Facebook and Emotional Labor
April 30, 2018 10:03 AM Subscribe
"Facebook is an emotional labor machine, and if you want to leave it, you’re going to have to start doing a lot of work."
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- Brandon Blatcher
Sarah Jeong is great.
posted by JamesBay at 10:21 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by JamesBay at 10:21 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Obligatory: POSSE.
I used to love twitter. I thought it was an amazing platform. I've always had a love/hatge relationship with Facebook. I don't like the fact that, for the most part, I am doing actual labor for Mark Zuckerberg. I also don't like that some algorithm decides which of my friends get to see what, so that only a subset of my friends get to see the content I am producing. I also dislike being marketed to.
I always knew what Facebook got out of our relationship, but I've often questioned what I was getting in return. I don't like playing stupid games. I don't like taking quizzes to find out which "My Little Pony" I am. I seldom give a shit about the news articles being posted beyond the outrage of the day! Facebook has replaced the water-cooler.
My opinions on both have been rapidly changing to the negative. I seldom find fun and positive interaction on twitter anymore. I'm becoming jaded on Facebook. I post publicly, so I spend a lot of time arguing with people I have no ability to change.
I also resent that my work is making money for someone else. I'd much rather go back to the days of blogs and lose money.
I'm literally trying to ween myself away from social media.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:23 AM on April 30, 2018 [16 favorites]
I used to love twitter. I thought it was an amazing platform. I've always had a love/hatge relationship with Facebook. I don't like the fact that, for the most part, I am doing actual labor for Mark Zuckerberg. I also don't like that some algorithm decides which of my friends get to see what, so that only a subset of my friends get to see the content I am producing. I also dislike being marketed to.
I always knew what Facebook got out of our relationship, but I've often questioned what I was getting in return. I don't like playing stupid games. I don't like taking quizzes to find out which "My Little Pony" I am. I seldom give a shit about the news articles being posted beyond the outrage of the day! Facebook has replaced the water-cooler.
My opinions on both have been rapidly changing to the negative. I seldom find fun and positive interaction on twitter anymore. I'm becoming jaded on Facebook. I post publicly, so I spend a lot of time arguing with people I have no ability to change.
I also resent that my work is making money for someone else. I'd much rather go back to the days of blogs and lose money.
I'm literally trying to ween myself away from social media.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:23 AM on April 30, 2018 [16 favorites]
Ok, not literally.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:23 AM on April 30, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by cjorgensen at 10:23 AM on April 30, 2018 [15 favorites]
I don't think people have that hard a time leaving it. I swear of my facebook friends, there are probably only like 2-3 people who regularly post anymore. My wife uses it for a specialized group, and posts a lot about that. People still post about their vacations and kids very occasionally (I personally like that) but the daily life updates have come and gone. Of course of the 2-3 who do post regularly, they use it very often.
Of course, I have no idea where the 'emotional labor' aspects of it are going. Away maybe? I have no idea. Letters and email certainly aren't making a comeback.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:25 AM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Of course, I have no idea where the 'emotional labor' aspects of it are going. Away maybe? I have no idea. Letters and email certainly aren't making a comeback.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:25 AM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Is it ironic that I posted this on Facebook though.
posted by emjaybee at 10:27 AM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 10:27 AM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
I have had the same circular thoughts about Christmas cards. "I should send Christmas cards as a way of doing a yearly check in with people. Then I can quit Facebook. Oh, but how I will I know who to send them to?"
I do periodically send my friends postcards, and one of my friends who I regularly send mail to moved to a different state without telling me. I can't even depend on people telling me their address once I'm off Facebook.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:28 AM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I do periodically send my friends postcards, and one of my friends who I regularly send mail to moved to a different state without telling me. I can't even depend on people telling me their address once I'm off Facebook.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:28 AM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
Like Sarah concludes, I have moved off of it and use signal/whatspp and email now. Sometimes instagram.
Several friends have quit recently. One of them, who posted only occasional snaps, sent me and my wife a long email with photos, about what they were up to, It was great and the most actual information about their lives that I have gotten. Facebook has also this false sense that you are in contact with people because you watch them post silly quizzes all day.
posted by vacapinta at 10:31 AM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Several friends have quit recently. One of them, who posted only occasional snaps, sent me and my wife a long email with photos, about what they were up to, It was great and the most actual information about their lives that I have gotten. Facebook has also this false sense that you are in contact with people because you watch them post silly quizzes all day.
posted by vacapinta at 10:31 AM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
The one thing I take issue with is the idea that "our parents" did all this stuff manually. Some of them did. Lots of them did not, or did so intermittently. Pretty much all of them had people that fell off their social networks when they moved/lost touch and so were not, in fact, seeing Bob from College's Throwback Thursday pictures. You might only see Bob from College at the 20-year reunion, if he showed up. Likewise, you'd only know Great Aunt Mellie's political views if you saw her at Christmas and she'd had too much punch. Instead of having her message you twice a week about whatever she heard on Fox News.
I think Facebook makes possible/pressures us to a level of "keeping up" that our parents didn't really have to bother with. At first that seemed really nice, but for lots of us, it became too much. I ended up blocking most of my family so we could keep the peace and so far that's working.
posted by emjaybee at 10:32 AM on April 30, 2018 [73 favorites]
I think Facebook makes possible/pressures us to a level of "keeping up" that our parents didn't really have to bother with. At first that seemed really nice, but for lots of us, it became too much. I ended up blocking most of my family so we could keep the peace and so far that's working.
posted by emjaybee at 10:32 AM on April 30, 2018 [73 favorites]
I can't even depend on people telling me their address once I'm off Facebook.
Then you're not really friends. Quit social media. People lived well before it.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:32 AM on April 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
Then you're not really friends. Quit social media. People lived well before it.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:32 AM on April 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
Facebook had replaced much of the emotional labor of social networking that consumed previous generations.
Facebook, Twitter, and LiveJournal and MySpace before them, have bastardized and warped the meaning of the word "Friend".
I didn't quit because I wanted to brag about it or boast about it.
I quit because I didn't feel connected to my 1,000 "friends", and really needed to reconnect, and DO THE WORK (or labor) of reconnecting to my half a dozen friends that, I believe, fit the truest definition of the word.
Emails, text messages and (gasp!) phone calls do wonders.
I'm happier with a smaller, more intimate circle, but YMMV.
It ain't labor if it's fun.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 10:34 AM on April 30, 2018 [22 favorites]
Facebook, Twitter, and LiveJournal and MySpace before them, have bastardized and warped the meaning of the word "Friend".
I didn't quit because I wanted to brag about it or boast about it.
I quit because I didn't feel connected to my 1,000 "friends", and really needed to reconnect, and DO THE WORK (or labor) of reconnecting to my half a dozen friends that, I believe, fit the truest definition of the word.
Emails, text messages and (gasp!) phone calls do wonders.
I'm happier with a smaller, more intimate circle, but YMMV.
It ain't labor if it's fun.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 10:34 AM on April 30, 2018 [22 favorites]
TIL not being a very social person who needs to keep up with everyone else is a "privilege".
posted by inconstant at 10:34 AM on April 30, 2018 [39 favorites]
posted by inconstant at 10:34 AM on April 30, 2018 [39 favorites]
100% what emjaybee said about how we really didn't have the same ability to keep up with all those people in the past.
I'm still trying to figure out how I manage inviting people to really casual parties with so many people quitting it though.
posted by advicepig at 10:36 AM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
I'm still trying to figure out how I manage inviting people to really casual parties with so many people quitting it though.
posted by advicepig at 10:36 AM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
I experienced a severe bout of depression in the year I was off Facebook.
