Chuckle #505 | April 3rd, 2013
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Life isn’t made up solely of accomplishments, no matter how
terrific people’s lives appear on Facebook.
You won’t ever see a FB update that says, “Guess what? I got fired today”,
or “check this out, my baby looks like a spider
monkey”.
That’s because social networking is all about selective
self-presentation. No one
broadcasts their slacker habits, loser moves, or ugly photos. Our Facebook lives are carefully curated, like
a Monet exhibit at the Met. Only the
finest examples of our work get ‘shown’.
For example, I haven’t had a paying job in two years; my dog
eats the bathroom trash (including tampons); my kids roll their eyes; and the
book I’m currently reading is NOT the epic biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. Not even close. But you would never know any of this from my Facebook profile.
My Facebook persona is a carefully constructed avatar, all
polished-up and proudly displayed like grandma’s silver service. Online I am an inspiration to myself. It’s true.
I get a big self-esteem boost just scrolling through my Facebook
page. Look at those clever posts, those
accomplishments, those family photos. I’m
amazing!
Sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s all an elaborate
hoax, a house of cards.
When I first set up my Facebook account, the hardest part was
finding a photo that didn’t reveal too much of my neck – the so-called ‘woman
of a certain age’ curse. This was the edge
of the slippery slope. I was tempted to
use a photo of a llama, or an artistic shot of my hands, both good ideas, but completely
unnecessary when the internet is awash with cool photo editing tools.
I’m no techie genius, but even I was able to upload a photo
into an online editor, turn on ‘air brushing’, and replace my face with that of
an unknown French model who neglected to copyright her head shot.
Et voila, I’ve got lips like Angelina Jolie and the neck of
a teenage swan.
I don’t know about you, but if the tools are at my fingertips,
I’m going to use them. Why suffer
through childbirth when I can have an epidural?
Why appear to the world like a frazzled crazy lady in a fluffy red robe,
when I can look a lot more normal?
When you think of it, this kind of careful personal ‘editing’
isn’t so different from how we produce an acceptable Christmas card photo. We don’t use the picture where mom’s crying
and dad has his hands wrapped around little Johnny’s throat while he kicks the
dog into position, right? Of course not. We selectively present our perfectly groomed family
to the world, wearing coordinating outfits from J.Crew.
And that’s why this ‘selective presentation’ stuff doesn’t
bother me all that much. It’s not new.
What I do worry
about is that social media seems to be replacing legitimate social interaction,
aka face time. Is there any reason for me to meet you in
person when the ‘real me’ could only disappoint the ‘real you’, and vice versa?
One of the great travesties of the ‘Rise of Facebook’ is the
death of the awkward high school reunion.
Everyone I went to high school with now knows me as a successful, clever,
strangely youthful looking, happily married woman with 3 gorgeous
children. Why risk it all just to see if
a classmate I never really liked that much really does have “the hottest Danish husband EVER!” - tempting
though that may be after watching three episodes of Vikings.
While I accept the new social networking reality, it poses an ethical dilemma. My mother always
told me to put my ‘best foot forward’.
She also taught me not to lie (and effectively reinforced that lesson
with bars of ivory soap). I have tried my
best to walk this fine line on Facebook.
Am I crossing that line into outright deception when I ‘leave
out’ the seedier details of my life? No one else seems to think so.
People expect your Facebook self to be more
polished than your real self. If you
don’t over-deliver on optimism, people will assume that you’re living in your
parents’ basement with your 3 cats, even if you claim to have a decent job and a
new silver Subaru.
I call this ‘profile deflation’. Everything you write about yourself gets
automatically downgraded by your so-called ‘friends’. You’re being graded on a reverse curve, so
naturally, you compensate.
Maybe the high school reunion isn’t quite dead. People must be more curious than ever to see
if the Facebook image matches reality.
The truth is that most of us are probably leading very similar, ordinary
lives. Our dogs eat the garbage, our
babies are cross-eyed, work is simply work,
and we still haven’t taken that ‘dream trip’ to the Galapagos.
Personally, I’d rather get my mouth washed out with soap
than tell my 700 Facebook friends that my swan-like neck is fake. On the other hand, if I ‘come clean’ I’ll have
made my mother very, very proud.
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