with, and what it says about them on their wall, it’s basically their taste in movies, music, books, and quotes. Unless of course they wrote a lot under their “About Me” section in which case they are a loser. (Unless of course YOU did that, in which case you are very cool and I judge you only in a very positive way.) But basically the main thing you can learn about someone through facebook is their taste in quotes and entertainment. And using that information, you make some sort of opinion about them (don’t deny it). But the thing is that that’s a pretty valid opinion. Now its pleasant to think human beings weren’t born shallow and judgmental, and that way back in the 1910’s our grandparents would have found it absurd that we would judge people based on their taste in entertainment rather than their personal moral beliefs and convictions. But what today is “Biggie or Tupac” was surely back then “Jane Austin or Emily Bronte”. And there’s nothing wrong with taste based judgment; it’s human nature. Common interests have always been a key part of any interpersonal relationship. People have from time to time tried to go against that fundamental truth and almost always been proven wrong. Paula Abdul for one once said that opposites attract and, well, look how her life has turned out. I, on the other hand, say alike people attract and human nature backs me up. It makes perfect sense - you love yourself so of course you would love a version of yourself that you can hang out with or maybe even have sex with. I know that sounds awful, but the truth often is, and much like John Leguizamo in Moulin Rouge, Fred the Online Journal only speaks the truth. How facebook plays into all this though is that it reduces what was once a broad spectrum of potential common interests discovered only through discourse and discussion into a simple list of movie and book titles. There is no explanation or reasoning behind any of the information, it’s just simply listed there. We now measure compatibility not through discussion but by checking things off a list. “Likes Monty Python. Good.” “Likes Whitney Houston. Bad.” And so on. This person knows nothing about this other person other than the elaborately constructed presentation this person has made of themselves and what movies, music, books, and other such things they like. They know most likely nothing about this person’s values, their religious views, their outlook on life, their background, or any other similar matters. They don’t even know why or to what degree they like the things they do. But in the end, a list is all that facebook gives us. A list of their taste in entertainment, or at least they way they choose to present their taste in entertainment. Taste in music, movies, books and TV shows - are these really the qualities on which we want to base our opinion of someone? Well. Maybe they are. As a wise man once said, “Its what you like, not who you are that’s important.”

2.) Life is high school; high school is life.
You thought you were done with high school when you graduated didn’t you? Well you thought wrong. It never ends because life is just like high school, only on a much bigger scale. As a wise man once said “high school is life in concentrated form” And if you need proof, look no further than facebook:
On facebook some people join every club under the sun and even start some of their own and other people only show up once every few weeks just to check out what’s going on. Some people have gone to elaborate lengths to create a cool persona for themselves and other people just don’t give a shit. Some people have a new picture every week and others have had the same one since the first day. There are cliques, elaborate and specific social networks, and even groupies. There are rivalries, competitions, and far too many people who like Harry Potter. There are guys who want you to know how “straight” they are, people who want you to know that they really like beer, and apparently still a group of girls who like totally love their boyfriends SOOO much!!! Hell there’s even a way to leave each other yearbook style messages like “keep it real” “you rock” and “I didn’t want you to break up with me so I got pregnant with your kid”. But just like high school, ultimately none of it really matters. Because in the end, it’s all only really about one thing:
Popularity.

3.) As society grows more impersonal, we grow more “personal”
As a wise man once said, “The Internet is like beer, it lowers your inhibitions. Also, its how I met my wife”. And of course what is "the Internet" other than email, “sources” for your research paper, and facebook? And if you don’t think people express things on facebook that they never would in real life then how do you explain the “Best Deep Throats at MMC Club”? Or all the half naked pictures of people? Or the Bea Arthur Club having almost 40 members? Or the surprising number of girls apparently in lesbian relationships with their roommates? Or all the people who have tracked people down who they haven’t talked to since junior high or even elementary school? Or the people who confess to having a crush on their professor? Or just to having a “secret crush” in general? Okay so maybe facebook isn’t like beer. Maybe it’s just like a junior high sleepover. Or a game of truth or dare. Only without the dare. Or the soul crushing fear that you might get picked. But whatever the case, since facebook seems so impersonal it allows the personal revelations to flow out much more freely. What were once diaries kept under lock and key are now blogs linked to in our profiles. Now our phone number and address are there in the open. Our personal messages from others posted on a wall for all to see. Now that there’s a safe haven for us all on the Internet, there’s nothing left to hide.
Except the homemade sex tape of course.

