The Social Circle of Life

I don’t use Facebook much anymore, but that was not always the case.  Facebook was my first introduction to social media, and since that initial experience, I realized that Facebook has a lifecycle all its own.

The Birth of a Socialite

The first stage is loaded with excitement.  You setup your page, customize a bunch of crap no one cares about, and sign your life away to have all your searches, posts, and emails tracked and studied by rooms filled with booger picking nerds hammering away on computer terminals to increase advertising dollars.

Friends, Friends, and more Friends phase

The next stage kicks in when you discover the power of the search feature.  This is when you begin searching all the people from your past that wronged you in some way.  People that wouldn’t date you, were mean to you, or banged your boyfriend or girlfriend at some point.  You travel to their page in hopes of finding they have grown up to be fat, ugly, or have some kind of deformity like a hook hand, an eye patch, or ankle bearding.  You might also get the double whammy of them being married or dating someone you consider hideous and you sit back and let the endorphins rush over your body.  But like all drugs, eventually this becomes stale and you feel like some old lady in Atlantic City who has converted her life savings to quarters and is hammering a slot machine waiting for the sweet release of death.  This makes you sad and leads to the next phase.

I took a Poly Sci class in college so I know everything phase

During this phase you begin posting articles and other pictures as you jam your viewpoints down everyone’s throat.  Everything from politics, religion, and articles about why every food you eat will kill you besides kale…yes, kale is apparently the best food that has ever existed on the earth, even though it tastes like lettuce drenched in mud.  I know what you are thinking, “I like Kale”..congrats now go shove some in your mouth so I don’t have to listen to you tell me how great it is.  You then get into annoying comment debates with people and quickly realize why you haven’t spoken to some of your “friends” in 8 years.  It is because you hate them and should not have gotten back in touch with them because they suck.

My Life is better than yours phase

This phase consists of posting pictures of everything you do in your life and using your mobile phone to “check in” everywhere you go you think might be even slightly cool.  You will post pictures of everything, your kid, your significant other, random scenery, food you are about to eat, the bar you are at, your ugly feet while you are sitting somewhere.  I could write all whole post devoted to this phase and probably will but I will be brief here.  This phase is the WORST but it is important for moving to the next one.  This is where everyone carefully constructs there fake life that is all roses.  Everything is perfect, their wife/husband, their kid, every trip they take, and their “dream job”.  It is when people transform from Facebook user, to Fakebook user.  I went through it, everyone does.  You start to get annoyed with everyone else’s life and begin to smack talk behind their back to whoever will listen based on their page.  Every picture of post bring out this annoyed feeling that makes the hairs on your neck stand up.  You might actually find yourself talking out loud to yourself about them.  Soon you realize this isn’t the person you want to be when you actually see them out in public and discover they are just as miserable as everyone else.  That realization leads you to the final phase of the circle, and one you will stay in until you stop using the service all together.

I wonder what Google+ is like phase

You have reached the end.  You realize Facebook is a giant collection of complete shit that is only good for wasting time and mocking on people in the earlier phases.  The fact that people spend more time posting pictures and updating status and check-ins instead of actually enjoying the time they are spending with the people around them cracks you up.  You sit with your wife or significant other and mock the posts they make and articles and you post stuff on your page more as a joke or to try and show off your kid in a fun game of one-upmanship.  Everything is different and the service is more enjoyable but it fades slowly and you post less and less until eventually you barely ever put anything up anymore.  It’s at this point you have completed the circle and wonder “Hmm, I wonder what this Google+ site is all about”…and the circle of life goes round and round.

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