And for me it was the year before I quit Facebook.
It's true that Facebook handles a lot of emotional labor stuff; I'm not very much in contact with my social circle since I stopped using Facebook last fall. But honestly I wasn't much in contact with them before, either. I don't see my friends any less than I did - it's just that it was already down to a handful of times a year.
I don't think Facebook was the cause of my depression - I know it wasn't - but I also know I wasn't getting anything out of the time I spent there. It just wasn't doing anything very useful for me, and I usually ended up in a worse mood after visiting it than before - so I gave folks a heads-up, went a few months without logging in, and eventually deleted the account. Like in the Reddit conversation, I'm not going to judge anybody else's choice to use or not use Facebook. But for me it just wasn't healthy. And I think the amount of emotional labor it was handling for me was really pretty minimal, judging by the (very tiny) increase in the amount I'm now doing for myself again.
posted by nickmark at 10:38 AM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
And for me it was the year before I quit Facebook.
It's true that Facebook handles a lot of emotional labor stuff; I'm not very much in contact with my social circle since I stopped using Facebook last fall. But honestly I wasn't much in contact with them before, either. I don't see my friends any less than I did - it's just that it was already down to a handful of times a year.
I don't think Facebook was the cause of my depression - I know it wasn't - but I also know I wasn't getting anything out of the time I spent there. It just wasn't doing anything very useful for me, and I usually ended up in a worse mood after visiting it than before - so I gave folks a heads-up, went a few months without logging in, and eventually deleted the account. Like in the Reddit conversation, I'm not going to judge anybody else's choice to use or not use Facebook. But for me it just wasn't healthy. And I think the amount of emotional labor it was handling for me was really pretty minimal, judging by the (very tiny) increase in the amount I'm now doing for myself again.
posted by nickmark at 10:38 AM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
I missed a cousin's wedding I would have liked to have gone to because the only notice I got about was a Facebook message. His mom (who already doesn't have a very good relationship with our side of the family) was pretty upset about it when I next saw her. I did feel bad about missing it but at the same time really think that they should have sent me an invitation in the mail.
I'm not sure what I'm missing now that I'm off Facebook. I used to have a blog that served the same purpose for telling friends what I was up to, perhaps I'll resurrect it. Otherwise I guess if/when I see these people we can catch up then.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:41 AM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure what I'm missing now that I'm off Facebook. I used to have a blog that served the same purpose for telling friends what I was up to, perhaps I'll resurrect it. Otherwise I guess if/when I see these people we can catch up then.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:41 AM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
The one thing I take issue with is the idea that "our parents" did all this stuff manually. Some of them did. Lots of them did not, or did so intermittently.
Exactly this. My parents had close friends who they called regularly and wrote letters to periodically, and I have much the same, except periodic letters are replaced with slightly more frequent texts and group chats (and much more infrequent emails). Facebook created the illusion of closeness with hundreds of people, but leaving it exposed that illusion even though I pretty regularly pruned the list of people I was friends with. My actual friends number about half the people I knew on Facebook, and I talk to pretty much all of them on a regular or semi-regular basis. The address thing is one of the few real pains, but honestly, that's just an issue of human communications, and the raft of downsides associated with Facebook aren't outweighed by "I am slightly less likely to lose track of where a friend lives, and it will be slightly less difficult to figure it out later if I do".
posted by protocoach at 10:44 AM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Exactly this. My parents had close friends who they called regularly and wrote letters to periodically, and I have much the same, except periodic letters are replaced with slightly more frequent texts and group chats (and much more infrequent emails). Facebook created the illusion of closeness with hundreds of people, but leaving it exposed that illusion even though I pretty regularly pruned the list of people I was friends with. My actual friends number about half the people I knew on Facebook, and I talk to pretty much all of them on a regular or semi-regular basis. The address thing is one of the few real pains, but honestly, that's just an issue of human communications, and the raft of downsides associated with Facebook aren't outweighed by "I am slightly less likely to lose track of where a friend lives, and it will be slightly less difficult to figure it out later if I do".
posted by protocoach at 10:44 AM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I had a friend who died suddenly that I wouldn't have known about except for the Facebook notifications from their friends. Things like this make it hard for me to leave
posted by Perfectibilist at 10:45 AM on April 30, 2018 [20 favorites]
posted by Perfectibilist at 10:45 AM on April 30, 2018 [20 favorites]
If I wanted to "quit" (haha they have all my data already so whatever) I need is a bot that takes over my Facebook account and responds to all friend events/questions/whatever with "Emjaybee doesn't log on to Facebook anymore! Send her an email at (address) if you would like to keep in touch/have a question/want to invite her to something!" That way people can contact me but I don't have to log in. It would screen a fair number of things out, I'm sure, but that would be ok.
posted by emjaybee at 10:48 AM on April 30, 2018 [17 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 10:48 AM on April 30, 2018 [17 favorites]
It's just a goddamn travesty that there are Nazis
I'm at the point where the negative reactions I experience navigating their poorly curated comments ( e.g.: Nazis, racists, and other pieces of shit ) and preventing myself from responding to those nitwits outweighs whatever benefit Facebook offers. I find I'm happier not having it on my phone, and when I logout on the PC and there's other active steps I must take to use it. ( Spoiler: I end up doing something better )
posted by mikelieman at 10:49 AM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm at the point where the negative reactions I experience navigating their poorly curated comments ( e.g.: Nazis, racists, and other pieces of shit ) and preventing myself from responding to those nitwits outweighs whatever benefit Facebook offers. I find I'm happier not having it on my phone, and when I logout on the PC and there's other active steps I must take to use it. ( Spoiler: I end up doing something better )
posted by mikelieman at 10:49 AM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think that the reason most people went to church in the Olden Days was because they didn't have Facebook.
posted by clawsoon at 10:49 AM on April 30, 2018 [44 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 10:49 AM on April 30, 2018 [44 favorites]
Then you're not really friends.
Just because you're not someone's priority out of their tons of cousins and coworkers and friends doesn't mean you're not friends. Those who say to ignore the relationships that can't be maintained easily are saying that only certain relationships are worth preserving, which I disagree with. I would not have the home address of an old professor, but I still consider them a valuable person to communciate with.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:51 AM on April 30, 2018 [30 favorites]
Just because you're not someone's priority out of their tons of cousins and coworkers and friends doesn't mean you're not friends. Those who say to ignore the relationships that can't be maintained easily are saying that only certain relationships are worth preserving, which I disagree with. I would not have the home address of an old professor, but I still consider them a valuable person to communciate with.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:51 AM on April 30, 2018 [30 favorites]
I think that the reason most people went to church in the Olden Days was because they didn't have Facebook.
and also because if you didn't go the townspeople would burn you alive the next time the crops failed
posted by poffin boffin at 10:54 AM on April 30, 2018 [77 favorites]
and also because if you didn't go the townspeople would burn you alive the next time the crops failed
posted by poffin boffin at 10:54 AM on April 30, 2018 [77 favorites]
As someone who (extremely "I don't even own a television" voice) deleted their Facebook, I can only offer that it became clearer for me what to do when I started viewing it like people do when assessing whether or not they have a problem with alcohol.
Did I think about quitting often? Did I think it was actively harming my mental well-being? Did I worry about how much time it sucked? Did I think it was bringing out the worst side of me? And so on.
