You maybe surprised to learn that I had four Facebook accounts. The main one was for my wife so that she could have a husband in the Facebook world. The other three were accounts I had set up for the Dont-Tread-On.Me and Sons of Liberty Academy. I never really used them,but they were there. The only high point to the whole experience was my first birthday with Facebook,when I received 40 happy birthdays from people all over the country. The reality of the whole Facebook experience is that it never really seemed real.
Despite how many “friends”you have on Facebook,the fact is,we are only lucky to have a handful of real friends in our lives. Having more superficial electronic contact with others,does not improve our lives. If anything it detracts from it as life becomes less human. LOL pales in comparison to a real laugh out loud of sharing an experience with a friend. The more LOL’s we share,the less it means. Soon or later everything is just an electronic dance of acronyms trying to fulfill some missing part of your soul.
When consumerism was first sold to the world,it was designed to get us to buy stuff we don’t really need in an effort to feel better than others. Soon everyone determined their worth not on the strength of our relationships,but by what we were able to consume. You gave up relationships,to work more,to have a better life. The more we worked,the more we bought,the further in debt we went. The combination of work and debt made our real relationships worse,which compelled us to work more,to buy more. This self fulfilling loop spun out of control in our society for decades as people worked harder and harder to “look or feel good”.
Consumerism was a psychological process lead by Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud’s nephew) to keep post World War II industries humming after the war. The industrialists employed Madison Avenue to transform society from sensible people with strong relationships into superficial spenders looking for the next high. Advertising links subconscious desires with products. Take the cigarette for example,subconsciously it is a form of power and rebellion. The reality is that it is a weakness. Soon we began to buy products,not for the utility of the product,but to say to the world I bought this because the ad says that I am a …The Banksters that backed all of this up also needed this spending to create more debt in order for their Keynesian Ponzi scheme not to collapse. This plan worked well for many years,but as the boomers grey,the party is over for consumerism and the check is due. What is the next thing if people are broke? How can we keep the masses from waking up to their wasted lives they have led chasing after nothing? Let them Amuse Themselves to Death.
Facebook is ultimate expression of narcissism. Where else can you expose everything about yourself like a prancing peacock. I mean you can get your 15 minutes of fame every minute. Facebook is,when you boil it all down,a one big “look at me”fest. Look at my pics. Look at my car. Look at where I am. Look at my wife. Look at my life. The ultimate irony in the social network is that nobody really cares,because it is not about them. Oh sure they will say nice things,but deep down they don’t care at all. This narcissism is so rampant in our society,that people would step over real relationship to update their status. The answer to the question “what’s on my mind?”is usually nothing at all.
Facebook is full of shameless promotion. The stuff that isn’t vapid,is probably a promotion of some sort. Corporations,promoters,stars,and small businessmen people are either promoting their services or networking to get ahead. There are whole marketing courses about social media mangers. The sad thing is that most of the comments and tweets are not even done by the people you are following. They have social media managers for that. They probably have lives and don’t waste time playing with Facebook. Do you see the irony in that? You friend or follow someone because they are doing something interesting with their lives and they don’t waste precious time doing stupid stuff like spending hours on Facebook.
The corporations and marketers tell us that,“hey it is cool to connect,”but behind the scenes they are only interested in the conversion and monetization of traffic. Do you know what is cooler than a million dollars? $100 Billion.
Watch this video of these two marketers caught discussing how to best “monetize”viewers. Listen carefully.
Facebook is also voyeuristic. Everyone want to see if so and so got fat or what their kids look like. It allows you to look into people lives,but it never really tells the story of their lives. Behind all of the smiles lies a quite sense of desperation. It maybe money issues or relationships or disease or work issues. We all have it. We all have a deeper life that we would share with a real friends,but not with your Facebook friends. If you cannot be open with a person,why even have them in your life? Why would you let them look in? We are way too polite as we give up a part of us,to people who don’t really care about us. We must keep the sacred from the profane.
Since we put ourselves into this petri dish of social voyeurism,we force ourselves to put on a mask.We intentionally mask what we really feel for many reasons. We may not want to upset someone or we may want to impress someone. The problem comes when we wear the mask so much,that we lose who we really are. This may stifle some desire to do something or be who you really want to be. Since we wear this mask,the people who we do let into our lives,only know that mask. Then you become too afraid to be who you really are,for fear of scaring them off. This leads to unfulfilling relationships or worse.
Now before you get your panties in a bunch,Facebook does have some good qualities. Yeah,it is cool to reconnect with old friends or to share pictures. Your Facebook life is reflective of your real life. Most of those who have Facebook,have a life and it does not consume them. The Facebook is not the cause of these problems,any more than pencils misspell words. Facebook is just an easy outlet for millions trying to find meaning or connection in their lives. The problem is,this kind of connection is superficial and unfullfilling. What Facebook is to emotional social fulfillment is what porn is to emotional sexual fulfillment. Nothing beats the real thing.
