What a horrible, dehumanizing experience it is to be "friended." To be exhibited like a Hummel figurine in a 12-avatar display case, or worse still, to be stashed away in a virtual closet, only present in order to provide heft to the aggregate. I get sick just thinking about it. This is why I ditched my MySpace profile over the summer, as well as that of my cartoon basketball. It was being treated like an object too, getting endless "friend requests" from webcam girls and useless unsigned indie-rock bands.
Social networking is going to be one of those things we make fun of ourselves for in the future. We'll have to explain to our children why we felt the need to compensate for some kind of inner emptiness with Friendster, MySpace, Facebook and the like. It's going to take historical perspective to truly appreciate how ridiculous this concept is: claiming people you don't know as acquaintances, then basing any sort of credibility on the accumulated number. It's been proven that the human brain is only capable of handling as many close friendships as we have fingers and toes, and find me somebody, anybody, who isn't looking for excuses to trim back their holiday card list.
I've been conducting an informal survey lately. If you're reading this, it's very likely that you've even participated in this poll. This is a survey about blogs, and here's the first and final question: other than people you actually know (defined technically as "people you're directly communicated with at a level deeper than an 'I dig your blog, dude' e-mail"), who's on your blogroll, in your Google Reader, your daily reading list?
The results were less than shocking. Stranger-blogs tend to fall in one of four categories, and I'm interpreting loosely here:
- Experts in the reader's chosen field
- MP3 bloggers
- Writers of opposite (or similar) gender who inspire fantasies about one-night stands full of hard, red-hot fucking
- Writers concerned with things the reader is interested in, who frame political or entertainment or lifestyle issues in such a way that validates the reader's particular worldview (bonus points for being funny and/or using obscure references you understand)
After having my faith in the human condition shaken by social networking, my blog survey really restored my spirit. The gravitational pull towards leadership, free stuff, impossible/unrequited crushes, and self-validation all seems to me like normal social behavior. What we've done here in the 21st Century is evolve the institution of friendship beyond co-operation and support, to include pure anonymous fandom. All this despite the best efforts of those who would cheapen the word "friend" by verbing it with a 10-second point-and-click process.
So remember that the next time somebody tells you the Internet is ridiculous and impersonal. It's not, really.
