What Would You Say?
I was reading earlier and catching up with some friends here when I found an entry by one of my LJ friends, khanadasc, talking about the regrettable exodus from LiveJournal and emigration to Farcebook. I suspect that she is flirting with the idea of picking up the digital pen again and writing here.
The problem of Facebook came to mind. She had made some observations about people's behavior on FB, as opposed to LJ. She wrote: "Everyone got tight-lipped over there [FB], whereas here [LJ], you knew almost everything about the people on your friends list and I think it’s why I can’t stop lurking on FB" That got me thinking about the qualitative difference between FB and LJ. I started contemplating my own half-formed intentions when I started doing journaling on LJ. Originally, I wondered how authentic and truthful I could be about myself if I had control of the anonymity. It would be like writing a journal whose pages could be dropped into bottles and tossed into the ocean, and if I were lucky, perhaps someone would find my bottle, open it, and read my page, write something in return and toss the MS in the bottle back into the sea so that I could find it.
Of course, no battle plan survives first contact, and I found that complete anonymity was difficult to maintain, and moreover, that it wasn't really what I actually desired. I actually wanted to meet some of the people with whom I interacted on my page. I saw their raw attempts at authenticity and candor and empathized with them, and they saw mine and empathized with me, despite our never having met, and that is the foundation of connection. I found myself wanting to connect in person with some of my LJ friends and know them. Then, Facebook happened, and everybody "went over there" because Mark Zuckerberg made it so easy to just "go there" and "be seen."
What happened? Well, if one is aware of the old maxim: go to see, not to be seen, Farcebook is a great medium for making you forget it. I wrote this as a comment over on my friend's page:
I am out of the habit of regularly writing on my page, but I am still here. I know exactly what you mean when you say that you are over the FarceBook. Alas, many of the friends that I met on LJ have since migrated to the Suckerbag Digital Roach Motel and no longer share themselves here. Frankly, I am "over the Facebook thing" as well, and I deleted my developed account with all of the contacts a year or two ago. I think there may be a vestigial account there, with my name on it, with no friends postings or history, but I haven't mustered enough curiosity to go check if I deleted that one too. I can't remember if I did, and can't work up enough interest in "Meta" to even check. FB colors my impressions of human beings and especially people I know, with cynicism, and I hate that. I think you are entirely onto something when you point out to sharkbait that: "Everyone got tight-lipped over there, whereas here, you knew almost everything about the people on your friends list" Facebook does that to people.
I suspect that the reason everyone shuts up over on FB is that Facebook misses things that LJ has better implemented: selective exclusivity, anonymity, and more of an autobiographical feel, which encourages a certain kind of candor and vulnerability that FB cannot capture. LJ, despite the fact that this phenomenon can be twisted and abused, inspires authenticity in people who seek it. It's motto could be: "This, above all, to thine own self be true." Facebook, on the other hand, is all surface. It encourages us to be about perception and perception management.
While it is true that honest people strive to be authentic, differentiation is a life-long road, and a difficult task. LJ caters to our need to separate ourselves into different people for different social interactions, despite the fact that this is the thing we are trying to overcome if differentiation is our goal. LJ is kind of a crutch or training wheels, because it offers us a selective anonymity to explore our authenticity and self-revelation at our own pace and at our own control. Consequently, it inspires us to experiment and take risks. Facebook, on the other hand, militates that you choose one face, one voice, to show everyone, and while that may be a worthy goal for which to strive, Facebook metaphorically throws you into the deep end of the pool, and perversely, this tends to lead to people catering to the lowest common denominator in what they show the world: the safest "image" that is publicly consumable by a "general audience" that consists of "everyone we know" or even "the public at large."
There's an entirely different and diametrically opposed philosophy operating in Facebook and LiveJournal, even if their respective creators were not necessarily consciously aware of it. LiveJournal is like a masked ball whose theme is: come as you are, if you dare, and you can hide your "secret identity" behind a username mask, as you choose. You are your own superhero and the author of your own life. Dare to write and dare to read and take your time to explore and try vulnerability and deeper connection at your own pace. Surprise yourself. Character is what you are in the dark. Who are you? What will you reveal for the evaluation and consideration of others? Dare to be real, on an easy installment plan. We've got your back.
Contrariwise, FaceBook strips you absolutely bare naked, and metaphorically kicks you through the door into a surprise party whose guest list potentially includes everyone you have ever met, no matter how casually, from your first grade teacher, to your best childhood friend, to your next door neighbor, to your great aunt, to your college former lover, to your nosy coworker, to your potential new boss, and even to people you have yet to meet... What would you expect to happen? Most of us human beings are not confident superheroes. We run to the nearest table and rip off the table cloth to wrap our perceived and actual imperfections up in it until we can craft suitably clever costumes that present us as what we believe most of the people who see us will think is cool, or at least, "safely conventional," even when the latter may happen to mean "safely rebellious and unconventional." Facebook's motto could be: Market yourself; whore yourself for "likes;" be someone else's object of envy; dare to covet. Perception is everything. Mainline all of the external validation you can get, by hook or by crook; internal validation is too hard!
The problem with Facebook is not that we are hypocrites, but that Facebook throws it in our faces and dares us to be offended. It encourages people to put on a show where what is real and what is "spin" is anyone's guess. "You leave them laughing when you go, and if you care don't let them know; don't give yourself away," as Joni Mitchell sang. It caused me to eye the people who posted there with suspicion and cynicism and even contempt, when rationally, I understood myself to be no better, and in most cases my cynicism was poisonous to me and my contempt was an undeserved injustice. The virtue for which Facebook selects is to be "less hypocritical than thou." Bah! I struggle with things like this enough without the temptations to disdain that Facebook offers. It is unfortunately, often the devil. Anyway, that is how I see it. Everyone else's mileage may vary. Surely, some people find good in it. Even I did, on many occasions. Some seem quite able to swim in those waters and not be tainted by the environment. Do I confess too much? Perhaps, but if I wish to know myself, I need to be honest with at least myself about who I am. We all have our weaknesses. If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out. I struggle to be real, and to swim in the social waters with some grace, to have some humility and charity, to flex my empathy and find connection, and FB is a boat anchor I don't need. With that said, I suspect though, that FB does not well-serve the majority of humanity. Can we build something better, or is this truly the beginning of a dystopian virtual reality future?