I’ll explain how Facebook works in the most honest terms you’ll come across:
You sign up for an account. You put in some bullshit quotes and little blurbs about yourself, like you were making a singles ad. You are in a way, because you’re about to whore yourself out to the lowest bidder.
You include pictures of yourself. You only pick the “best” ones. You also include every single picture you’ve ever appeared in, just to show strangers how outgoing you are. Girls will show off their body and clothes, and guys will show off their cars and the girls who just made a profile. They know you. They went to school with you. They own the right to be in the same picture as you, because they are popular.
You include every aspect of your personal and professional life on the profile. Your schools, where you work, your relatives, address, phone number – anything you would be terrified of if someone got a hold of. Don’t be afraid though, this is the Internet! No bad people on the Internet to abuse the system, ever.
You start looking up your friends. You know, those people who sometimes call your name if you’re in viewing range. Once you see their Facebook profile, you add their friends, because shit – you’re FRIENDS too
You look up the definition of the word ‘friend’ and realize you are so very fucking wrong
You friend writes on your “wall.” They say something meaningful like “OMG I haven’t seen you in ages! We gotta hang out soon!” Weird, eh? Last time I checked I hung out with my friends all the time. In fact, we were having so much fun hanging out that we forgot to not see each other in ages.
This little light bulb goes off in your head about every person you’ve ever met. Is my ex-boyfriend on Facebook? How about that boy that sexually assaulted me? How about my abusive uncle? Wow, they’re all here! I can’t wait for them to know my every waking moment thanks to my friends writing on my wall about every breath I take.
You start adding everyone, ever. You try to complete your entire high school by clicking every fucking piece of blue text imaginable. You feel so liberated when that bully that beat you up apologizes 9 years too late. It’s so easy to apologize over the Internet than it is to be a real person and do it in person with some heart and soul.
You begin to electronically stalk your friends and people you hate. You can’t stop checking their profile on a daily basis. You start to feel nauseous when you’re waiting for their weekend pictures to be posted on Monday. You get butterflies when you start to see their innermost personal life displayed for all to see. You don’t notice you’re a victim too, since there’s no way to track who’s looking at yours.
You can’t sleep at night until you check every profile ever. You start to get a slight buzz when you find out that your worst enemy hurt themselves while on vacation. You get chills down your spine when you hear the pity in their writing and you like it.
You start to use Facebook wall writing as a substitute for MSN Messenger and email. You write very personal plans and thoughts to your ‘friends.’ Funny, if you wrote any of that stuff in an email and someone read it, you’d be mortified and feel violated. You equate wall writing to leaving “voicemail”. Since everyone else is addicted to Facebook, of course they’re going to see it in minutes.
You don’t remember the last time you spoke to a friend on the phone. Why bother? Facebook is 24/7 free and no long distance. Voice? What’s that? You can hear their voice in their pictures of them holding their drinks. You can, can’t you…?
You start using Facebook as a filtering service for your entire life. You start to judge people’s worth based on their profile. How many books they have read? What do they listen to? Is their life quote deep or just funny? Does it change every day? Oh my god, this person likes dogs too! Must be a great person…!
You start to wonder who’s watching your profile. You make changes to your profile to appeal to everyone alive. You become a generic version of yourself. You’re afraid to express yourself because maybe…JUST maybe the love of your life will hate you because you don’t like dogs. You now love dogs. You love everything. Everything you hate is now “all right!” and everything you love is now “cool.” Spread yourself thin, because that’s the way to bring people closer to you.
You notice that Humaira has 137 friends. You’re a few short of that number, so you start adding your cousin’s school friends. Seems logical, seeing as you’re both alive and on the same planet
You read something on some website that says that if you spent as much time on Wikipedia as you did on Facebook, you’d be one of the most knowledgeable people alive and actually contribute to society
Your attraction to the opposite sex quadruples. Guys that have no balls or personal skills are now chatting you up on Facebook. They’ve seen you drunk in pictures and now they want to be beside you. You love the attention and check your profile every chance you get. You have just found the ultimate dating service – the kind that violates every privacy act and human rights issue known to man.
You don’t remember that last time you used MSN Messenger thanks to Facebook. You always login on invisible mode, so you don’t have to talk to anyone. You decided that MSN is just a great address book for people you hate. You read somewhere that you should delete people you don’t talk to, but then the list would be 4 people long! The horror! There’s no need to address your insecurities about your social life, really.
You start to believe your own Facebook profile. You become more fake and more ‘fake outgoing.’ You change your little status message to alert everyone about your Cuba vacation and any every fucking minutia imaginable. The best part is that since anyone can read this, thieves know what you’re up to and break into your house without incident. The insurance company laughs at you and calls you an idiot. I am not far behind.
You die, finally. No one notices because you weren’t there to post that as your status message. The end.
I hope you’re beginning to see the light. This is your life, and it’s ending one click at a time. Facebook brings out the worst in people. You put so much time and energy into something that makes you a worse person. Do you WANT this? I’m surprised you’ve made it this far into the article without changing tabs to check if someone wrote on your wall…
