I tried Twitter, it’s clearly THE antisocial network … but Facebook is THE relationship illusion.
Here’s what I did: – for well over a week I tried to get some response, indeed ANY response from Twitters (what do we call ourselves on Twitter? Twits? Tweets? Twerps? Tweeters? Twankers?).. I asked questions, threw out inflammatory statements, insulted here and there … and, …. no response – well, one or two responses at most, but statistically these were negligible.
My sad conclusion: Twitter is for the pseudo-relational who seem only interested in wanting to post their own statements and links (and some never seem to say anything from personal opinion but only post links – perhaps to portray that they are well read and conversant with media issues – ?) and simply seem not at all interested in any form of meaningful personal interaction other than loving the sound of their own fingers ticking away at the keyboard and the ensuing exhilarating, almost orgasmic sensation of hearing their own ‘tweet’ resounding in the canyons of their own mind as they repeat it back to themselves when they ‘proof-read’ their own brilliance. You know what I mean, … sort of much like masturbation, really only totally self indulgent with no possibility of or any desire for fruitfulness.
On a positive note though, it is an interesting tool to gather info that otherwise would take hours of surfing and research – like the news feed tweets and a very few humerous Twits(?) who from time to time add a stimulating and even challenging angle on things. My sincere thanks to those few – but you probably will never know who you are as the nature of the beast is what it is.
Also, if you’re a ‘fan’ type of person I do suppose you can feel perhaps profoundly and wonderfully stimulated by following the meandering escapades of some pop persona of your fantasy … but I have yet to hear a convincing argument against my view that this is equally no more than masturbation and desperate ‘soft-porn’ voyeurism of a tragically sad nature. It may well be worth considering getting a life for yourself instead of living yours through that of some other person. Perhaps it’s also wiser to go through one’s own underwear before rummaging through that of others.
Facebook however, is not really much better and seems determined to re-evolve (perhaps the better word would be de-evolve) into a purely telemarketing tool sans the telephone … ‘mongrelized’ (don’t look it up – I made the delightful word up myself) with an email spam and phishing scam sans the normal private/business email account. This serves only to brutally confront any who might use the network sincerely wanting to interact relationally with other humans into being distracted under siege by flashing windows querying whether they would like to join an online dating or singles club, or making one think if the clothes they are wearing whilst typing in the privacy of their own little nest are fitting with the latest fashions and adequately insured for all risks in the unlikely event of them ever meeting one of their ‘friends’ face-to-face.
The only significant advantage in Facebook for me is that it perhaps seems to allow more interaction (albeit not necessarily that much more, but more nevertheless). For me the interactions and exchanges on updates and notes, pictures and comments are arguably well worth it. Not really personal contact, but interesting and engaging.
What both share in common is the caressing stroke they seem to play to the ego’s of most subscribers especially those who seem to be high on the “friends” tally. However, at the bottom of this pile are those who can claim to be a friend of someone they deem significant even if they never will meet them (and if they did the ‘celebrity’ would clearly have no time nor concern for them anyway). But for the hopefuls who do still wish to climb socially in life … at the top of this same pile there is the ubber elite who can insert “full” after their page names having exceeded that mystical 5000 friends tally and then occupy themselves by spending the rest of their waking time redirecting the imaginary millions of other “friends” they are convinced will immanently want to flood in and sign up to be their intimate ‘companions’ to another “fan” page of theirs. All I can say on behalf of the multitudes of defaced bookers is, “O’ Great Poo-Bah(s), we, the lowly, are unworthy, mere mortals … please forgive us for we know not what to do to gather like you.”
On Twitter it is not uncommon to see Twitters(?) ‘following’ ga-zillions of others only to be followed by few – my heart goes out to them. Sneakily, as part of my ‘experiment’ I deliberately never returned the favour of ‘following’ some who decided to ‘follow’ me (seemingly one of those unspoken universal rules of Twitterville) and they soon stopped ‘following’ me then … Hmmmm??
Cynical old me!! … after all that is the spirit of marketing in our ever so evolved civilised capitalist social system, is it not? – “you scratch my back, I’ll stab yours.”
Neither Facebook nor Twitter are social networks for me. They are base and insensitive marketing platforms taking advantage of the emptiness of relationships in our modern societies and majoring on the new age currencies of narcissism, political power and economic profit.
So, for me both are really “look-at-me” opportunistic tools … no more and no less … only perhaps Facebook has, along with it’s fractionally more interactive potential, the negative side of actively aiding and abetting distinctly more predators to prowl around, starting with Mr Zuckerberg et al and branching quickly (and exponentially) out to all the hungry 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier predatory advertisers – making Facebook, extremely wealthy ultimately at their own and eventually everyone else’s expense.
