Facebook: Diary of My Alter Ego.

Written July 6th, 2009

Never in all my recognition and awareness of totalitarianism did I think it would happen with such active, avid participation from we, the individuals.

what started as a whisper, a hobby, a slight waste of time, became something that grew into a brand new level of communication between humans. At this moment, this is the height of the internet. And at this moment it is the decided and preferred method of communication. If I so wanted, through out my day, I could 'Facebook' you. We are so dedicated to our new found connection that we go so far as to build pocket sized hand held machines so that at anytime we can pull the blinds on our real life and log onto the alter reality of our photo-shopped existence. Like Morse code or the telephone but with the added dimension of vanity. This is quite literally the strangest time for our human race.

Plagued with chronic dissatisfaction we collectively fed into celebrity obsession. We bred the Grass Is Greener Syndrome and support tabloid magazines to put together faces and stories. We don't even want the truth - just a stage to create the fairytale. That sated us just long enough until the envy became too much to bear that we created an outlet for our own self-adoration. Forget Sims. Forget World of Warcraft. I can create a character that looks just like me only with better hair and eyes that sparkle. Look all the backdrops I can photograph my character in. Suddenly wearing an outfit twice becomes a faux pas! And just like a celebrity's over the shoulder glance, we've come to know our own poses well.

We have all become corporate salesman. The product is ourselves and the potential gain is a successful alter ego. Does this sidewalk star come with cement imbedded with my hands and feet? Is there a place for my autograph? And the very strangest part about our socially created nether world is that we're not even unaware of our own self obsession. It's not like I'm Chicken Little screaming that they sky is falling - actually I am - but the point is that we're all well aware and we don't even care.

We're far too busy holding poses and documenting moments carefully painted with rose coloured glasses to care about insignificant situations where women are being snipered down in the middle of the street to protect basic human rights. Alter-ego creation included. I never once saw a reference to Neda on facebook, and if it was there, it was buried deep between the test to find out what sexual position you are and the test to showcase how tragically clever you are when it comes to obscure music. We've stayed so plugged in that we've conditioned ourselves to tune out. I repeat, we've conditioned ourselves.

You could argue that Facebook is a beautiful creation where we can easily access the ones we love, we can communicate with speed and bravado in a way that we never allowed ourselves to before. But it does not come without it's sickness. We have desensitized ourselves to what is morally real and humanly intense. We long so much for a fairytale that we forget to appreciate our reality. Nothing is good enough. We are becoming incredibly ill.

We are standing in the middle of history. You are living in what will undoubtedly be a chapter in someone's textbook. We need to lift our heads from this digital cloud or internal combustion will be a definite option for the near future. I know I'm not stating ground breaking information here, but I'm most certainly calling us on our bullshit.