I understand for a lot of people, FB is thoroughly ingrained into their professional life, or is the only feasible way to keep up socially. And hey, if you do simply enjoy it for the cat photos or whatnot, good for you! It's still a positive experience for a lot of people. But, if you think about ditching it constantly but feel that for some reason you just need it, really consider hitting that delete button. I just did it this year and holy bejeezus do I feel better already. I'm sure I'm missing some parties but hey, that happens when you quit drinking too.
posted by joechip at 11:02 AM on April 30, 2018 [27 favorites]
Did I think about quitting often? Did I think it was actively harming my mental well-being? Did I worry about how much time it sucked? Did I think it was bringing out the worst side of me? And so on.
I understand for a lot of people, FB is thoroughly ingrained into their professional life, or is the only feasible way to keep up socially. And hey, if you do simply enjoy it for the cat photos or whatnot, good for you! It's still a positive experience for a lot of people. But, if you think about ditching it constantly but feel that for some reason you just need it, really consider hitting that delete button. I just did it this year and holy bejeezus do I feel better already. I'm sure I'm missing some parties but hey, that happens when you quit drinking too.
posted by joechip at 11:02 AM on April 30, 2018 [27 favorites]
I don't think people have that hard a time leaving it. I swear of my facebook friends, there are probably only like 2-3 people who regularly post anymore.
I've found Facebook to be more and more quiet these days myself. There seems to be activity in groups but the general posting of stuff to walls seems to have petered out lately. I only log in a two times a week or so and can catch up in a few minutes since there's so little going on.
posted by octothorpe at 11:02 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
I've found Facebook to be more and more quiet these days myself. There seems to be activity in groups but the general posting of stuff to walls seems to have petered out lately. I only log in a two times a week or so and can catch up in a few minutes since there's so little going on.
posted by octothorpe at 11:02 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
I think I've hit a good middle ground with having the FB messenger app on my phone and setting up a FB events feed on my GCal - I get personalized / time sensitive stuff without having to regularly log in.
I log in about once a month and like friends' posts for ten minutes, which is pretty much all the social media I can handle.
posted by momus_window at 11:10 AM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
I log in about once a month and like friends' posts for ten minutes, which is pretty much all the social media I can handle.
posted by momus_window at 11:10 AM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
and also because if you didn't go the townspeople would burn you alive the next time the crops failed
Pretty sure that's in Facebook's business plan for next year.
posted by clawsoon at 11:11 AM on April 30, 2018 [10 favorites]
Pretty sure that's in Facebook's business plan for next year.
posted by clawsoon at 11:11 AM on April 30, 2018 [10 favorites]
I just want to chime in from the other side. I'm 55 and I have never had a Facebook account so I don't really know what you are all talking about. I do not feel like it is unfair for me not to have a Facebook account because I am making other people do emotional labor on my behalf. I do feel that people that want me to have a Facebook account want me to do emotional labor on Facebook's behalf. I am sorry but I don't like it or Twitter and you can call it a privilege to not have to use it if you want but all I see is a bunch of social pressure to be put to work for a couple companies I frankly find slightly dystopian. I feel I am a little bit in the position of being a vegetarian and hearing people complain how I think I'm so special and want everything cooked just for me.
posted by Pembquist at 11:13 AM on April 30, 2018 [40 favorites]
posted by Pembquist at 11:13 AM on April 30, 2018 [40 favorites]
I left a couple of years ago because I found the illusion of contact depressing. Of course, in most cases now I don't even have the illusion. Leaving was like taking a neutron bomb to my social circle; the structures are still upright, but the people are gone.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:20 AM on April 30, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:20 AM on April 30, 2018 [9 favorites]
As someone who has a hard time making and keeping social connections, people dropping off facebook and other social media has made it difficult for me. Doesn't help that I moved long distance 3 years ago an am about to again. I don't think it's true that "well they weren't really your friends if you can't email them regularly" is true. Social media made it easy for me, as someone who moves around a lot, to have relationships with people outside of work, and I can see that slipping away. Maybe it was never "really" there. It still sucks.
posted by quaking fajita at 11:27 AM on April 30, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by quaking fajita at 11:27 AM on April 30, 2018 [13 favorites]
I've never had a Facebook account. I'm in contact with everyone I want to be in contact with. It's not difficult. Also, I go outside a lot.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:28 AM on April 30, 2018 [16 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:28 AM on April 30, 2018 [16 favorites]
It's real.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:32 AM on April 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:32 AM on April 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
and why should my friends do the extra EL of remembering that I'm one of like two people they know who's not on Facebook?
Because they are your friends?
This feels reminiscent of back when people would go "If you really wanted to keep in touch with me, you'd get iMessage & we'd share those blue bubbles!". Going both ways, come to think of it. Ultimately, dictating how other people get to communicate with you (and saying they're less important than that purity) is saying they're less important to you than that, whether they accept or not.
So you have to meet people where they're at, ultimately
posted by CrystalDave at 11:38 AM on April 30, 2018 [16 favorites]
Because they are your friends?
This feels reminiscent of back when people would go "If you really wanted to keep in touch with me, you'd get iMessage & we'd share those blue bubbles!". Going both ways, come to think of it. Ultimately, dictating how other people get to communicate with you (and saying they're less important than that purity) is saying they're less important to you than that, whether they accept or not.
So you have to meet people where they're at, ultimately
posted by CrystalDave at 11:38 AM on April 30, 2018 [16 favorites]
It's real.
But is it really real? (Matrix music begins to play) ... or do you think you're offline, but in reality, you're just a battery?
posted by greenhornet at 11:38 AM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
But is it really real? (Matrix music begins to play) ... or do you think you're offline, but in reality, you're just a battery?
posted by greenhornet at 11:38 AM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
This article resonated with me.
I don’t need Facebook for my close relationships. For my close friends, immediate family, current coworkers who I’m social with - I already keep up with them. What I specifically treasure about Facebook is the way it has allowed me, someone who, like the author, is not great about keeping in touch, to stay in contact with random people from my past who otherwise would have disappeared from my life completely. I truly enjoy that I can log into Facebook and see what is going on with Person Who Lived on My Dorm Floor Freshman Year of College, People From My Youth Group Trip To Israel When I Was 15, Ex-coworker From 3 Jobs Ago, Aquaintance From Junior High, Ex-Girlfriend From 20 Years Ago, etc.
I realize there are compelling reasons to leave Facebook. It would not be simple or easy though. It would come at a great cost. My world would become a lot smaller.
posted by The Gooch at 11:39 AM on April 30, 2018 [22 favorites]
I don’t need Facebook for my close relationships. For my close friends, immediate family, current coworkers who I’m social with - I already keep up with them. What I specifically treasure about Facebook is the way it has allowed me, someone who, like the author, is not great about keeping in touch, to stay in contact with random people from my past who otherwise would have disappeared from my life completely. I truly enjoy that I can log into Facebook and see what is going on with Person Who Lived on My Dorm Floor Freshman Year of College, People From My Youth Group Trip To Israel When I Was 15, Ex-coworker From 3 Jobs Ago, Aquaintance From Junior High, Ex-Girlfriend From 20 Years Ago, etc.
I realize there are compelling reasons to leave Facebook. It would not be simple or easy though. It would come at a great cost. My world would become a lot smaller.
posted by The Gooch at 11:39 AM on April 30, 2018 [22 favorites]
Just because you're not someone's priority out of their tons of cousins and coworkers and friends doesn't mean you're not friends.
Most people have cellphones. You can mass text people invites to a party with just slightly more trouble than you can mass invite them to a Facebook event. The only difference is they have to add it to their calendar themselves.
A few times a month, I go down my list of friends in my phone and call someone I haven’t talked to in a while. It is a great way of staying connected, I highly recommend it. Christmas cards are also a tangible way of staying present in each other’s lives. You don’t have to be a priority to connect to someone, but at the same time if you don’t have someone’s email or phone number or address, I think it’s reasonable to ask if you are really friends or just acquaintances.
posted by corb at 11:41 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Most people have cellphones. You can mass text people invites to a party with just slightly more trouble than you can mass invite them to a Facebook event. The only difference is they have to add it to their calendar themselves.
