Imagine if you and each of your friends wrote random things on index cards all day. You then made copies of them and whenever you saw your friend or passed by your friend's desk, locker, mailbox, etc. you gave him a copy of the index cards you wrote on that day. Each friend also gave you a copy of her cards. After a few exchanges with a few friends, you had a stack of cards to go through, reading each individual card (and they wrote a lot of them). And, since you wanted people to see your cards, and since trading cards became a social task in itself, you often started trading with just about anybody.
Most of the messages were dumb and boring. In fact, your friends knew that many other people would see these cards, so most were stripped of any kind of controversy or antagonism. A number of the cards simply said "Here's something I like that I know many other people also like," and then other cards repeated the same thing and had things like, "Yeah!" written underneath the original message.
This mechanism masked itself as one that offered limitless connections and free exchange of ideas. However, you were still bound by social mores, rules and expectations. In fact, these new rules were even more oppressive because of the "sharing," because of the fact that so many people would see them and your "real name" was associated with them. You had to manage your identity. This diluted identity was mixed into the diluted identity of others: friends, co-workers, family members, employers, and the paste was used to cast an echo chamber of mediocrity and conformity. "Epic Bacon" index cards passed freely and multiplied while antagonistic and challenging cards were written off as cries for attention or worse. It was hard to deny that this practice didn't effect everyone's thoughts, ideas and communication outside of the index card game. And since you were already "communicating" with your friends, you did so outside of the index cards a lot less often.
The index cards were constructed, so maybe sterile facts were being communicated, but hard to digest, revolutionary or dangerous ideas were certainly avoided. You eventually became something like a tabulator. A tabulator for facts and averages of what people like. A tabulator for facts and mediocrity.
Imagine the tedium. This is social networking. Aren't we lucky to live in the future where tedium and conformity are automated and delivered through computer screens and false kinship? Isn't it amazing that we shape ourselves to be more and more like computers and so bring ourselves closer to the ridiculous dream that they are "more and more like us?"
Most of the messages were dumb and boring. In fact, your friends knew that many other people would see these cards, so most were stripped of any kind of controversy or antagonism. A number of the cards simply said "Here's something I like that I know many other people also like," and then other cards repeated the same thing and had things like, "Yeah!" written underneath the original message.
This mechanism masked itself as one that offered limitless connections and free exchange of ideas. However, you were still bound by social mores, rules and expectations. In fact, these new rules were even more oppressive because of the "sharing," because of the fact that so many people would see them and your "real name" was associated with them. You had to manage your identity. This diluted identity was mixed into the diluted identity of others: friends, co-workers, family members, employers, and the paste was used to cast an echo chamber of mediocrity and conformity. "Epic Bacon" index cards passed freely and multiplied while antagonistic and challenging cards were written off as cries for attention or worse. It was hard to deny that this practice didn't effect everyone's thoughts, ideas and communication outside of the index card game. And since you were already "communicating" with your friends, you did so outside of the index cards a lot less often.
The index cards were constructed, so maybe sterile facts were being communicated, but hard to digest, revolutionary or dangerous ideas were certainly avoided. You eventually became something like a tabulator. A tabulator for facts and averages of what people like. A tabulator for facts and mediocrity.
Imagine the tedium. This is social networking. Aren't we lucky to live in the future where tedium and conformity are automated and delivered through computer screens and false kinship? Isn't it amazing that we shape ourselves to be more and more like computers and so bring ourselves closer to the ridiculous dream that they are "more and more like us?"
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