How Facebook Killed America
The Russians think we are a nation of idiots. I think they may have a case.
We are supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. We actually used to be those things ...in the before time. Our freedoms were hard fought and won because we were brave and we longed to be free. I’m using the term “we” linguistically to mean we as a collective nation, knowing full well that many of us are not brave, and fearing that many of us may indeed be idiots. Maybe me as well.
Today, however, in the now time, we don’t have to actually be brave or free, or fearless or cool, or smart or even an idiot if that is your preference. You don’t have to be anything, you just have to say it, and you can verify it by showing it on the social medium of Facebook. With Facebook, you can present yourself any way you want.
You can fake it to make it.
So, let’s call it “Fakebook” because you are not only faking out yourself and your friends, but they are faking you out as well. And even if you are not faking it, you may be showing more of your cards than you want to. This is where the idiot thing comes in, and remember, the Russians are watching.
Fakebook gives you the opportunity to present a rosy, wonderful portrait of your otherwise mundane, pathetic actual life. It’s kind of like an estimated or scheduled arrival time versus the actual arrival time, or an advertised or estimated cost versus the actual cost. You’re living on the fake high of what could be, might be, but seldom ever is. The actual is usually a surprising reality whereas the advertisement or estimate is a softer, nicer, easier pill to swallow, like you.
But then, I will admit there are the actual benefits of Fakebook. You can show your friends your food. Your cat wearing a funny hat. Your foot. You can show friends and family that you are having a wonderful time at Disneyland, because it looks like you actually are ...and you probably are, actually. It certainly looks that way from the few seconds of the the photo or video recording of the event. But the time you are taking with your Fakebook and iPhone recording everything, you may be missing the actual event in the real time of it. That time actuality is lost forever, forfeited to the annals of your Fakebook page ...for everyone else to enjoy ...which was your purpose to begin with.
I think we are witnessing an evolutionary process here in the great scheme of human events that will go down in history. Umm, please excuse that ridiculously redundant and rhetorical last sentence statement, I think it may even be onomatopoeia. I meant it to be surreptitiously funny. It’s like Yoga Berra saying, “It’s like deja-vu all over again.”
Be that as it all may, about the Disneyland trip, or the trip to Cabo, or Paris, wherever, it’s the total experience of the actual trip that counts. Photos and video recordings are fun and precious moments in time saved, they always have been and always will be, but the things you don’t see on Facebook or record on your iPhone are personal moments to be savored. The nutty cab driver to the airport, the mis-booked room, the leaky toilet at the hotel, the car problems, losing your wallet (or iPhone), kids driving you crazy. A kiss on the beach at sunset. Those are all for you. Not just for your memory, but for your psyche, your soul and spirit. It’s for who you, and you alone, are in the universe, and who you will be. Share these moments with your friends if you like, but also savor them for yourself because they won’t happen again for you to experience and enjoy in real time, and your Fakebook page ain’t the same thing.
Facebook is not the real world. It’s a fake world. You can’t trust it. Or, looking at it from the other perspective, which isn’t any good news either, in my opinion, it is the real world. It’s who you personally, “we” collectively, really are. Frivolous, foolish, fun-loving Americans at play...and play ..and play.
Just remember, the Russians are watching, and loose lips sink ships.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-george-kushma-379a5762
http://newsbout.com/a/John+Kushma