A few times a month, I go down my list of friends in my phone and call someone I haven’t talked to in a while. It is a great way of staying connected, I highly recommend it. Christmas cards are also a tangible way of staying present in each other’s lives. You don’t have to be a priority to connect to someone, but at the same time if you don’t have someone’s email or phone number or address, I think it’s reasonable to ask if you are really friends or just acquaintances.
posted by corb at 11:41 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
This is an interesting read because it's kind of the opposite from a piece that I'm writing, that quitting Facebook is easier than ever.
It's gone from constantly evolving novelty to a stable, and as such can now be engaged with on one's own terms. Not being on Facebook a couple years ago meant disconnection and often judgment; not being on Facebook now or in the near future will just be like any other personal choice that others respect and work around. And you can also choose middle grounds easily — going on once every week or so to check for events and birthdays you might have forgotten, and to check low priority messages from acquaintances. That's how I use it and it's great!
There's some work involved for sure but that work is (I think) less intense than it was before owing to better tools and connectivity, and the willingness of people to use Facebook, rather than be a user of Facebook.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:43 AM on April 30, 2018
It's gone from constantly evolving novelty to a stable, and as such can now be engaged with on one's own terms. Not being on Facebook a couple years ago meant disconnection and often judgment; not being on Facebook now or in the near future will just be like any other personal choice that others respect and work around. And you can also choose middle grounds easily — going on once every week or so to check for events and birthdays you might have forgotten, and to check low priority messages from acquaintances. That's how I use it and it's great!
There's some work involved for sure but that work is (I think) less intense than it was before owing to better tools and connectivity, and the willingness of people to use Facebook, rather than be a user of Facebook.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:43 AM on April 30, 2018
As a comedian in NYC, I'm pretty dependent on Facebook. It's the best way to find out what shows are going on, make weak-tie connections with people you meet at shows, book and promote your own stuff. It's also the way I connect with comics/producers in other cities to find out what's going on and arrange spots when I'm in town. I needed Facebook to self-book a tour, for sure.
You can also watch peers in the arts have some spectacular flameouts right out in front of everyone and get a good sense of who's mature enough to comport themselves in an environment where real money and deadlines are at stake.
I don't love Facebook and I wish I didn't need it, but it's wound its way through the arts communities I exist in pretty significantly.
posted by chinese_fashion at 11:43 AM on April 30, 2018 [9 favorites]
You can also watch peers in the arts have some spectacular flameouts right out in front of everyone and get a good sense of who's mature enough to comport themselves in an environment where real money and deadlines are at stake.
I don't love Facebook and I wish I didn't need it, but it's wound its way through the arts communities I exist in pretty significantly.
posted by chinese_fashion at 11:43 AM on April 30, 2018 [9 favorites]
I'm reminded of the studies that selling housewives vacuum cleaners and typists word processors didn't actually liberate them as labor-saving devices, it just created whole new forms of labor expectations that they were obligated to meet. So rather than a call once a month or so and a card on the appropriate holiday we're now guilt-tripped for not liking photos within hours (not an exaggeration).
Leaving Facebook came after a full year and a half of depression and anxiety with the reality of being in the middle of a big old culture war through the worst medium possible for it, and anxiety about being on the hook as a token queer for everyone from childhood cousins to future employers through the worst medium possible for it. So rather than trying to thread the needle about which bridges I wanted to burn on any given Monday, Cambridge gave me a good excuse to nope out of a platform that had minimal engagement from me for months. The Facebook model is hostile to the concept of boundaries and detente on which many social networks depend.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:44 AM on April 30, 2018 [34 favorites]
Leaving Facebook came after a full year and a half of depression and anxiety with the reality of being in the middle of a big old culture war through the worst medium possible for it, and anxiety about being on the hook as a token queer for everyone from childhood cousins to future employers through the worst medium possible for it. So rather than trying to thread the needle about which bridges I wanted to burn on any given Monday, Cambridge gave me a good excuse to nope out of a platform that had minimal engagement from me for months. The Facebook model is hostile to the concept of boundaries and detente on which many social networks depend.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:44 AM on April 30, 2018 [34 favorites]
Ultimately, dictating how other people get to communicate with you (and saying they're less important than that purity) is saying they're less important to you than that, whether they accept or not.
That doesn't make any sense. Everyone makes choices about how they can be reached all the time. Refusing to opt-in to a platform is not a purity test.
So you have to meet people where they're at, ultimately
Ok, where I'm at is "I'd prefer if my relationships weren't mediated by an enormous unaccountable corporation", and my friends should meet me there, right?
posted by protocoach at 11:50 AM on April 30, 2018 [37 favorites]
That doesn't make any sense. Everyone makes choices about how they can be reached all the time. Refusing to opt-in to a platform is not a purity test.
So you have to meet people where they're at, ultimately
Ok, where I'm at is "I'd prefer if my relationships weren't mediated by an enormous unaccountable corporation", and my friends should meet me there, right?
posted by protocoach at 11:50 AM on April 30, 2018 [37 favorites]
I don't think there's an intrinsic reason that the Facebook's niche needs to be occupied by a commercial entity. Everything that Facebook does could be achieved via a decentralized, federated, peer-to-peer network, where it's easy to for everyone to control what data you share and who it gets shared with and there's no big company controlling the platform, looking over your shoulder with constant subtle encouragement to be more open and share more of your data so you provide more signal to the almighty ad targeting algorithm.
I think it's just too much to ask of the necessary engineering and design talent to donate the huge amount of labor required to build up the alternative that's easy enough to use, with the required functionality to get enough buy-in for the network effect to take off. Capitalism provides that incentive in our present society, which has efficiently provided us with a needed, undoubtedly useful product, but corrupted, like everything else it touches.
posted by zixyer at 11:51 AM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think it's just too much to ask of the necessary engineering and design talent to donate the huge amount of labor required to build up the alternative that's easy enough to use, with the required functionality to get enough buy-in for the network effect to take off. Capitalism provides that incentive in our present society, which has efficiently provided us with a needed, undoubtedly useful product, but corrupted, like everything else it touches.
posted by zixyer at 11:51 AM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's not neccesarily friends though. My primary purpose for Facebook right now is toddler groups, because that's their entire web presence and they have no reason to do anything else. I'd be much more lonely without them, and i haven't posted anything direct to my own wall since 2009.
posted by threetwentytwo at 11:55 AM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by threetwentytwo at 11:55 AM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
The Facebook model is hostile to the concept of boundaries and detente on which many social networks depend.
This a thousand times.
I never in a million years want my dad fighting with my friends about politics EVER. And in real life situations, if I have a big party and invite both, his age and the fact that he looks like me and is there at all will mean people aren’t going to start talking about politics with him. But there is no way to have Facebook without showing “comments on other walls”, where he just wanders over and people have no idea who he is and then there’s a bitter and terrible fight that is totally avoidable.
Livejournal let you filter: Facebook by design does not, and it is only one of the many reasons it deserves to be consigned to the fourth circle of hell.
posted by corb at 11:56 AM on April 30, 2018 [34 favorites]
This a thousand times.
I never in a million years want my dad fighting with my friends about politics EVER. And in real life situations, if I have a big party and invite both, his age and the fact that he looks like me and is there at all will mean people aren’t going to start talking about politics with him. But there is no way to have Facebook without showing “comments on other walls”, where he just wanders over and people have no idea who he is and then there’s a bitter and terrible fight that is totally avoidable.