If you really want to connect with people,quit texting and commenting,and pick up the phone and talk. Video chat is even better,because so much of our communication is non-verbal. We can judge a person’s emotions within seconds of seeing them. So much of our communication is lost through this electronic filter. The best way to communicate of course is face to face. The best conversations I have had in my life occurred when I got together to have a drink and just talk. These connections energize us,because it is what we are meant to be doing. We are visual,emotional and spiritual beings wanting to connect with others on a deeper level with meaning and purpose. If your life does not have purpose or meaning,look at the friends you keep. Facebook acts as a tool towards that purpose,but it is sad substitute for the real thing. Real communication,about real issues,is hundreds of times more powerful than the non emotional niceties that pass for communication.
“Hy,ys im goin crnvl. Witc dai u goin? Gt 3 drnks n gna b on flot. Wt tyme u b der?” Do you realize there is a whole generation of humans that thinks this is normal? The Elite know that if you take away the meaning of words it incapacitates our thought.
- If you cannot speak,you cannot think.
- If you cannot think,you cannot figure things out.
- If you cannot figure things out,you will never see that you are a slave.
- If you cannot see that you are a slave,you can never rebel.
- If you cannot rebel,you will never be free.
- If you cannot be free,you can never fulfill your purpose on earth to be your highest and best self.
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel,and until after they have rebelled they cannotbecome conscious“ –George Orwell
How long will it take for a computer algorithm to become your friend? Don’t laugh,people think Bitcoinis money…Look at your Facebook contacts and tell me that the majority of the “connections”could not be programmed. Subject A is sad = the algorithm spits out “Cheer up it will be okay,”“Tell me about it,”“I am here for you,”or “I love you.”If the contact is that vapid and this is truly a narcissistic experience,who wouldn’t like to have a bunch of yes men as friends? Isn’t that what porn is? Mental masturbation to distract you from a hole in your life?
The more this narcissism persists,the more it turns into psychopathic behavior in the real world. The biggest promoters are the ones making the biggest bucks. All of the sudden people think psychopathic,narcissistic behavior is the key to success. Look at some of these shows like the Jersey Shore and the Real Housewives. They are nothing more than the normalization of psychopathic behavior. People figure it is going on all around them and they think this is the way it is supposed to be. Well it is not and we must keep it out of our lives.
We have seen how people mistaken the attention and kind words from friends online and throw them against people in your real world. Your wife is not doing it for you? Well you have girls online that think you are the best thing since sliced bread…Your husband is moody? Well your ex boyfriend is recently divorced and is sooo supportive…These serve as temptations that we just don’t need in our already stressful lives.
This bleed into real life is where all of this electronic experience gets dangerous. How many times have you been in the room with someone and they are checking their email while you are talking. I admit that I do that way too often. This constant rush of connection is becoming too prevalent in our lives. I fear if things do not change soon,we will become isolated bits of nothing.
First,we became disconnected with nature and never really see the amazing sights our world has to offer. We hardly look at the stars anymore and see how small we really are. Then the family got ripped apart when the father left the home for a job to provide for his family. The the wife had to enter the work force to keep up with inflation and the Joneses. Now children are even separated from their friends with this electronic void of never knowing what a true friend is. What chance will they have in life? What kind of future are we building here? Instead of seeing how small we are in the real world,we are pushed to us being the center of the narcissistic virtual world.
Then there is the burnout experienced from all of the constant back and forth. Responding to people’s comments,likes and dislikes. Then you have to think,“did I say this right”or “how will they take this?” I can imagine at some point this becomes real work to balance all of these “friends.”Everyone is always looking over your shoulder and all in your business. That would be to much for me and I have no idea why people subject themselves to this kind of scrutiny. If anything,wouldn’t it get boring? Don’t we have anything better to do?
One other thought I would like to explore is how many of your friends are because of circumstances or real friends? We are friends with school mates,co-workers,family,and neighbors by circumstances. They are in your life and they are agreeable enough to spend sometime with. For the most part you either never really get to know them or you really don’t want to know them. If you were not living with these people,how many would you pursue in real life?
One interesting thing I have found working on this project and consulting with people,is I tend to have deeper conversations with these one on one calls than most people have in their real lives. I have no time for superficiality and often ask tough questions and challenge people. It instantly breaks through the mask we all wear. It gets to the real issue and the real person asking it. I think once you get beyond the mask,you can become real friends and have deeper relationships. You should not be afriad to fry this with the people in your life. You will either have less negative people in your life or your will have deeper relationships with the ones you love.
I predict that there will come a time when people will quit all of this vapid social networking and reestablish a real life. I believe that the crash of the dollar will coincide with this. We will no longer able to get something for nothing and give up everything real,for that nothing. We will have a new day where we get back to something that really matters. A smaller,slower,more local life is in your future. That of course is after a massive social upheaval. Those who have the strongest real relationships,will be the most likely to succeed.
Do yourself a favor today and go into your Facebook account settings and deactivate your Facebook account. Don’t worry,everything is saved for a couple of months (millenia…) Blow past the creepy John and Mary will miss you pictures and post a link to this article as your reason for doing it. See how many people notice you are missing. See if someone would find you and try to contact you? If they do they are probably a real friend and someone you should share a deeper relationship with than you have ever had with them on Facebook.
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