Effective within 24hours I will be deleting my facebook account. I just had this sudden and clear vision of what facebook actually is, and I am just completely uninterested in continuing to participate. Id like to try to explain how I see it now. Imagine you, sitting at a computer, or hunched over a phone, or some device. Imagine what it looks like to the device. If you need help, turn on the camera. Look at your expressionless face. Maybe your eyes flick around, maybe you laugh at a cat video. Mostly, you just look. Thats the foundational imagery for the rest of this vision. So, youre sitting there, mostly expressionless, almost always completely still, hunched over. You click and read and click and read and click and read. You like something. Click read click read click read click read click read read click read click read read click read click read read click read click read read click read click read read click read click read, like, read click read click read read click read click read read click read click read read click read click read read click read click read read click read click read, like. Then, something catches the eye. A comment perhaps. Maybe you crinch your eyebrows, because the comment is douchey. Think, think think, type type, delete, type, delete, type. Type type type. Enter. Your comment is made. Then you wait. One notification. Two. A million! Yay for me. I win facebook! OR, sometimes, douchey comments come back, and then you comment again. And again. And again. Or, you dont comment, or like, because you dont want that stuff out there on the internet. You use facebook like a ghost. You just click and read, scroll, scroll, scroll, click, read, click, scroll, click, read, scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click. This whole time you look like the expressionless face from the beginning. Scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click scroll scroll scroll read read click. This is called creeping. Then, youre out in the analog world, doing things. You do this and that, this and that. You take a picture, a selfie, a groupie, a photo, some kind of thing. You post it. You do things, and stuff, and things and stuff, and you think, should I post this? No, not this. Yes, post this. Not that, yes this. Maybe even sometimes you dont do some thing for real because you wouldnt post it, and you do some thing for real only because you could and should and would post it. Or maybe all the things you do you do without even considering that facebook has anything to do with anything. Then, later, you just post stuff. But I doubt it. Then theres new people you dont know. I dont even need to describe this part. Throughout all of these actions and thoughts, imagine facebook like a little ribbon of blue and white, intricately laced through your life in ways youre not even aware of. If you need a little more help visualizing this, go into the facebook search, and search your name, your likes, your comments. Its all there. Every single like, comment, share, post, status, all of it. Its all there, like cave art, or graffiti, or a hall of records for everything from the completely inane motivational meme that no one saw because they unfollowed you after nine thousand shares in one day, to the intimate, painful, desperate post you made some night alone somewhere five years ago. Its all there. The purpose of art and writing is to immortalize imagery and ideas. Facebook immortalizes every keystroke. Every keystroke I have ever made on facebook is not art and not worth immortalizing. Facebook is not my art. Im much better at other things. I am much more interested in other things. I have one more thing to say. I used to value my newsfeed. Highly. For the last two years I have learned an incredible amount, an amount of data rivaled only by the amount of data I cannot remember. I have followed and friended some very interesting people, and I have learned from them. I ate this shit up over and over, for days and months and years, click scroll read etc. Expressionless face. Eyes flicking this way and that. Mind racing. Now it all sounds the same. I have hit peak facebook learning and am now experiencing diminishing returns. I must put twice the amount of time into facebook to get half the benefit. And Im having trouble thinking new things. As all of you know, I am a Political Facebook User. I use this medium to share things share things share things I want you to know too I want you to know too I want you to know too, and for some time I am not thinking of any new ideas. Not one. I have a highly developed and refined framework of analysis and expression by which I experience the world, and I am tired of this loop. I am an expert in seeing what exactly the all problems with everything are. I want to solve them all. But I know that Einstein or some other genius said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, or something like that. Maybe it was the idea that the same thinking that created the problems to begin with can provide the solution. This semester I am taking wildly different classes than I have before, and I have unfollowed all of my fb friends who post articles about this and that, new stories, all of it. I want a new idea. Just one. I want to have an original thought. Just one. Maybe it will lead to more. But now, my head is an echo chamber of unoriginality. Before, or, actually, right when I started facebook, I was a poet. I liked that. Then, I became more and more into the facebook, and then I became a student. Soon I was no longer a poet. Now I am a boring, boring man who has spent a very very long time on facebook and who has not written a poem for a year. I cant quit the school, but I can quit the facebook. Im going to give it a semester. And if I dont become interesting again, I will quit the school too. Or switch to an art major of some kind, because I know for sure that strictly intellectual things like facebook or academia will not solve the problems of the world. I dont know. ANyways, Im out of here, and not coming back, because you can request that facebook permanently delete your business. Thats what I want. All of it gone. I want my time back. I want my mind back. I want to unravel the blue and white thread that has tangled itself within and without of every single aspect of my life for the last seven years. If you want me to contact you, or to be able to, please personal message me an email address or phone number. Im gonna go dark forever tomorrow. Thanks for everything. w.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 02:52:50 +0000
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