Livejournal let you filter: Facebook by design does not, and it is only one of the many reasons it deserves to be consigned to the fourth circle of hell.
posted by corb at 11:56 AM on April 30, 2018 [34 favorites]
This feels reminiscent of back when people would go "If you really wanted to keep in touch with me, you'd get iMessage & we'd share those blue bubbles!".
Way back in the mid-aughts, I had a good friend who was exactly the right age (she's a good bit younger than me) to be a Facebook early adopter. We had previously been really really close, she'd even been my roommate for a while. We were tight. I was one of her only friends when she first moved here, but then, as you do, she made more friends and that was all great, except the new friends she made were also younger and also FB-early-adopters. She moved her whole social life to Facebook and at first I was left doing all the emotional labor (calling/texting her to ask her to hang out, etc....) with no reciprocation and then she just vanished from my life completely.
So anyway, that was my n=1 early introduction to Facebook and what happens when friends stop seeing you as a friend if you aren't FriendsTM.
I don't use Facebook in my real life and never have, I think probably just due to being bloody-minded vis-a-vis the above early experience but also I just naturally as a misanthropic introvert who would rather die than be contacted out-of-the-blue by someone I went to high school with (nothing against the people I went to high school with, who I mostly liked, and I have naturally in real-life venues reconnected with a couple of them). The actual purpose Facebook is designed for (rather than what I use it for: internet-only interest groups and local chickenkeeping news) just seems like a howling maw of horrors to me. Hard pass.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:00 PM on April 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
Way back in the mid-aughts, I had a good friend who was exactly the right age (she's a good bit younger than me) to be a Facebook early adopter. We had previously been really really close, she'd even been my roommate for a while. We were tight. I was one of her only friends when she first moved here, but then, as you do, she made more friends and that was all great, except the new friends she made were also younger and also FB-early-adopters. She moved her whole social life to Facebook and at first I was left doing all the emotional labor (calling/texting her to ask her to hang out, etc....) with no reciprocation and then she just vanished from my life completely.
So anyway, that was my n=1 early introduction to Facebook and what happens when friends stop seeing you as a friend if you aren't FriendsTM.
I don't use Facebook in my real life and never have, I think probably just due to being bloody-minded vis-a-vis the above early experience but also I just naturally as a misanthropic introvert who would rather die than be contacted out-of-the-blue by someone I went to high school with (nothing against the people I went to high school with, who I mostly liked, and I have naturally in real-life venues reconnected with a couple of them). The actual purpose Facebook is designed for (rather than what I use it for: internet-only interest groups and local chickenkeeping news) just seems like a howling maw of horrors to me. Hard pass.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:00 PM on April 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
As soon as I saw the linked post's headline, earlier this week, it had done its job. Trying to lead a life of minimal flameouts, I soft-quit FB after the election in 2016--out of anger, out of exhaustion.
Simultaneously, I try (poorly, unevenly) to do my share of the friend work. Some of that cultivation has historically happened via FB. What I've tried to do in the last year is to move that work to text/emails rather than just shirking it because "ugh FB".
The article was helpful in being a new, lucid goad to keep working on this stuff.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 12:01 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
Simultaneously, I try (poorly, unevenly) to do my share of the friend work. Some of that cultivation has historically happened via FB. What I've tried to do in the last year is to move that work to text/emails rather than just shirking it because "ugh FB".
The article was helpful in being a new, lucid goad to keep working on this stuff.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 12:01 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'd like to organize a conspiracy to defect from Facebook at a particular date. The more people that do it at once, the more visible the defection will be. This visibility should help mitigate the resistance people have to leaving based on network effects. I'm setting up a FB group (har har) to collect likeminded co-conspirators.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:02 PM on April 30, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:02 PM on April 30, 2018 [10 favorites]
a bot that takes over my Facebook account and responds to all friend events/questions/whatever with "Emjaybee doesn't log on to Facebook anymore! Send her an email at (address) if you would like to keep in touch/have a question/want to invite her to something!" That way people can contact me but I don't have to log in.
I would probably pay for this. So I bet Facebook would never allow it.
I'd like to organize a conspiracy to defect from Facebook at a particular date.
YES PLEASE.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:14 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
I would probably pay for this. So I bet Facebook would never allow it.
I'd like to organize a conspiracy to defect from Facebook at a particular date.
YES PLEASE.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:14 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
Here's reality. The data exists. The data is permanent. If they wanted to, they couldn't get rid of it because they are required by law to hold on to it the same way every single one of us holds on to our taxes for 7 years or whatever. Even if archived, it is likely that the data will continue to exist.
You shutting yourself out/off not giving them permission to share your personally identifiable data - all that that indicates that they can't share your personally identifiable data. They can strip out pieces of the metadata, and float you as a scrambled and hashed look alike to you that may up somebody else's active user counts for a bit, and then slowly, as they move your old 'actual you' account to inactive, back to normal. This is a speed bump - a temporary duplication of those who live - on the database. A data wonk is going to trend you out from that third party recipient. Moreover, if the last thing you did as 'you' was to join the communist party - when you do return to facebook... or provide a facebook property enough information and permission so that they can resell you again - they'll likely sell you with the insight that they remember about you of 'Likes Lenin' - and for fun... you'll be putting information on your new platform that they can and likely will pull back to their main platform that still fits with their last known you...
I exist on Facebook only in the shadows of friends' and family's tagging and conversation. I have no say in it. I have no ability to prevent it, and I can guarantee that if tomorrow I signed on - They'd be able to provide me a solid list of everybody I've ever known and photo evidence.
And then, I remember a buddy of mine who went to work for the CIA out of our undergrad (and in this case, I mean Central Intelligence Agency, not when I went back for my culinary degree and could be referencing the Culinary Institute of America). Quite literally, one of the questions on the intake process was: List everybody you've ever known ever. Uncle Sam had an interest to know whether Suzie the pre-school paste eater was now a Communist Sympathizer and if she could hold influence you.
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:25 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
You shutting yourself out/off not giving them permission to share your personally identifiable data - all that that indicates that they can't share your personally identifiable data. They can strip out pieces of the metadata, and float you as a scrambled and hashed look alike to you that may up somebody else's active user counts for a bit, and then slowly, as they move your old 'actual you' account to inactive, back to normal. This is a speed bump - a temporary duplication of those who live - on the database. A data wonk is going to trend you out from that third party recipient. Moreover, if the last thing you did as 'you' was to join the communist party - when you do return to facebook... or provide a facebook property enough information and permission so that they can resell you again - they'll likely sell you with the insight that they remember about you of 'Likes Lenin' - and for fun... you'll be putting information on your new platform that they can and likely will pull back to their main platform that still fits with their last known you...
I exist on Facebook only in the shadows of friends' and family's tagging and conversation. I have no say in it. I have no ability to prevent it, and I can guarantee that if tomorrow I signed on - They'd be able to provide me a solid list of everybody I've ever known and photo evidence.
And then, I remember a buddy of mine who went to work for the CIA out of our undergrad (and in this case, I mean Central Intelligence Agency, not when I went back for my culinary degree and could be referencing the Culinary Institute of America). Quite literally, one of the questions on the intake process was: List everybody you've ever known ever. Uncle Sam had an interest to know whether Suzie the pre-school paste eater was now a Communist Sympathizer and if she could hold influence you.
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:25 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
I'd like to organize a conspiracy to defect from Facebook at a particular date.
This is the best idea I've heard yet, for getting people away from FB and onto other platforms.
