8.07.2007

suicide is a strong word and my lemon sorbet is melting

It was just a hyperbole, the thing about virtual suicide, but it got some attention and my next question (apropos of that) is : Whose profile do you look at the most?
Because there’s something weird about wanting to look, something weirder about wanting to be looked at, and something even weirder about wanting to see how you’re being looked at.
I was at the Plough & Stars having a beer Thursday night and I asked my friend who’s not on Facebook, how come? She prefers to have more privacy, she said. And I nodded, because I wanted to hear all she had to say about it, but I couldn’t help hearing myself think what to me (and probably everyone here) is the obvious answer.
You don’t post anything you don’t want to make public. Better yet, you only post what you want to make public. (In theory you can restrict your public, but once it’s out there, it’s public, period).
There’s nothing more private than being an Internet exhibitionist. For me, at least, it’s been a long time since being on the Internet made me feel transparent. Vulnerability gave way very quickly to the thrill of watching a thick layer of "me-but-not-me" appear made of colors, words, pictures, fish tanks and whatever else you can add to your profile to make it just so.
Speaking of which, where are they coming from, all the little Facebook add-ons? I keep trying them out of curiosity, and maybe I’m just boring but they’re never as fun as they seem. I end up dropping them, just like cheap makeup from CVS – it just never comes through. (It melts in the heat or something, like my lemon sorbet.)
I suppose there’s a reason someone called software interfaces “skins”. A happy metaphor from my point of view, as I try to imagine that I’m not the only one who “dresses up” to go out and enjoy this virtual flânerie, this bizarre wanting to see and to be seen. What would Baudelaire think?

1 comment:

Andy said...

Maybe it's a form of cyber-hermitism, but i'm not on any online network, unless you count my floundering blog. What does that say, does that make me a technophobe or some sort of societal laggard. I really miss phone calls, when you could hear a human voice and attach emotion to it. Better yet, face-to-face interaction!