No I am not on fucking Facebook. Sincerely!

When I tell some people I'm not in the biggest book of the universe, they stare at me like I told them I stalk them on a daily, rolling shift-type basis. Therefore, I have decided not to confess that I do the latter.

The Facebook masterminds are a dexterous lot. Deleting your account should be a piece of piss, but it's not. Sure you're able to deactivate your account but if you log in as normal during your state of deactivation, everything is exactly as you left it and as such, deactivation means shit all. Personally, Facebook sucked the life out of me and I would sporadically find myself logging in when there was really no need, so I opted to expunge myself from the Face of the Book. But I actually had to go on a bit of a web hunt to achieve that. Eventually I found a sneaky little link for permanent deletion posted by someone who had seen the same light I had. In the click of a button my account and details disappeared into cyberspace (is that too hopeful?) and, to be honest, I have never looked back. I haven't found myself yielding to any kind of temptation which is why I wondered why I was so obsessed with the thing when I actually possessed an account. But in fact it's not that Facebook has some uncanny hold over its Facebook whores, it's just that we are creatures of habit - pathetic ones really - and life's probably getting a little insipid on top of that.


Here's why I gave Facebook a rest:

1. Namely among females, communication gets incontrovertibly superficial. But we can't expect any less when we have here a social network built on passing judgement on another based on one's flawless profile pictures, comment witticisms, 'friend' count, status likeability etc. I cannot tell you how many times I happened across picture comments akin to this...

It's a camera in case you wondered

 Comments

Girl 1: You girls look so so pretty
Girl 2: Aw thank you babe but you're much prettier
Girl 3: Ew look at my hair. Take this off NOW!
Girl 1: You're hair looks beautiful. I wish I had your hair give. Give me it?
Girl 2: Your hair looks beaut
Girl 2: And you're so much prettier than me
Girl 3: No I don't, look at me I look like a man. So ugly.
Girl 3: Babes I'm the ugly one and you're the pretty one
Girl 1: No I'm ugly

Now this would make me giggle:

Girl 3: You know what, you've got it in one. Yes I AM prettier than both of you. My beauty surpasses yours a hundredfold! Do what's been suggested and take this image down, for I am the fucking prettiest girl alive. Who's the fairest of them all? Me!Yes!

 2. How exactly does Zuckerberg earn his millions from his brainchild? Well, we the people will 'like'/'become a fan' of virtually anything. If something's on your mind, it's also on Facebook and with a mere indolent click of the mouse, we're providing personal data. SOLD - to the fattest cat in business, in turn selling back to us and this time by pulling out all the right stops and appealing to us directly. They're crowdsourcing, we're eating it up. We're partaking in diminutive, daily market research questionnaires. I don't know about you but I'm not too crazy about the notion. Also, I'm not being paranoid. At least I don't think I am. Stop judging me. I can sense it. Stop judging. You detest me :(

3. I miss simpler times! Facebook is everything but. I don't claim to be the most gregarious, sociable or even personable person here, but 'networking' behind the shield that is your computer screen is hardly going to better a person shy of these qualities. How about instead of 'poking' somebody we have a vague, tepid relationship with, we glimpse them somewhere while out and about and accost them? How about in lieu of befriending strangers on the net, we just get ourself (and said stranger) pissed off our heads and that might be the foundation of a genuine, longstanding friendship. Okay, yes I'm a knob. Fuck it, Facebook's not going anywhere.