I know I never told you what Plan A was, but that would have defeated the entire idea. You see, plan A was to deny the powers of The Facebook. I tried swearing off of it for an entire day earlier this week. And I stayed off from 10 a.m. until about 5 p.m., save the few times I checked it from my phone. So, I was mildly successful. But for something to really work for me, I need to go all in. Hence, Plan B: Go all in.
I should preface my next thought by saying that there are people I vaguely knew through friends or through the political world in 2004 who I now despise based purely on the frequency and content of their Facebook status updates. Regardless, I am going to Facebook the shit out of Facebook until I am as sick of it as I was of Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" after listening to it on repeat for three years, or until people start deleting me in the cyber world and stop talking to me in the real world.
But hell, I might not even need friends in the real world. Who even needs a real world at all? At this point, when I run into a friend on the street I no longer have to ask "Hey, how are you?" It's "Hey, I saw on your Facebook status that your Chinese delivery took an hour last night. And then you got diarrhea! Are you okay? You didn't update this morning."
I'm going to update my status every time a clever thought or mildly appropriate song lyric pops into my head ("Emily is not a girl, not yet a woman...should probably run out for tampons just in case."). Or when I just need to vent. Not that this will be much of a departure from my regular Facebook use; last week I updated my status to say that "Emily is out of toilet paper and clean underwear." I can assume that no one pays enough attention to my status updates to get it when I update this evening to say "Emily is finally doing laundry."
Maybe they do. Maybe people actually care. I mean, why else would I update right? Don't all 539 of my Facebook friends want to know everything I am doing and thinking at any given moment? But I don't believe they do. I think the Facebook status update is just so we can all keep a record of our own cleverness.
I'd finish this post, but I have to go update my Facebook status now and comment on some people's photos...
Related:
When Drinking and Technology Don't Mix: Scanner Emily's Facebook Faux Pas
