Inexpressible Heaviness of Being

There is a tragedy that is happening right now in America. It seems innocent enough and everyone is doing it, including my parents who have never done anything I have. In fact when they do, I quickly examine the action, perceive it to be doomed, peel out and attempt to destroy it. I’m referring to the plague of mass obsession of social networking sites. More specifically Twitter.

I could include Myspace, it did come first. But then again, MySpace could not be completely shitty and fail flaming in the blaze of Facebook and Twitter. It’s website layout was superfluous as a Dickens novel and the security as lax as all of Detroit. It tried so bare minimum at keeping up, it seemed like the creators didn’t know the craze of Facebook was happening. Also, going back to terms of security, when I was on Myspace, I felt like I was going to be gang raped. I imagined a hand reaching out of the bland page caressing my face and covering my mouth and me recounting the event later as “There were faces, strangers, so much confusion. I didn’t know anyone but they kept getting at me, forcing their way in, and nobody could stop them.” Not only could people friend you blindly, but so could restaurants, businesses, record labels and comedy shows. There was a public post section, but “friends” would mostly use that to post porn or information on it like a bullet board at a train station. It was a step in a successful direction, but too impersonal to evolve. Way too impersonal. And having an impersonal social networking site is like having a “Where’s Waldo?” for blind cats. However, credit given, where credit due, it did open the floodgate to the others and I’m sure Facebook wouldn’t have existed as fast as it did without it. Impersonal, and cold it but still filling the void as the Old testament to the New, now with personable Jesus!

Facebook started as a strictly college thing in which you HAD TO BE IN COLLEGE TO JOIN. That’s how you filter out most creeps and weirdoes; you had to strive for (now) the minimal amount of education one should get these to be part of this thing. It had standards unlike most people who are in college. And that’s what lured me in. I too have standards, low ones, close friends would argue if I have any, but standards none the less. But because of that “college only” Facebook policy, it was great for meeting people within your school, planning a party, or, like my comedy’s shameless pathetic self promotion (which is I felt is too much like masturbating to a mirror), it was great getting the word out about things in general within a community. While Myspace was too impersonal and broad, and too shitty difficult, Facebook was the next step in a very successful direction.

I’m not going to comment on the uses of Facebook because it has so many, it’s like a computer itself, it fills different functions within the realm you want to create. That’s what makes it so personal, it leaves it up to you, the individual, to decide what you see in it. You want to keep in touch with as many people in your industry as possible, more power to you, it’s just good business. You want to stalk attractive people, go for it, poke some hotties. You want to spread the word about some government injustice, fuck the man. Facebook is alot of things for different people, but the overlying purpose is this: keeping tabs on people, and allowing (or promoting, in my case) people keeping tabs on you. You could run the fucking NSA off Facebook. It knows favorite movies, address, phone numbers, places of work, groups belonged too, who you connected with. But more appealing factor is it gives a glimpse into your friends lives. You can see what people wrote to others, what event they’re planning on going to, what they have for nterests. That is insane, it’s never happened before, we are the first generation to know what it was like to not have total voyeurism be a staple in people’s lives. It is dangerous.

Whenever I hear people discuss the benefits of Facebook, which there are a few, but not many, the line “It’s so easy to stay in touch with old friends”. This is not a reason. It’s an excuse. If you are friends with someone you shouldn’t need another external means of communication with them because it’s friendship implies you would have without it. If you were so compelled about keeping this friendship you would connect with these “friends” by email or that old device the telephone (now with Facebook!). Old friends have been keeping in touch years before it, weening out the people who weren’t friends because they didn’t keep in touch and never mattered.  But now we know how to reach them, we can see what they’re doing, most times without even talking to them. Because how many old friends do we REALLY reach out to. This is antisocial. If anything we’re coming up with excuses not to talk because it’s all posted up on a website. Everything you need to know, every bit that’s going on in their life is on the website. So personal and so antisocial.

And we have arrived at the point of my essay, we are fostering the need to know what people are doing, over what people are thinking. We are losing appreciation for substance. The best example of this is Twitter.

