Dear Facebook:
I love you so.
You give me access to others’ lives without the slightest effort. You couple my natural aversion to people with my rabid curiosity about their most mundane thoughts. I’m just a personality without you. You complete me.
If you were a cafe, I’d visit you twice a day to buy nothing and eavesdrop on celebrity DJs. I’d go on some idiot rant and then retract it immediately, and nobody would know the difference. I’d tape photos on your walls and wait for someone to approach them, then casually walk up and record the sound of their phlegmy snickering.
I’d take my girlfriend to a Facebook restaurant, and we’d just shout “We’re in a relationship! You like that?” as we entered.
Like six people would give us a thumbs up. We’d order steaks made from organic FarmVille beef and drink goblets of socially alienated tears.
Then we’d go to the Facebook club, with pounding house music and flashing lights. We’d self-satisfy ourselves into a stupor, and when an annoying acquaintance approached us, we’d just disappear into thin air. We’d create a private event that only the two of us could RSVP to.
How beautiful life would be if Facebook manifested itself as reality.
On the other hand, it could be a shit-storm. And I mean that in the most literal sense. It could be a whirling vortex of shit, where souls are sucked from their earthly vessels and condensed into an obsidian flash drive. It could be the most ingenious information-harvesting resource of all time, with its subjects willingly participating in their own sacrifice of privacy.
Either way, I’d be interested to find out. What if Facebook were reality? What if you suddenly saw all the people watching you? What if they were in your room, flipping through your diary and passing around pictures of your mom? Then there would be a problem. A problem that only digital anonymity could fix.
And that’s why Facebook exists: It gives us the space to learn about each other without having to react immediately, so that you can choose your words wisely, and make sure you don’t make a fool of yourself. It’s having the option to be whoever you want to be, if only for a moment.
I implore you — be the person you’ve always wanted to be and live the life you wish. On Facebook.