Please do this! MeFites who are good at organizing stuff, do this! People with Twitters and Reddits and large numbers of followers, do this! I will help boost the signal to the best of my ability!
posted by ethical_caligula at 12:29 PM on April 30, 2018
This is the best idea I've heard yet, for getting people away from FB and onto other platforms.
Please do this! MeFites who are good at organizing stuff, do this! People with Twitters and Reddits and large numbers of followers, do this! I will help boost the signal to the best of my ability!
posted by ethical_caligula at 12:29 PM on April 30, 2018
Ultimately, dictating how other people get to communicate with you (and saying they're less important than that purity) is saying they're less important to you than that, whether they accept or not.
So you have to meet people where they're at, ultimately
I think that this was more true when there were, like 3 ways to get a hold of someone. But the ways to Keep in Touch with Friends is ever increasing, and why does their preferred communication method trump my desire to not have to keep track of 17 different communication channels?
posted by Automocar at 12:41 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
So you have to meet people where they're at, ultimately
I think that this was more true when there were, like 3 ways to get a hold of someone. But the ways to Keep in Touch with Friends is ever increasing, and why does their preferred communication method trump my desire to not have to keep track of 17 different communication channels?
posted by Automocar at 12:41 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
Here's reality. The data exists. The data is permanent. If they wanted to, they couldn't get rid of it because they are required by law to hold on to it the same way every single one of us holds on to our taxes for 7 years or whatever.
Depends on the law. Laws can be changed.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:42 PM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Depends on the law. Laws can be changed.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:42 PM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
It is while reading the article and the comments that suddenly I realized that the only people I talk with using Facebook at all is acquaintances. No family, no close friends, all of who keep in touch via texts/calls. Huh.
I'm coming to the age where keeping up with lot of acquaintances seems more trouble than it's worth. Not to mention how it really does mess with my self-esteem, seeing the shiny, curated version of people's lives that I rationally know is not the full picture but trips me up nonetheless.
If only they didn't have puppy videos and birthday reminders.
posted by Nieshka at 12:45 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm coming to the age where keeping up with lot of acquaintances seems more trouble than it's worth. Not to mention how it really does mess with my self-esteem, seeing the shiny, curated version of people's lives that I rationally know is not the full picture but trips me up nonetheless.
If only they didn't have puppy videos and birthday reminders.
posted by Nieshka at 12:45 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
This is an interesting article. I never really thought of my time on Facebook as emotional labour but it really is. To clarify, I never really followed anyone or posted anything - in fact I actively avoid using it that way so I have no idea who might be posting racist things or inflammatory politics. I largely only use it to communicate with people I actually know (so no 1000 people following me or anything like that). Everyone I know on there, the 50 or so people, I know IRL but live elsewhere. I might have some old phone numbers or some old email addresses for some of those people but who's to say if they're accurate. So, weirdly, I guess I kind of use it as I do Slack at work - as a forum to connect with people in far-flung places for specific conversations. In the last 2 years, some people in my life died and Facebook was literally the only way to connect with some family members and friends to coordinate things. So I guess I associate with Facebook with death and mourning mostly. If I could just have a Slack channel where random people in my life could chime in or could have group conversations with people to organise something that would difficult to do over the phone... I'd like that.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:47 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:47 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm literally trying to ween myself away from social media.
You're spending time listening to a 90's alt-rock band instead? (sorry, couldn't resist - that was too perfect a typo to pass up!)
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:53 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
You're spending time listening to a 90's alt-rock band instead? (sorry, couldn't resist - that was too perfect a typo to pass up!)
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:53 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
Ashwagandha: In the last 2 years, some people in my life died and Facebook was literally the only way to connect with some family members and friends to coordinate things.
I used Facebook after my father and mother's deaths to get in touch with people before the funeral. The article is exactly right about how it went: It made it easier to contact a large group of acquaintances, but there was nothing I couldn't have done if I was willing to expend more emotional labour. Maybe I would've had to work harder to track down phone numbers; maybe I would've had to leave messages and call back a few more times to make sure I got in touch with people. Maybe I would've even had to drive around and knock on doors, ask where so-and-so lives now and how to get in touch with them. Maybe we would've had to postpone the funerals for an extra month or two (which I learned is not a problem nowadays with modern preservation techniques). But all of it was doable without Facebook. More tiring, more overwhelming at an already overwhelming time, but doable.
posted by clawsoon at 12:55 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I used Facebook after my father and mother's deaths to get in touch with people before the funeral. The article is exactly right about how it went: It made it easier to contact a large group of acquaintances, but there was nothing I couldn't have done if I was willing to expend more emotional labour. Maybe I would've had to work harder to track down phone numbers; maybe I would've had to leave messages and call back a few more times to make sure I got in touch with people. Maybe I would've even had to drive around and knock on doors, ask where so-and-so lives now and how to get in touch with them. Maybe we would've had to postpone the funerals for an extra month or two (which I learned is not a problem nowadays with modern preservation techniques). But all of it was doable without Facebook. More tiring, more overwhelming at an already overwhelming time, but doable.
posted by clawsoon at 12:55 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I still have it though I rarely post anything anymore. Not out of some high-minded statement, it's just the whole reason I ever got on it was to stay in touch with friends from Barbelith when Barbelith stopped being a thing and most of them were in the UK and when I moved to Canada, all my social group in Atlanta that I would miss. The UKers are still active but hardly anyone from the ATL is on it anymore. I don't have a need for it--and everything gets xposted from Instagram anyway--but now I have to dip back in because the foster cat group does everything on there. I have to be able to make sure that pics of this cat go up so he can get adopted.
posted by Kitteh at 1:09 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 1:09 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Ambivalence is also a viable option here. I have fb and use it a lot for a range of things from the stupid/banal to things I'm grateful for (like keeping up superficially with people I like but am not super close with*.) I have disabled my account twice recently for about a week each time. I didn't actively miss it, but I came back. I think this is just going to be my relationship with it. Unfollowing a lot of people made my ambivalence tip less to the negative, but then you miss people's major life event announcements. It's a mess, like most things.
I do miss other internet places that felt more conducive to substantial interaction and had better filtering.
*if these are not friends by your definition, fine. Enjoy your definition.
posted by Smearcase at 1:11 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
I do miss other internet places that felt more conducive to substantial interaction and had better filtering.
*if these are not friends by your definition, fine. Enjoy your definition.
posted by Smearcase at 1:11 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
I unfollowed everybody on FB last August, except my wife and kids. I still have an account, and still use Messenger quite a bit, but since my wife and kids don't post much my wall can be unchanged for days at a time, except for the ads. So I have no real reason to be on FB. When I'm wondering about a friend I'll check their profile and it turns out their vacation photos are just as interesting two weeks after they posted them. This seems to be the ideal use case for me. I'm reachable via FB, and I do upload the occasional photo if I'm out doing something interesting, but it's 100% a pull model. The algorithm pushes nothing to me, I have to go looking if I want to catch up with a friend.
posted by COD at 1:12 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by COD at 1:12 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I go down my list of friends in my phone and call someone
And see, this? This fills me dread. I LOATHE talking on the phone. I get sweaty and I pace and my stomach hurts. I HATE IT. Give me text-based ways to communicate and I am a happy camper.
posted by cooker girl at 1:17 PM on April 30, 2018 [24 favorites]
And see, this? This fills me dread. I LOATHE talking on the phone. I get sweaty and I pace and my stomach hurts. I HATE IT. Give me text-based ways to communicate and I am a happy camper.
posted by cooker girl at 1:17 PM on April 30, 2018 [24 favorites]
I'd be pretty alarmed if someone I hadn't talked to in ages called me out of the blue without arranging via email or text beforehand. My immediate assumption would be that someone had died.
posted by octothorpe at 1:29 PM on April 30, 2018 [20 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 1:29 PM on April 30, 2018 [20 favorites]
I definitely do better with Facebook now that I defriended a lot of people. A lot. Including some cousins whom I still see at weddings, funerals, family get togethers. As I've said before--the central tension is false intimacy or misapprehension of connection. More "social media is great as a circle of people you already know" vs the belief is will bring you intimacy with strangers you admire or persons you knew once. So I approach FB as a closed circle of people I already know and stay in touch with, including some people I've not been in the same room with in several years. I have really started being ruthless in cutting people.
