Pope Goes #29
nobody wants to be the Pope’s facebook friend
here’s the thing about facebook
So, it’s come down to it. You and I have become facebook friends. Good times.
(Or it’s possible that I’m sending this to you as an explanation of why we won’t be facebook friends. In that case: my condolences.)
That said, let me explain a little something about how I view facebook and, really, how you should view it, too.
- Facebook was created for people, not the other way around. I have no devotions or obligations to facebook. (The fact that I don’t capitalize it in this post shows how seriously I refuse to take it.) I use facebook because it amuses me and is an easy way to share content with friends and acquaintances. Which leads me to the second point…
- The term “friend” as it’s used on facebook is completely arbitrary. When Mark Zuckerberg made facebook, he could have chosen “contact” or “connection” or “glarnk” but he chose “friend” because it makes you feel more driven to have your life center around his site. But I look at facebook friends as the abstract concepts that they are. If somebody is my friend in real life, but they’re not my facebook “friend”, guess what? We’re still friends. Which leads me to my third point…
- At some point, I may delete you. It’s nothing personal, I promise. I’ve even deleted family members. I once had close to 500 facebook friends, but I had a moment of digital zen, after which I embarked on an almost year-long facebook holocaust, in which I cut my friends list down to 150. There was a while where I was deleting over 15 people a week. And you know what? It felt wonderful! And the time I spend on facebook is now streamlined so that I get right to what I want, and then I’m done. I don’t have to scroll very far before I get to stuff I’ve already seen. I highly recommend going on a facebook genocide of your own. Now, the reason I delete people isn’t necessarily because I don’t like them, or because I’m offended by them, or even because I think they have nothing to say. I delete them because…
- Facebook is there for my amusement. For my purposes, that is the role facebook does and should play. Facebook is where I go to hear and say funny things and share stuff that I like with like-minded friends. That’s not to say that I surround myself with sycophantic yes-men, because damn do I like a good argument (to which my “friends” will all attest), but what I’m saying is that if whatever I’m doing, reading, seeing, saying, or watching on facebook isn’t fun, then why the hell am I doing it? It’s not like I’m getting paid to be on here. Facebook is already wasting my time, and if that wasted time isn’t spent being amused, then it’s doubly wasted. So, if I delete you, it’s not because I don’t like you (though that’ll get you deleted too), but more likely because one or more of the following is true: you never post anything, you don’t amuse me (as a facebooker; I might still think you’re hilarious in real life), or you talk a lot about things that I don’t care about and don’t want clogging up my feed……….. or I don’t like you. Ha! The bottom line is that I now have an absolute maximum of 125 facebook friends. If I need to add a 126th, someone is getting deleted to make room. Be aware of this.
- Before you even say it, Yes, I am aware that I can hide people from my feed. But to me, that defeats the purpose of sharing my facebook experience with them at all. In real life, you’re a person to me. But on facebook, as far as I’m concerned, you are a content source. And if you’re not producing content that I want to consume, what are you still doing there? Remove the filler and get to the good stuff. That’s what I say.
- I’m going to warn you now, at the onset of our facebook “friendship,” that I sometimes use some salty language. It is my personal belief that all the biblical cusses (i.e. hell, ass, damn, and bastard) aren’t even really cusses, and that context (both contextual seriousness and contextual hilarity) determines the propriety of every other cuss. Furthermore, I sometimes post videos or songs that have much stronger language than I myself use. If that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to delete me. We’ll still be friends IRL.
- And finally, one last warning. And this is really something that you should know about me if you’re adding me as a friend on Facebook. I’m a pretty outspoken guy. I don’t sugarcoat things. I don’t usually use euphemisms. In fact, I’ll often use dysphemisms. (Yeah, look it up. It’s a word. It’s an awesome word.) I speak colorfully, which doesn’t mean that I cuss every other word (which is pretty monochrome if you ask me), but rather it means that I never shy away from descriptive imagery in my language, whether I’m talking about nice things or unpleasant things. It’s just not in my nature. I have a flair for hyperbole and a penchant for playing devil’s advocate. I like to stir the pot. My best advice is to get over that now.
But if you don’t, hey, it’s ok. I have a delete button on my end too and an itchy trigger finger. My original goal with the facebook bloodbath was to get down to 100, so any chance to get a little closer to that is a welcome thing. It’s survival of the funniest on my friends list. Human beings aren’t mentally and emotionally wired to be friends with hundreds of people, so feel free to make things a little more natural for me.
Does this make me a crass and heartless person? Maybe, but probably not. If I’ve added you, that means you know me in real life, so you probably know that this isn’t the case. Does this make me a mean person? Kind of, but hey, if you’re wanting to be my facebook “friend” then you probably already find this fact amusing. And if not, don’t worry. That error will be correcting itself shortly.
P.S. There’s always Twitter!
