Deux Red Shoes

Quitting Facebook is not a revolutionary act.

Reading one guy’s brief piece (by way of tbmims’ delightful social media story) about his Facebook-exit rationale was a few-minute course in insularity and not-really-new-s.*

Of course, writers have story quotas to fill and not being first doesn’t invalidate everyone not-first’s experiences. I’ve had to throw things on the Internet because the boss needed content so that the advertisers will get their money’s worth, stat. So it sometimes goes.

But quitting Facebook isn’t new or exciting or special, and proudly calling this action “extreme” is simply just silly. Chest thumping over not buying-in is buying into there ever being something to chest thump over.

I mean, I’ve been there. The authors of this Cornell study “observed a sense of rebelliousness and pride among those who resisted Facebook.” I deactivated my account shortly after the 2008 presidential election/collective coming out of all my bigoted friends, and after the weariness wore off, I was smug, too.

But an identity derived from Facebook’s abstention is still an identity derived from Facebook. Which I guess could be stumbling into a critique of counterculture, period, but that’s another post and another beer.

I later rejoined Facebook in 2010 with a brand new account and undyed hair, part of an online/offline new, authentic me who rejected “being fake,” who would only friend IRL friends, and who thought virgin hair** and adhering to ideals on Facebook had any significance.

That was still treating Facebook as something of record. It’s not. It’s a real-time yearbook with ennui-inducement directly correlative to increasing engagement in real life.

So fall, social-medium-quitting tree. Nothing needs not record the sound.

*There is an addiction to hyphens. Recognition is the first step.

**Mommy issues

“How about you resign yourself to coming home and having a leisurely weekend of food, beer, hiking and perhaps an episode or twelve of Portlandia/Parks/Star Trek?”

- Text received approximately 3 p.m. Friday.

You know when you encounter someone who’s so incredibly talented, and productive?

That’s when you get your shit together, or get off the pot. 

Above, our actual (and, here, symbolic) toilet. 

I’m still squatting — now with determination. *Wild-eyed* I’m not getting giving up! 

There’s this writing style of making a statement.

Then writing with a flow, a melodic aside denoting this isn’t hard news, that may or maybe not drip to a point. Look at my writing.

I’m talking about a tragedy, or in the best publications, talking about talking about a tragedy. But I’m talking, pretty.

In keeping with the style, I will cite moving examples, maybe even an excerpt — nah, not this time — before making my point.

Look at my writing.

I’m so sad that I have nothing to offer but pretty writing. Pretty. Writing. What’s the point of writing about pointlessness? It’s doing something, tension break, which is how we cope best.

I hit “Create post.” Me, too. Me, too.

Resume-writing reject.

My friend, Lily: “You’re a peach.”

Me: “Like Princess Peach?”

Lily: “Nooo! It’s an expression. You’re so ’90s.”

Actually …