Goodbye Facebook

Tonight I have decided to delete my Facebook.

Now, as your mind fills with thoughts of how insane and ridiculous that is, I hope you have one little tiny afterthought - Is it ridiculous that you find it that ridiculous? Now, I'm generalizing. If you don't think it's ridiculous, or stupid, then, umm... thanks! I am proud to join what I can only imagine is the very, very small percentage of 20-year-olds (soon to be 21!) that don't have a Facebook. 

I'm following the footsteps of my two best friends. One has deleted theirs, one has deactivated it. And there is a difference. It is possible to delete it (google: permanently delete Facebook. It's the first link (not that I'm encouraging you to do the same (I mean, unless you want to, then go for it!))). And I only mention that because, well, they did it first. 

Before deleting it, I went through my pictures and my inbox. It's kind of insane. Not to mention that I could find weeks of reading if I decided to go through wall-to-walls. I could literally map out entire relationships I had with people down to the minute. 

Actually, now that I mention it, I think that's one of the things that really did it for me - the 'view friendship' option. I mean, really? Wall-to-wall was creepy enough. And I will be the first to admit that I've creeped my fair share of wall-to-walls - this is another reason I'm getting rid of it. But 'view friendship'... you can see conversations people have had, pictures people are in together, things they're mutually tagged in, friends in common, likes in common... I mean, those are all the things you could know if you were, like, actually friends with them! But I mean, that takes effort...

Back to the insanity of memory lane. I remember resisting Facebook at the beginning - I was such a wise young lad... And the reason I gave in? March Madness. My friends decided to run the March Madness bracket through Facebook that year, because, after all, Facebook meets all needs. I mean, farmer's can stay inside now! And mafia bosses can do their dirty work online instead of actually killing people... So it is doing some good. Although I'm sure the farmers miss the fresh air... Anyways, I wanted to save pictures I liked and inbox threads that held some emotional value before it all dissolved into the abyss, and as I went through them there was this little part of me that felt I was cheating my memory. I could just picture my memory looking at me in the face and going, "Am I not enough for you? Don't you remember what happened, don't you remember how you felt? And if you can't, don't you think there's a reason?" And, I had no comeback for my memory. I hope I'm remembering that conversation correctly...

There's a scene from the movie "Easy A" where a teacher is talking to the protagonist - "I don't know what your generation's fascination is with documenting your every thought." I actually think this movie is a brilliant commentary on another unfortunate habit our generation has fallen into, but, that's for another day... But, I love that quote. The idea of documenting everything. And not only for ourselves, but for everybody else to see, and, let's be honest, that's the important part...

My first strike against Facebook was removing my wall, something that outraged many people. But people could still send me messages. This way, I figured that if someone wanted to send me something, they could, which would make them happy, but it wouldn't be available to 500+ other people, which would make me happy. Now, for all the complaints I got about not being able to write on my wall, I got one message. Now that I find fascinating. It's like sending something via Facebook was no longer worth it if it didn't get broadcasted, if other people couldn't see it. And trust me, I'm not taking it personally. I am very confident in my relationship with each person this came up with. But the reality is, the point of interacting on Facebook is to show the rest of the (Facebook) world that you're... sociable. "I have friends. I write on their walls. Look at this picture - we're both smiling. Oh look at this one - we're both drunk! Look my friend liked what I said to my other friend!" Sharing an inside joke on someone's wall is more about letting everyone else know you have an inside joke. I mean, sure, it's about the joke a little bit... But there's this mini-rush when you post something on someone's wall and know that hundreds of people will read it, within the next couple of hours no less, and not have a clue what it means. It's boasting a friendship. Luckily, Facebook is kind enough to let the people who do know what it means to "like" it, or comment on it. Which again, is more about letting other people know that you're in on the joke than anything else...

I mean take the very early days of Facebook, what was the goal? Friend count... "I have mad friends, and everybody can see how many friends I have"... Thank you sexual predators for ending that competition, am I right? (too soon?). Then that became childish because people started to realize that made it obvious. What else could boasting about friend counts mean if not caring about what impression your "page" gave to others. Yet, pretty much every interaction on Facebook serves the same purpose, just much more discretely. At it's root, crafting a Facebook page is trying to craft an envy within all the people who (Facebook) stalk your life. And I think this is mostly subconscious, although, also a lot of times not... But I would say that most Facebook activity is driven by the desire to make people jealous of your life. Then again, that's just life... Facebook just makes it really easy to do, and increases productivity as you can make hundreds of people jealous all at once. It's actually just really brilliant.

And what's up with Facebook birthdays? To be fair, I'm fully aware that I have a very unique view on birthdays in general. I think they're weird... Why am I being celebrated? If anybody should be celebrated on the day I was born, it should be my mother... (again, for another day). But, the number of people who interact twice a year by writing two words on each others walls is... well, I think... interesting. I've had a friend wish one of my other friends a happy birthday on Facebook, who have never met, and only know of each other because I am their mutual friend. That just feels weird...

Can I get deeply psychological real quick? If you don't care, just skip this paragraph... But I think the brilliant entrepreneurs of this world have tapped into our generation's need to leave a mark. To feel important. To feel accomplished. Again, not only in our eyes, but in the eyes of the (Facebook) world. They've tapped into our generation's appreciation for the simplicity of superficial relationships. Calm down, I'm not suggesting that every friendship on Facebook is superficial. But if you don't think Facebook is the gateway to superficial relationships, seriously, comment on this post, and I'll sit down with you and your friend list and prove you wrong. Facebook is a way to answer so many "big life questions". 'What am I doing with my life?', 'Who are my closest friends?', 'Why are they my closest friends?', 'What is important to me; my interests, my activities?'... It's all there! Documented down to the minute, with comments of how other people feel about it and a list of people who like it. 

K, stepping back. This post runs the risk of coming off grossly condescending. Which, would be awful. I understand I'm the odd one, and am perfectly ok with that. There are a lot of people who would agree with everything I've said, and still use it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There are a lot of fantastic reasons to use Facebook. It's a great medium for great friends to interact, regardless of the reason. I really believe that. I'm not going to list all the wonderful uses of Facebook, cause that would fast-track this post to really, really boring. Instead of just, you know, boring? But I've realized that I rarely use Facebook to interact with my closest friends, and usually just find myself mindlessly browsing other peoples lives. And that's creepy. At least I think so. I also think that finding things out about people I care about on Facebook rather than from the person directly takes something away from the friendship. It cheapens the intimacy. At least, that's just how I feel, I don't think everybody feels that way, or should feel that way. But that's how I feel. I think if something important happens to someone important to me, they should tell me. But saying it through Facebook makes it less "self-centered." Does anybody else feel that way? That it's weird to update someone for the sake of updating someone because you think they'll think you think you're so important that they NEED to know about it. If they don't want to know, you just must not be that close. That's how I feel about it... And then ultimately, I would love to render my friendships free of being creeped on. No offense to all of you who have been creeping. Well, maybe some of you, offense...

Most of you who follow my blog learn about my new posts via my Facebook page. So this 'Goodbye Facebook' post is mostly to serve as an announcement that if my blog is something of interest to you (which if it is, thank you kindly) you will need to follow it in other ways. There's a way to follow it through blogger, which I think is pretty easy, especially if you have a blog of your own. The other thing you could do is sign up to my twitter feed, cause I will also be tweeting my blog posts - @jeremyscanlon. Thanks for reading. I love you all. Peace out.