I felt this strange impulse this morning to write this blog, seeing that perhaps not many have been able to address it or wanting to address it. It has been said many times that Facebook is slowly turning into how MySpace was at its peak. Why? The drama, the issues, the madness with social interaction.
Well, I hate to burst your bubble but that actually isn't the case. I, being ex-MySpace user, always called it before it happened that Facebook was and now is worse than MySpace. If you put them next to each other, the only thing you would notice when you logged on Myspace were New Messages, New Friend Requests or New Comments. Furthermore, they were solely in relation to your page, your pictures and your profile. You weren't having other people's page updates pop up or comments made on their pages, only yours. In essence, by that standard, MySpace dominated in privacy. For there to be drama among your friends, family and lovers, you had to be a little thing called nosy!
Facebook? Where do I even begin? You log in, no different than on day one, you see everyone else's statuses, what they're doing and even got notifications on comments of their statuses simply because you commented on that same status. Its simplicity made nosy-ness exponentially easier. Your personal comment now has to be set on a privacy setting where only you can see it and not everyone else because now there's no way to hide it since now every time someone logs in, they are showed everyone's latest stories, comments and updates.
Fast forward to 2012 as now it has been said that Facebook is becoming the new MySpace. I think it is fair to say that whoever assumes that is massively wrong as people drama is sharply worse. Drama on MySpace was a result of your psychotic nosy-ness whereas on Facebook, it caters to your already existential nosy nature. I'll even go on to say that Facebook has become very personal to a lot of people, where whatever happens or is said on Facebook is taken personally on a whole new level where Facebook has become their life. Indirect attacks to their ex-partners, of which no one is gullible enough to not know who you're calling out because you lack the personal fortitude to confront them about your feelings face to face.
The solution is not another new social network. I don't think MySpace, Facebook, Google +, Twitter, Tumblr or even people quite get what's the problem here. The problem isn't social network, we are! Whatever we once kept to ourselves is now out in the open simply because posting it on a status is so much easier. No one seems to write journals, diaries or even personal memoirs anymore as a means to write it out. Simply put, social media is now the bait to de-program maturity in many emotionally weak, fragile or sensitive beings. I admit I have fallen victim to this many times and not until today have I been able to really get it all narrowed down.
Switchfoot made it clear with their song Lonely Nation, as did Alter Bridge with Isolation, that society has made so many ways to expand communication yet we had become more alone, miserable, isolated and less social. Let's be real, I have about 300+ friends on Facebook and I live with 4 of them and only have hung out with maybe, what, 10-12 of them? My reasons for many friends, however, are different, being that I have my blog to put out there and even poetry and literature to push and promote. Were it not for those other reasons, my list would be ridiculously small.
If this isn't a wake up call to anyone, I certainly don't know what will be, given all the whining, complaining and misery going on. Heck, it was said on the news, whether it be FOX or NBC or even CNN that constant obsessing over Facebook causes depression. Hello! The machine is already making emotional slaves out of us. Don't you get it? It's to smell the coffee, bacon, pancakes, flowers or whatever you love smelling and start living.