I don't know what it is about removing things from my life that I enjoy so much (maybe it's to counteract all of the girls that have removed me from theirs). Deletion is just fun. In the past week I have deleted over a thousand songs on iTunes and unfollowed some 40 people on Twitter; I regret none of it (though parting with Spice Girls' Wannabe wasn't one of the easier things I ever done). The internet age is allowing me to callously slip away from other people's lives (social networking lives, albeit) without them even knowing I'm gone. Never before has it been easier to obtain and maintain a fake friendship (high school girls, rejoice!), and I love it.
On top of this, I have unsubscribed from a countless number of Facebook friends. Unsubscribing is an unparalleled power; you retain a friend - they still see everything you post - but are never bothered with the friend's posts again and they'll be as unaware of this as I am about how much my blog sucks. Sometimes I'll find myself scrolling down my newsfeed for hours (thumbs up for hyperbole) tearing through profiles and realizing how little I care to see what some people have to say (unless you are attractive--then what you have to say is irrelevant), in which case I put the unsubscribe button to work. Often my reasoning for distancing myself is just (if you get 30 plus likes for posting some ludicrous statement on how boys will never love you but your cats will, then you're gone), but occasionally I get slightly carried away (if you ever offended me in elementary school, watch your back; I was sensitive then). I can find a reason to unsubscribe from anyone (don't think I'm joking, Mom!). Maybe I'll feel differently when my newsfeed consists solely of posts from my sister and the profile I made for my dog (keep on truckin', Baxter!). Until then, I'll keep unsubscribing until my real life friends go away too. It shouldn't be too long.
Now that you know the ropes on how to be a one sided friend, I have no doubt that you'll use these tools so that you never have to read anything I write again (more power to you). It's crucial that you understand the ins and outs of social networking (such as learning what symbols make a penis) before the machines take over and we all becomes slaves of the Matrix (I bet Keanu Reeves can grasp the importance of hashtagging "realtalk").
The end is near.
real deep bro. if myspace was still around. you be in my top 5. (;
ReplyDeleteI hear ya bro. I pruned through my FB friends a few weeks back and cut it down by a fifth. I basically adopt the rule that if I don't really know them, then there's not much point in being friends. The whole "friend of a friend's friend" thing doesn't fly too well with me. Every now and then I find someone I missed or someone I decide I can do without, and as the number of FB friends gets smaller, I start to feel a bit better. I'd rather have a few legitimate friends than an abundance of false ones. I inevitably go through phases where I just cease caring about social networking at all. I never bothered to make a twitter, and wasting time on facebook starts to lose it's luster after you've wasted enough time on it. Every now and then I just shut off facebook and leave my phone at home, and Life is surprisingly real for awhile. It's not like anyone texts me or posts on my wall with any kind of frequency anyways. It just feels like FB is a requirement for life nowadays, and whenver I leave I always seem to think that I'll be missing out on some event that I would otherwise have known about if I'd only checked facebook. This never really happens, but that's just how it goes. I'm not excited for what future generations will have to deal with as far as social networking goes. And to throw a little bit of the faith aspect in there- I think social networking is causing us to care a little too much about what the world thinks of us. All of this really just goes to say that I appreciated your post, and I really don't think it was a waste of my time. Thanks Jack.
ReplyDeleteYou're totally right, Chaven. Too much emphasis is put on something that really shouldn't matter. I appreciate the input!
ReplyDeleteSo many parenthesis. Regular sentences are way too mainstream.
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