Twitter, which I personally liked better when it was called “Facebook Status” is nothing but what is going on in that person’s life NOW. You can literally subscribe to a persons boring life news feed without all that “interest and favorite quote” bullshit that makes Facebook have substance. There is no substance of Twitter and yet we are captivated. We are idolizing the undeserving and obsessing over the unworthy and this is dangerous. Kids today have stopped caring about why others do, and more obsessed with what others do, they’d rather sit inside and do nothing but surf the wbe to see what others are doing.  It has become less about communication and more about voyeurism into people’s lives. The same goes for the celebrity magazines craze, reality TV and the paparazzi boom. It is in our nature to be curious in what people do. Isn’t that the first question we ask one another mundanely at parties “What do you do (in your spare time, for work, for fun)?” Being obsessed with lives is different, which this allows. And that is where the generation behind us differs. We are able to acknowledge that this is a huge sweeping phenomena that doesn’t need existence, but kids just now coming out of childhood born 1995 or higher won’t know that this is abnormal and weird.

Don’t get me wrong, ideas and communication need to be spread, that’s how philosophy, language, art and science has perpetuated itself. Over history, the human race has thrived on spreading the message through hieroglyphics, scrolls, Flintstones’ chiseled tablets, the printing press, radio etc.. This is an alluring modern medium of spreading thoughts, in concept alone. No one has an argument for liking Twitter to any of those means because the communication we use it for lacks substance. The notion that two random sentences have an impact on people is our biggest egotistical folly. Unlike those other ways of idea spreading, no one etched into the Pyramid wall “Hungover from last night, eagle spear dog-creature”. No one’s trying to say anything worthwhile with it, let’s face it, read those statuses messages or twits, and see how much of an impact those two lines have on your life. (the term “status message” was ridiculous because a message implies useful purpose). This is pure narcissistic self indulgent, Twittering (or Twits or twitties, or twats, what-fucking-ever). is more for the people writing them than it is for people receiving them. It’s a notion of putting them up there that says people must care what I’m doing.

The older you get the more willing you are to accept that there is a world outside your own. You are not the center of the universe. This isn’t the Truman Show, people exist on the other side of the world and are sweeping floors, working in an office, praying to a god. Just because you aren’t there, doesn’t mean that all doesn’t exist. There is so much going on to even notice you.

This self realization is a gradual climb. When you’re little, you look out a car window and see the moon following you. It is yours, these people in your life are there to know YOU. Being a teenager and the angst that follows isn’t so much being an asshead as it is the next stage of “Welcome to the grind chumps!”, You belong to a society that has rules. This is inevitably scary and is why teenagers act out. They don’t know how to handle functioning in a world that doesn’t start and stop with them. College is acceptance and understanding of what is happening to you, which is: “You’re on your own”. This is the last stop before people stop telling you what to do. Then you become an adult and realize you either settle down and jump into reality where hopefully you can make a difference, or you become and actor/actress and chase the hope that someday everyone will want to see you do things. Going with the latter, there’s Twitter. That proves to yourself are doing things seemingly worthwhile to mention but at the same time operating under the reality of people out there are also doing things which as I mentioned early, we are voyeuristic-ally obsessed.

Why do we like that voyeurism? What is it that brings us into it? Is it the reassurance of what we are personally doing is right if others do it? Is it that we are so self absorbed dealing with our own lives, seeing it through our eyes, that to see others do something without them knowing exactly who is watching justifies our lives. I can talk about that later, but I’d like your thoughts.

But what now? What’s next? Like in Body Snatchers, it’s too widespread and can’t be stopped. Like that invasion, humans aren’t destroyed or slaughtered, in fact they are protected mindless emotionless zombie people “living” their same lives without substance. Because “the lives are important not the individual”- to which a young Forrest Whitaker says “The individual is always important”. Our only hope is that this is a trend which will inevitably die out (most things lacking substance collapse on themselves, like disco and Cher). And while we can, we should always obsess over things that are worth it. When you clean the shit out of the way, you can walk freely.