Facebook is so strange, when you stop and think — so unlike anything we knew in pre-FB life. I’ve been trying to come up with an analogy for social networking, if it were a “real” thing.
How’s this? You decide to send out invitations to every person you’ve ever known to a huge party. The several hundred invitees include Mrs. Steinmetz, your elderly second-grade teacher; your best friend from overnight camp in 1970, Fat Jerome; your barber, your sister, a sarcastic co-worker you could not stand in your last job, your ex; a Ghanan guy in Halifax named Akwetee whom you’re not sure you know but who is asking to be at the party; and all of your former bosses, including one who sort of fired you. The guests arrive and you nod at some, and not at others. Immediately without objection they take places on stepstools arranged around the circumference of your home. From then on, they are always there, sometimes watching you but sometimes totally ignoring you, at times talking to other guests on other stepstools and at times peering out the window. The party goes on and on but 99.9% of the time you aren’t talking to your guests, they are just there on their stools. Once in a blue moon, you get mad at a guest — either he says something rude or you just feel bad that there is too much silence — and you suddenly lift him up with his stepstool and throw him out the door. You might invite him back later on, though. Sometimes your guests do talk, but they fairly often say things like, “I am eating Van Camp’s Beans” or they may tell a joke and then say “laugh out loud” but you can’t hear any laughing. You might nod at their remarks but 98% of the time you just stare ahead and walk quickly by them. Even though the house is really crowded, from time to time you move new guests indoors, including even more you don’t really know or barely recall. Other homes may have more guests on more stools, and this makes you sad. You do want to entertain your guests and you play music for them, put photos and artwork up, scrawl funny political slogans on the walls, and maybe even project short films that they might fancy. You wave interesting news articles in front of them. They may thank you, but not usually, and in your heart you weren’t really thinking many would, anyway.
In dark moments you tell yourself the party isn’t fun anymore. But all your friends are still there. The best you can do is get out of the house for fresh air, though if you stay away too long you feel like a street person without a house at all. You go hurrying back.
Facebook is the oddest invention known to mankind.
