How Facebook Deleted My Ass
It was a quiet night at our new place. The drama was nil to zero. Or maybe it was high with the relocation and decision to quit Experiment Haywire. One may never remember. Yet I still had my Facebook network didn’t I? 5000 friends to talk to from all over the world. Every post I made sparked debate among the freaks among the freaks. I’d met over 1000 of these beautiful people in real life. I was the connection to The Disconnected. I was the Queen of Antisocial Media! I worked pretty damn hard for my empire of dirt. I was Rachel Haywire. Or was I?
I signed onto Facebook to look at the latest Transhuman Separatist happenings. Behold! Suspended account! Warning! Chaos! Annihilation! Extermination! Decay! At least Charlie Sheen is winning right? That should fix everything. Charlie Sheen is winning!
What had I done now? Was she at it again? Was he at it again? Maybe all of my hate-stalkers had met in one place and decided to fake-report my account simultaneously. The world may never know. Yet were my hate-stalkers really the problem here? What controversial public figure doesn’t have hate-stalkers? Isn’t it the job of the nice people at Facebook to decide when they get reports that are bogus trolling attempts?
Apparently not. Facebook would much rather spend their time targeting ads at their users (I’ve literally shown up in a picture of an ad that was targeting me) than making sure that the reports they receive are actual reports. My friends were texting me with urgent information from people who could only reach me through Facebook. The emo kids were asking me why I deleted them in tears of digital regret. The industrial kids were laughing at the epic stomping of my public persona. Yet I just wanted to check my Facebook email.
It appears that I was deleted for impersonating Rachel Haywire. Impersonating myself. Is this some existential hipster comedy here? Self impersonation. Is this an occult exercise to rid oneself of the digital ego? Even on Myspace (the shit of the shit) my identity was perma-verified.
Suddenly it hit me. I had been placing way too much importance on Facebook. I had so many contacts who I could only reach through that website. Pictures that I would never be able to get back again. Moderator privileges. Why was I living my life on Facebook? Maybe it was good that they deleted my ass. There were other places to go. One of them was outside and another one of them was Twitter.
I see it now. I finally see it. There is a world outside of Facebook and it is a beautiful world full of new potential. Facebook is a digital Disneyworld. AOL 2.0. They will delete your ass. They deleted mine.
I signed onto Facebook to look at the latest Transhuman Separatist happenings. Behold! Suspended account! Warning! Chaos! Annihilation! Extermination! Decay! At least Charlie Sheen is winning right? That should fix everything. Charlie Sheen is winning!
What had I done now? Was she at it again? Was he at it again? Maybe all of my hate-stalkers had met in one place and decided to fake-report my account simultaneously. The world may never know. Yet were my hate-stalkers really the problem here? What controversial public figure doesn’t have hate-stalkers? Isn’t it the job of the nice people at Facebook to decide when they get reports that are bogus trolling attempts?
Apparently not. Facebook would much rather spend their time targeting ads at their users (I’ve literally shown up in a picture of an ad that was targeting me) than making sure that the reports they receive are actual reports. My friends were texting me with urgent information from people who could only reach me through Facebook. The emo kids were asking me why I deleted them in tears of digital regret. The industrial kids were laughing at the epic stomping of my public persona. Yet I just wanted to check my Facebook email.
It appears that I was deleted for impersonating Rachel Haywire. Impersonating myself. Is this some existential hipster comedy here? Self impersonation. Is this an occult exercise to rid oneself of the digital ego? Even on Myspace (the shit of the shit) my identity was perma-verified.
Suddenly it hit me. I had been placing way too much importance on Facebook. I had so many contacts who I could only reach through that website. Pictures that I would never be able to get back again. Moderator privileges. Why was I living my life on Facebook? Maybe it was good that they deleted my ass. There were other places to go. One of them was outside and another one of them was Twitter.
I see it now. I finally see it. There is a world outside of Facebook and it is a beautiful world full of new potential. Facebook is a digital Disneyworld. AOL 2.0. They will delete your ass. They deleted mine.