Social Networking Sites

Something always hurts: you slept funny, nagging shoulder pain, an old sports injury, the knees perhaps, or crackly creaky joints, maybe tension in the neck or recurrent headaches, unfortunate sunburn, sneezing and coughing, chronic canker sores, sciatica, hemorhoids, blue balls, various scratches, bites, scabs, blisters, fissures, just a flesh wound, gonorrhea, stomach cancer. Then there’s pressure, stress, social anxiety, bills to pay, money troubles, lines to wait on, there’s heartache, longing, nostalgia, regret, sexual dysfunction, resentment, or ressentiment, rage, humiliation, rejection, ennui, fear and loathing, angst, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders, manic-depression, night terrors, cold sweats, dark nights of the soul, nihilism, atheism, paranoia, imprisonment, despair. You have “issues” or a “condition,” or a “situation.” There are “demands,” or “deadlines,” or “negotiations,” or “charges.” Like Rosanne Rosanadana used to say, “it’s always something. if it’s not one thing, it’s another.” Sometimes your fucking internet connection is down.

If you depend on a social networking site like Facebook to feel like you are part of the world, your sense of community is instantaneously dismantled when there is technological failure. The tenuousness of the bonds established, renders them virtually nonexistent. Without Mother Electricity there is no association. The plug is pulled and the world dies. To the world, you die. You cease to exist in the global village if the power grid shuts down. You must regress back to the terrifying mode of meat and metal, back to the unmitigated prison of the organism and gravity. Guys like Marshall McLuhan and Timothy Leary (et al.) in their spectacular analyses of the evolution of the consciousness of mankind, often discussed the relocation of the central nervous system in the electric age. In the electronic era with our dependancy on cyberspace our situation can seem as fragile as that of a junky, whose defining characteristic is Having One Need Only, being suddenly dropped say, into the heart of the jungle, left to fend for himself sans dope. Heroin sucks only when it stops working, when the balance scales topple, when the negative consequence index rockets past the positive, when the point of diminishing returns hits critical mass, when after that last dirty cock you have to suck is pulled from your bruised drooling mouth dripping with strange jism and burped up bile, that long awaited shot, oh to be so sweet, injected behind a dumpster, does not produce the expected reward of euphoric oblivion. When, like if you believe in reincarnation, even the nod (~death) is not an escape….The horror…the horror.

Friendster, My Space, Facebook; the trend disgusts me. Mind you, I find the smells and sights and sounds of most humans up close to be repulsive. Disembodied social transactions would seem a welcome invention considering my bent. Commercial phone sex is one thing, but, like Brick from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, I despise mendacity. And meaningful exchanges with other humans require proximity to flesh and blood systems. I want to see a person’s eyes. I want to have the possiblity for physical gesture. I want to hear a person’s voice. I want to share an environment and respond concurrently to the same area of spacetime while we’re comingling. My minimal participation in social networking websites is a residue of peer influence, like the certain expectations one has to meet in society in order to be considered a reasonable accepted member. Despite the meme that tells people to respect differences, that we’re all unique and special, and diversity is to be appreciated, you’re considered bizarre, way out on the fringe, suspicious even, if you don’t have an email address for example, or a cell phone. Texting is a communication form nowadays taken for granted. I hate receiving a mass text, spam from individuals who call themselves my friend or even social or business acquaintance, reducing me to a number on a list. You want my attendance at your event? Invite me personally, I say. Otherwise it’s too transparent that you’re only thinking of your door count, of packing the house or whatever---hey, problems I understand---but then don’t disingenuously tell me how glad you are that I, specifically, showed up to bear witness, like my unique presence is special to you. It’s cowardly, and it makes me think you’re a Shit and not a Johnson.
Used to be your band got a gig and wanted to let everyone know so you lovingly hand-made a sick flyer, had it xeroxed, and had to go around town wheatpasting all night. It was an integral part of the process. And another possibilty for Art.

I’m well aware that the bulk of time spent on Facebook or My Space is by those people who are chained to desks as cogs in the corporate machine. I fully appreciate the desperate need for any diversion or distraction to escape the reality of a clock ticking away your life down the toilet for a paycheck. As a bonus, like stealing office supplies, you tell yourself that you’re really sticking it to The Man when you should be working.

It’s cowardice that makes these means of interacting so appealing. It’s safe to interact from the protective comfort of your computer. You can break the contact instantaneously. You can hide your body, your face. You present yourself to the world as a webpage, as orchestrated words and graphics. Images and sounds you didn’t even create can be used to prop up your identity. You reduce yourself to an advertisment, a multimedia presentation. And you only have to deal with others as far as their little electronic sideshows go. You can have the illusion of showing up without the burden of actually showing up. You can tweak your response to life before you give it. You take control of your own publicity.

When I first got pulled onto Friendster many years ago, I liked seeing what a few actual friends wrote about me in the comments. I responded in kind. It was like a meeting of the mutual admiration society. It seemed intimate and legitimate. An exchange of inside jokes when you can’t sleep, it’s 3 AM and it’s snowing. Now I have this Facebook page and I get requests clogging up my mailbox from people I don’t know wanting to be added as “friends.” For what? Even the requests from people who are vaguely familiar, friend of a friend of a friend, what’s the point? Let’s start with a real interaction instead of a vague abortion in this incomplete arena. It’s often difficult to interpret the tone of electronic messages. Especially when everyone is habitually ironic. If we aren’t already familiar, it’s impossible to know what’s really going on. I make the mistake frequently of sending out messages impulsively only to drive myself insane with regret and tormented speculation of how it was received, especially agonizing when there is no reply at all.

Every man an island.
The internet is the gateway to fantasy.
Nodes and ties. 10 sephira and 22 paths.
An infinty of permutations.
When the sperm meets the egg.
Still, in the end we’re all left naked and alone.

I don’t like the way it’s something rather meaningless that nonetheless I feel like I have to maintain. The keeping-up-with-the-jones’ spirit seems inherent in the design. Bourgeois bullshit. I have to feel inadequate if my friend count is low--thus many are tempted into adding anybody they can get. What if I don’t wish to waste precious time honing my HTML skills and customizing my page within inches of its life---simultaneously bragging of my own computing power while challenging the bandwith capacities of my visitors, i.e. size queen shade: if you can’t load this page….

When 9/11 went down, everyone in the neighborhood gathered in the park instinctually. The sense of connection and community was terrific.
Before we were all wired up, people knew where to find each other every day in the streets. You could count on it. On the other hand, your choices were limited, your potential for exposure to new ideas and people required you to work harder. And if you really wanted to get in touch with somebody you haven't seen since grade school, it meant a serious commitment. Google, You Tube, Wikipedia, Craigslist. Sort shit out in your underpants with a cup of coffee.

Hey man, that used to mean something very different.

The Meatpacking District sure has changed!

What the fuck,
No matter what, there’s always the risk of betraying yourself.