/Big Mouth/ Status anxiety
13/08/2008 | Filed under Discover > Big Mouth
From petty fibs to flagrant untruths, social networking makes liars of us all. Gary Marshall goes in search of a real conversation
I think I’ve found the flaw in social networking. It’s not the constant parade of nonsense – “You’ve been bitten by a leprechaun! Install the Leprechaun application so we can empty your bank account and defraud your friends!” – or the increasingly aggressive data mining that means you can’t shop for colostomy bags or gimp masks without telling your entire network. It’s the fatal combination of lying and avoidance.
Lying is most apparent in status updates. When it says, “Gary is working like a demon”, Gary is actually scouring BitTorrent for the latest Girls Aloud video. When it says, “Gary is interviewing”, Gary is clearing up the aftermath of an Exorcist-style outbreak of baby vomiting. And when it says, “Gary is really making progress”, Gary is banging his head on the desk and shouting, “Why, God? Why?”
We all do it, because we know that friends, family and employers are reading this stuff. So we lie. During office hours, we pretend to be stressed-out high achievers as we watch the clock’s agonising crawl towards 5pm. At home, we imply a frantic and fabulous social life when we’re really watching Bridget Jones’s Diary and weeping. If we told the truth we’d only need two options, “dicking about on the internet” and “drunk as a lord”. Unless of course you’re on MySpace, in which case you’d also need “sucking up to Lily Allen” and “planning a massacre”.
Evasive action
As far as I can see, the only people who benefit from social network status updates are the police, who have discovered a whole new way to find criminals on the run. Apparently some bank robbers are so dumb that they’ll cheerfully disclose the location of their secret hideaways on their profile pages, leading the cops right to them (“Derek ‘Fingers’ Flaherty is hiding from the cops! Ha ha! They’ll never think of looking for me in the back bedroom of 27 Cedar Drive!”).
The CIA has spent over six years searching for Osama Bin Laden. Have they tried Facebook?
Worst of all, though, is avoidance. Thanks to social networks and their various pointless doo-hickeys, we can pretend to be in touch with one another without having a single meaningful bit of communication. For example, I’m at a low ebb and I really need to talk to someone. I’ll mail Dave. Dave will understand.
My email pings. Dave’s favourite cheese is cheddar (“Why not take our cheez kwiz?”).
I mail again: “I’m losing it, Dave. I can’t get out from under this cloud.” Dave sends me a Friendship Beer. Dave sends me a Magic Space Bear.
I grab an assault rifle. I climb a church tower. I send Dave one more mail. “Dave,” I say. “I can’t stop the voices. There’s too many of them. They’re too strong. I’m going to take potshots at pedestrians and then shoot my own face off. Help me.” This time, the reply is instant: “Gary! You’ve been bitten by a leprechaun!”
Gary is a journo and software expert. www.bigmouthstrikesagain.com
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Comments
Dave / 13/08/2008 / 17:23
Gary is writing fatuous articles
trCreative Web Design / 15/08/2008 / 11:51 / http://www.trcreative.co.uk
Very funny and very true!
KeyCanada / 18/08/2008 / 17:40 / http://www.keycanada.ca
So so true. Thanks Gary for the article, I personally don't like using online social networks too much because I lot of it is so fake.
Aaron / 20/08/2008 / 10:58 / http://www.geckogo.com
I've generally found people's status updates to be pretty truthful (at least as far as I can tell, and perhaps that's the flaw - I can't know any better). I'm going to have to check into that some more now. :)
The leprechaun part is all too true though. Funny, but true. I could spend all day getting into vampire/werewolf/zombie/smurf biting wars if I wanted to.
*Back to working like a demon now*
Helen B / 24/09/2008 / 11:45 / http://www.concisecontent.co.uk
Very funny article! However, I'm always truthful regarding what I'm doing on status updates. I usually assume everyone else is too, which is probably unwise and will lead to my downfall....!
