The First Rule of Facebook

Thus, wars etc. have no more importance than whether I am writing in my bathrobe. I'm returning to the blog world... for a while...

This was an entry I made on facebook. I have to be honest- I can be honest here because there are very few people reading it, and if they go to this blog, it's their own fault.

Facebook is about the most superficial and shallow experience I can think of. You are limited to 420 characters, and so your thoughts have to be jammed into sound bites. Second, your "status" is pretty much a way of telling people how cool you are or sharing things with people that really don't matter.

I read the news feeds and think... I don't care if you're shopping. How is that significant? Yes, it is interesting because I know you, but that's about it. Of course, that's the point of a social network isn't it? My first paragraph above refers to an entry I made on face book. I had written some 900 words or so about the Annales school of history (French). I went to Wikapedia and pulled off a description of the approach they had to history in which all meta-narratives are called into question and deconstructed. Once you deconstruct all meta narratives, all events of history are of equal (or no) value. Thus, the fact that I am sitting in my bathrobe typing my status is of equal value to the fact that North Korea bombed South Korea.

Thus, facebook makes events significant to only my "friends" whether they want to see what I'm thinking or not. In the end though, there is a meta narrative even in facebook. No one wants to read what I'm thinking, and so I will probably lose all my friends because I am not staying within the unwritten rules of facebook. I think there is almost an unspoken rule much like the one in Fight Club... the first rule of facebook is that no one talks about facebook on facebook. Except newbies like me. Thus, I need to learn the rules of facebook, otherwise, my friend list will go down to zero and it will be more like blogging, except that I need to cut my posts down below 420 characters...