Which, you know, is something of what the concept of the emotional labor of staying in touch is. My parents left their childhood neighborhoods in 1965. They lived far away for many years and moved back to the general metropolitan area in 1995. Most of the people in their wedding party are sort of regularly over to the house but most of the people who attended their wedding? who they went to high school with? who they knew in college? Not so much. You are not close to everyone you've ever known for ever and ever. It's fine not to "be friends" with them in every possible platform, too.
Still "Just quit" is facile--if only for events and other coordination of that sort. You've got one person who wants everything by text, one by chat, one in Twitter DMs, oe in email. FB at least consolidates that shit.
posted by crush at 1:30 PM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Which, you know, is something of what the concept of the emotional labor of staying in touch is. My parents left their childhood neighborhoods in 1965. They lived far away for many years and moved back to the general metropolitan area in 1995. Most of the people in their wedding party are sort of regularly over to the house but most of the people who attended their wedding? who they went to high school with? who they knew in college? Not so much. You are not close to everyone you've ever known for ever and ever. It's fine not to "be friends" with them in every possible platform, too.
Still "Just quit" is facile--if only for events and other coordination of that sort. You've got one person who wants everything by text, one by chat, one in Twitter DMs, oe in email. FB at least consolidates that shit.
posted by crush at 1:30 PM on April 30, 2018 [7 favorites]
Oh god, I hate being on the phone. Texting is a godsend. (When you have an anxiety disorder, you sure as hell do not want to be called up out of the blue. At least arrange it with me beforehand!) My husband is totally comfortable calling people up--he hates texting--but I loathe it. If I could text my doctor or anything that invloves talking to a live person, I would. This preference, of course, horrifies my MIL.
posted by Kitteh at 1:45 PM on April 30, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 1:45 PM on April 30, 2018 [9 favorites]
crush: FB at least consolidates that shit.
Ahem.
posted by clawsoon at 1:46 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Ahem.
posted by clawsoon at 1:46 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
A few times a month, I go down my list of friends in my phone and call someone I haven’t talked to in a while. It is a great way of staying connected, I highly recommend it.
Please understand that I'm implying nothing about your character or social skills when I say that all your friends may not find it so great.
One of the wondrous advances of the twenty-first century is not having to talk to people on the phone all the time.
posted by praemunire at 1:47 PM on April 30, 2018 [15 favorites]
Please understand that I'm implying nothing about your character or social skills when I say that all your friends may not find it so great.
One of the wondrous advances of the twenty-first century is not having to talk to people on the phone all the time.
posted by praemunire at 1:47 PM on April 30, 2018 [15 favorites]
praemunire: Please understand that I'm implying nothing about your character or social skills when I say that all your friends may not find it so great.
Some probably love it, some probably hate it. Just like with Facebook. All that you're doing by saying that is giving people who already have social anxiety even more reasons to cut themselves off.
Only way to find out if someone likes to talk on the phone is to call them up and ask them... and hope they're not Guess Culture people.
posted by clawsoon at 1:51 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
Some probably love it, some probably hate it. Just like with Facebook. All that you're doing by saying that is giving people who already have social anxiety even more reasons to cut themselves off.
Only way to find out if someone likes to talk on the phone is to call them up and ask them... and hope they're not Guess Culture people.
posted by clawsoon at 1:51 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I don't do FB; I was very happy on LJ when the early-adopter phase happened, and after that, every time I thought, "oh hey lots of people are there; maybe I should consider..." I'd hear some horror story about how FB had found new and innovative ways to be cruel to their userbase. So I've never signed up.
But I recognize that it's providing a valuable service to millions of people, and it's hard to just step away because they're doing vile things sometimes to some people, even if those "some people" are sometimes you.
I have seen a few interesting blog posts about Facebook without likes, about commenting instead of using the like button, and those seem to be a valid approach to having access to your friends without the endless barrage of commercial and political propaganda.
(That said, Dreamwidth is an active fork of the LJ code, and allows you to split your "who I watch" list from "who sees my locked posts" list, and shows the watch list in chrono order with no ads. Just in case anyone's looking for other options.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:52 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
But I recognize that it's providing a valuable service to millions of people, and it's hard to just step away because they're doing vile things sometimes to some people, even if those "some people" are sometimes you.
I have seen a few interesting blog posts about Facebook without likes, about commenting instead of using the like button, and those seem to be a valid approach to having access to your friends without the endless barrage of commercial and political propaganda.
(That said, Dreamwidth is an active fork of the LJ code, and allows you to split your "who I watch" list from "who sees my locked posts" list, and shows the watch list in chrono order with no ads. Just in case anyone's looking for other options.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:52 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Please understand that I'm implying nothing about your character or social skills when I say that all your friends may not find it so great.
In my case, I’m GenX and most of these people I’ve known for twenty years, and we all grew up calling each other on phones. I understand this might be weirder for people who are not in a similar situation. I know my daughter doesn’t call people but texts them all the time which is also a thing that could be done if you are similarly text-inclined! Basically my point is: we don’t need Facebook.
posted by corb at 1:53 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
In my case, I’m GenX and most of these people I’ve known for twenty years, and we all grew up calling each other on phones. I understand this might be weirder for people who are not in a similar situation. I know my daughter doesn’t call people but texts them all the time which is also a thing that could be done if you are similarly text-inclined! Basically my point is: we don’t need Facebook.
posted by corb at 1:53 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
Facebook facilitates the kind of general small-talk that keeps me connected with my friends. What we’re reading, what we’re watching, what our kids are up to, did we take a neat weekend trip, did we take up a new hobby. I’ve actually reconnected this way with quite a few people from high school and college I would otherwise have totally lost touch with, and even gotten close to a couple of family members I’d otherwise see once a decade or less. It’s resulted in IRL visits, and my life is better and richer for those friendships.
I remember the time when this was accomplished via mass emails — or listservs if the group was official enough or had someone savvy enough to set one up. Was it better? I don’t know. I know I’m shit at checking my non-work email nowadays, but that’s a chicken-and-egg problem — I don’t get much non-work email communication other than ads and account statements, so I don’t bother checking it often. It’s also definitely more work to deal with multiple mailing lists, and hard to filter to just certain subsets of each list. If my college dorm had a list, I might not want to talk to everyone on it, you know?
Basically, without social media, I just wouldn’t have some friendships at all, and others would be much more distant. I’d probably still be OK, sure. But I don’t really relish cutting off those connections now. It’s easy to say “If they’re really your friends, they’ll switch to keeping in touch by email”, but the reality is they won’t. Only a few very close friends invest the time to keep up with writing emails to each other individually; the convenience of a mass update is undeniable.
My husband has friend groups who do this sort of chit-chatting and catching up via Slack channels. My friends haven’t migrated that way yet. Maybe it’s better. Sort of Ye Olde IRC. I kind of like the asynchronous nature of FB/Instagram/etc., because what if I can’t chat right then?
