I haven’t regularly used Facebook since about May 2018. I don’t think I need to explain why—you can scarcely throw an online rock without hitting an op-ed or exposé about how that site is, if not directly responsible for, at least financially dependent on our modern society’s need for a steady drip-feed of targeted content that’s at once provocative and advertiser-friendly. At the same time, we’re starting to see that the service has some serious effects on people’s self-esteem and ability to earnestly interact with their “friends” over time. I was coming of age right when Facebook first hit it big, and so I was hoping the rest of my generation would come to that realization in sync with myself. For better or worse, though, most folks I know are still on there.
In ruminating on all of this, I wrote the following poem. It’s cowardly in some parts, perhaps hypocritical in others, and I still haven’t actually deleted Facebook. But, personal as it gets, I hope this’ll inspire myself and others to finally reach out to those we truly care about and quietly say “peace” to the rest.
–
The Poem For When I Delete Facebook
Hello, somebody.
I expect
you’re expecting some broad proclamation,
derision spit against the institution
of Big Silicon Valley—
“fuck Zuck,” or some such sendoff.
And yeah, it’s a matter of fact that
I gotta be a bit to blame
for the elections snarled, the trolls fed, the data dealt in
like binary bodies on an antebellum auction block.
I don’t take it all back—
the fandoms, the check-ins, the selfies and snack pictures
and relationship announcements.
It was fun while it lasted, yet I’ve fasted
from those blue-white wafers of dis-
content enough to see
that you can’t wear your heart on your sleeves these days
without getting some blood on your hands.
But no, wholly,
I just denounce now this social safety net,
this quantity over quality.
I admit it’s a short time coming,
what with the digital dreaming I’ve been
doing since the end of high school,
“hi,” “cool,” and other flat platitudes
plastered upon those heavenly white Walls, all
for the sake of a lil red notif, my motive
to roll over in bed in the morning,
distract from studying,
occupy my mind when a hike or holiday
strays dangerously close to self-reflection.
Now, this is not the part where I part
from anyone.
Rather, I divide
useful acquaintance from close confidante,
vague associate from meaningful member
of a family that grows more valuable with every passing year—
trade internet for interest, investing and not just saving.
I’ve got a ways to go (still need
to quit Twitter, and keeping on Instagram
is a lateral damn move), but I figure
if I can dig into my feelings,
spade sharpened by time and turmoil,
I’ll know who I need to keep hearing from,
seeing from, reaching out to touch.
And if it’s not much, such is my life.
So to Friends I expect I’ll never see again,
at the risk of kindling a bridge, I offer,
in no particular order,
the thoughts I never shared:
- You were the most obnoxious part of every class,
and that’s why I unfollowed you.
Being loud isn’t empowering or a personality.
- I’m not trans, but man,
I’d wanna be a woman like you.
That cleverness, that confidence, that coy, curled grin
I complimented like a jackass after having blood drawn,
and what remained rushing to my face.
The New Yorker earned you.
- You remind me of my great aunt (but black),
and it’s a shame we didn’t get a chance
to stroll the gorge before final finals,
just as classmates.
- I don’t know who you were trying to impress
by sleeping in the school and never closing cabinets,
but you lapped me academically, so more
power to you.
- I don’t swing that way, but it’s okay—
at least someone flirted with me.
- I know you didn’t mean it,
but you were everything I was afraid to compete with,
and yet what I was scared I’d become
when college was said and done.
- You were cool, but thank you for motivating me—
If a stoner bro like you can succeed, so can I.
- Your smile was all I could think about
when we were in the same room,
but every time I texted you
just replied so brusque and blankly.
Amazing how modern etiquette can dampen attraction,
if only in my head.
- I took the hint when you kept shrugging me off
at that team-building event,
but goddamn, we got so much in common,
and I don’t know what you saw in him.
- You were right to call me out
for being distracted and unmotivated,
and you earned outranking me.
- I deserved those stern, avian glares
after what a shit job I did hitting on you
at that first university BBQ.
- That blind date went okay,
but the trashy stuff you always posted
was why I ghosted you.
- I wasn’t surprised you were one of the only two
people to PM me grief after I said that campus outrage
was getting out of control.
Bright though you burn, people like you are exhausting
to the ears and soul.
- I guess I
should’ve always known you were bi, because
no straight girl could ever be that fun.
I know I promised we’d never speak again,
but you still look as good as you did six years ago,
and I hope you found all the happiness I wanted to give you ever since.
Maybe I’m just projecting, protecting
myself from having to defend my intentions,
conventions, and odd hobbies
anymore without a sterile stage of emojis
to gauge the public disapproval.
So much negativity, this film:
lights-camera-action on a theater
where tragedy’s comedy plus time,
and I fear I developed no differently,
cast in irony and jade from wave after wave
of catastrophizing clickbait and commodified gossip,
sidebars of ads and apps closing on my idealist’s temples
like Indiana Jones’s making a break for the exit.
All that’s missing is the hissing
of a renaissance auditorium
when a joke falls flat or a thought’s deemed problematic.
But whether it was Cambridge Analytica
or a particularly acidic DM delivered to my inbox,
I know now that
I’d rather have three people wish me
a happy birthday because they remembered
than fifteen just ‘cause they saw it pop up on their feed.
And so to true friends, family:
I turned you into drugs, and for that
I apologize.
The bystander phenomenon writ large, charging
headlong into indirect indiscretions, in lieu
of assuming any one person would ever care.
Sincerity’s in scarcity—everyone’s
scared to seem intimate individually
when carrying a town square in your pocket is safer.
And no matter how far you scroll, there’s always more
to beat you down, burn your eyes, let flow the FOMO
before a parched identity.
But camaraderie is a game of catch, not an IV,
meant to be
more lively than copying “Merry Christmas” into multiple reminders
or emotional layaway for when I need the release of a blue
tick flittering up my screen at work.
I’ll catch up more, I mean it—
drop a line, make a date, send a pic
personally, not for a show of hands.
I’m no god or gazillionaire, and I haven’t earned
the audience to award me otherwise.
Just bless me with your patience
and politeness if I tiptoe into Messenger
one last time to say hey, we should meet up sometime,
before I turn out the lights and put a 404
where my headshot and history used to hang a shingle.
I’d rather mingle meaningfully, meaning fully
every admiration and admonition I administer,
with the goal of feeling fulfilled,
not finished.
–
January 29, 2019
Categories: Life Updates, Pictures . Tags: cambridge analytica, College, confessions, Facebook, instagram, internet, Poem, poetry, social media, society, twitter, Writing . Author: Trevor . Comments: 3 Comments
Notes&Sketches 