3 & 1/2.) We are very self-involved.
As a wise man once said, “Damn, I’m a sexy bitch!” Now as a person surrounded by theater majors, the fact that people are self-involved is not a news flash, but the extent to which we are in love with ourselves is definitely highlighted by facebook. And surely you’ve realized this if you have ever tried to convince someone they should join facebook. That conversation always goes something like this:
Person 1: You should like totally join facebook! It’s like totally awesome!
Person 2: Why?
Person 1: Well, you get a chance to be friends with people who you’re already friends with or with people you don’t care about in the first place, but now you get to do it in a forum where you get to tell them information about yourself without having to put up with them doing annoying things like talking or changing the topic of conversation away from yourself. It’s so addictive!
Person 2: Why is that?
Person 1: Well because...because…because...hey look! Shiny things!
(Person 1 runs away )
And much like shiny things, it’s hard to not stare at yourself as you walk by a mirror because you’re just so damn fascinating. That’s why its lucky facebook came along so you could share the fascinating fabulousness that is YOU with the world. And you don’t even have to feel bad about it because everyone is doing it. And hey, at least its not as bad as having one of those damn online journals…

Now of course the lessons of facebook extend far beyond these 3 & 1/2 things. What more lessons can we glean from facebook? Many more. Like, maybe we shouldn’t let the Internet supersede face-to-face contact. Maybe we should all improve our communication skills. Maybe the intERpersonal is more important than the intRApersonal. Maybe we shouldn’t be so desperate for distraction. Maybe we should spend more time listening to the voices in our heads and in each other’s mouths than the words on the monitor (and in “The Monitor” for that matter). Maybe society is going to hell. But then again maybe it always has been. And maybe in the end all we have is each other. So I guess what I’m trying to say is:

Will you be my friend?


Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Ben Folds - “Songs for Silverman” (album)
2.) Ben Folds - “Gracie” and “Still Fighting It”
3.) Ben Folds - “Landed”
3 & 1/2.) Ben Folds - “There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You” (Live)


(New feature alert!) Thought of the Week:
I think I figured out why I respond to Ben Folds so much. Hes a writer. Now of course all song writers are techincally writers, but Ben, at heart, is a "writer" writer and he just chose songs over novels, shorts stories, or online journals. To help illustrate my point I think I should first outline a fact about songwriting. And that is this- There are several basic styles of song writing:
Poetic- Bob Dylan, Michael Stipe, etc.
Confessional- Joni Mitchell, solo John Lennon, etc.
Random- Beck, Anthony Kiedis, etc.
Straight forward- Marvin Gaye, James Taylor, etc.
Ambigous- Bernie Taupin, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, etc.
Universal- Bono, Kurt Cobain, Robert Plant, etc.
Of course there are many more styles and these styles all overlap, but I think for the point of this discussion thats a good list. Now what leads to believe Ben is a writer at heart is the fact he falls, most consistantly, into another unmentioned category: Storyteller.

His songs are most often stories about specifc people or incidents, thus one of many reasons for the constant Billy Joel comparisons. But unlike much Billy Joel, or Fountains of Wayne, or most anyone else for that matter, his stories are specific yet ambigous enough to reflect universal themes while at the same time expressing the feelings of the author, or in this case the songwriter. Sounds like a description of alot of the best writing, both fiction and non out there today. Which is why I believe Ben is a writer at heart and just chose to write songs rather than say, magazine articles. Which is why I respond to him so much. And why you do too.