There appears to me to be a contract surrounding facebook profiles. That is, "Do not change your profile too often." For some reason a mutable profile conveys instability and insecurity, and I've even witnessed a wall post hating on someone for always having "updated recently" (this was back in the days of "Profile Updated Recently," pre-news feed [news feed kind of a 9/11 for facebook in terms of turning point, community not really knowing what to do with new communication structures, etc.]).
Anyway, it strikes me that part of the wonder of facebook is its mutability and frivolity. The real reason for the outcry over the news feed was its potential to convey damaging or semi-private information to people who are not frivolous--that is, people who are employers, or worse, people who do not have facebook profiles.
I propose a new facebook-blog mashup wherein people feel at liberty to change their profiles without fear of sanction, where people can lose interest in reading, cease participating in the activity of "sleep," and remove Coldplay from their favorite music category without fear of repercussions. In short, I would like to see a facebook that is exclusively a joke on facebook and makes no effort at sincere communication of the lasting and integral parts of any given person's personality. Either that, or I would like everyone to start liveblogging their identities in the language of facebook profiles, continually updating with cleverness and humor the minutest details of their favorite movies, their complications, their about thems.
In the Tomorrow Zone, no one is afraid to change themselves.
KH re Facebook news feed
1 comment:
A shocking shoutout from the archives. Makes me want to delve right back into the blogging ocean...But have you seen Twitter? Seems kind of like what you're rapping 'bout, albeit less structured.
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