I don’t know. Lots of disorganized thoughts. My main point is that social media has actually added real benefits to my life, though, as much as it sucks sometimes.
posted by snowmentality at 2:02 PM on April 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
I remember the time when this was accomplished via mass emails — or listservs if the group was official enough or had someone savvy enough to set one up. Was it better? I don’t know. I know I’m shit at checking my non-work email nowadays, but that’s a chicken-and-egg problem — I don’t get much non-work email communication other than ads and account statements, so I don’t bother checking it often. It’s also definitely more work to deal with multiple mailing lists, and hard to filter to just certain subsets of each list. If my college dorm had a list, I might not want to talk to everyone on it, you know?
Basically, without social media, I just wouldn’t have some friendships at all, and others would be much more distant. I’d probably still be OK, sure. But I don’t really relish cutting off those connections now. It’s easy to say “If they’re really your friends, they’ll switch to keeping in touch by email”, but the reality is they won’t. Only a few very close friends invest the time to keep up with writing emails to each other individually; the convenience of a mass update is undeniable.
My husband has friend groups who do this sort of chit-chatting and catching up via Slack channels. My friends haven’t migrated that way yet. Maybe it’s better. Sort of Ye Olde IRC. I kind of like the asynchronous nature of FB/Instagram/etc., because what if I can’t chat right then?
I don’t know. Lots of disorganized thoughts. My main point is that social media has actually added real benefits to my life, though, as much as it sucks sometimes.
posted by snowmentality at 2:02 PM on April 30, 2018 [12 favorites]
Inconstant: TIL not being a very social person who needs to keep up with everyone else is a "privilege".
It literally is. Being able to live a comfortable and connected-enough life without the wide (even if sometimes flimsy - but I argue it's only as flimsy as you want it to be) social safety net of the kind Facebook enables IS an actual privilege. Same goes for being an atheist (you can get by without church community to catch you when you fall? privilege!) and not having to go to college to make a good living (if you're female then the trades aren't really an option for you, so college becomes more necessary than for men) and many other choices we make which go against the grain of society at large.
Concrete examples of how facebook has helped me: meeting other writers and getting a couple of paid gigs as a result; connecting with friends (and "friends") who were divorcing their spouses or had already done so; joining closed and secret groups for abuse survivors. If you've never felt the need for this type of connection or support, or are somehow able to access it elsewhere for equal or lesser effort, that IS a privilege.
posted by MiraK at 2:15 PM on April 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
It literally is. Being able to live a comfortable and connected-enough life without the wide (even if sometimes flimsy - but I argue it's only as flimsy as you want it to be) social safety net of the kind Facebook enables IS an actual privilege. Same goes for being an atheist (you can get by without church community to catch you when you fall? privilege!) and not having to go to college to make a good living (if you're female then the trades aren't really an option for you, so college becomes more necessary than for men) and many other choices we make which go against the grain of society at large.
Concrete examples of how facebook has helped me: meeting other writers and getting a couple of paid gigs as a result; connecting with friends (and "friends") who were divorcing their spouses or had already done so; joining closed and secret groups for abuse survivors. If you've never felt the need for this type of connection or support, or are somehow able to access it elsewhere for equal or lesser effort, that IS a privilege.
posted by MiraK at 2:15 PM on April 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
In my case, I’m GenX and most of these people I’ve known for twenty years, and we all grew up calling each other on phones. I understand this might be weirder for people who are not in a similar situation. I know my daughter doesn’t call people but texts them all the time which is also a thing that could be done if you are similarly text-inclined! Basically my point is: we don’t need Facebook.
I'm GenX too and saying that we aren't text inclined is hogwash. I mean, yay for you if you and your friends love talking on the phone, but me and other GenX cohorts do not. Especially if you suffer from anxiety and depression.
posted by Kitteh at 2:16 PM on April 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
I'm GenX too and saying that we aren't text inclined is hogwash. I mean, yay for you if you and your friends love talking on the phone, but me and other GenX cohorts do not. Especially if you suffer from anxiety and depression.
posted by Kitteh at 2:16 PM on April 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
my ringer hasn't been on since 2010. it will never be on again. a ringing phone is more horrible to me than a potential home invader. at least the murderer won't want to make mumbled small talk for 2 hours about fucking nothing.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:23 PM on April 30, 2018 [25 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 2:23 PM on April 30, 2018 [25 favorites]
I can't say anything bad about social media no matter how frustrated I get.
During my abusive marriage I got outside very seldom. But when my then husband was at work, the baby was napping or playing independently, and my mother was watching tv - I had a social life online thanks to LiveJournal, JournalFen, Facebook, and Twitter.
And eventually that social life creeped offline and helped me get strong to leave.
So... it's important to me.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 2:27 PM on April 30, 2018 [32 favorites]
During my abusive marriage I got outside very seldom. But when my then husband was at work, the baby was napping or playing independently, and my mother was watching tv - I had a social life online thanks to LiveJournal, JournalFen, Facebook, and Twitter.
And eventually that social life creeped offline and helped me get strong to leave.
So... it's important to me.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 2:27 PM on April 30, 2018 [32 favorites]
Stuff that made my life better: Getting an unlimited texting plan, iMessage, and cutting my Facebook interactions to maybe 5 minutes a day, 2-3 times per week at the most. I post photos only using the iOS built-in direct post option, so I don't have to open the app to share a photo of my kid doing something silly.
When I do actually open it, I reset the goddamn thing to sort chronologically, then scroll down through the list of crap to see if anyone I care about has posted anything that is actually interesting. I block any obvious thrice-reposted crap that bubbles up. It helps.
Facebook is also the only app I always, without fail, force-quit on my mobile devices. Everything else can stay open in the background forever. Also use Facebook Container and Disconnect on Firefox to tame the goddamn thing. And I refuse (full stop) to install Messenger... if you want to message me, and you don't have my cell number, there is probably a reason for that.
posted by caution live frogs at 2:42 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
When I do actually open it, I reset the goddamn thing to sort chronologically, then scroll down through the list of crap to see if anyone I care about has posted anything that is actually interesting. I block any obvious thrice-reposted crap that bubbles up. It helps.
Facebook is also the only app I always, without fail, force-quit on my mobile devices. Everything else can stay open in the background forever. Also use Facebook Container and Disconnect on Firefox to tame the goddamn thing. And I refuse (full stop) to install Messenger... if you want to message me, and you don't have my cell number, there is probably a reason for that.
posted by caution live frogs at 2:42 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I had lunch with an old friend just today, whom I had not seen in several years after he moved to a different city, because he had posted on Facebook that he'd be passing through town. I'm glad we did. We had a good time, and it was fun to catch up. It wouldn't have happened without FB.
Yes, you can say "if you were really friends, you would've made arrangements via phone/email/text/postal mail/telegram/carrier pigeon." The truth is, we wouldn't have. Neither of us are very good at reaching out in that way. But I reject the implication that that means we're not really friends. I can only quote Smearcase: "if these are not friends by your definition, fine. Enjoy your definition."
I'm sympathetic to the many, many criticisms of Facebook. It's true, a lot of my FB "friends" are mere acquaintances, and I've unfollowed many of those in the past year or so, and it has made my feed a better place. I'm envious of those of you who are able to #deletefacebook and still have the emotional energy to keep up with your friends via other means. I'm not one of those, at least not in regards to more than a very small handful of friends. But I don't think that means I should be limited to just that small handful.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:55 PM on April 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
Yes, you can say "if you were really friends, you would've made arrangements via phone/email/text/postal mail/telegram/carrier pigeon." The truth is, we wouldn't have. Neither of us are very good at reaching out in that way. But I reject the implication that that means we're not really friends. I can only quote Smearcase: "if these are not friends by your definition, fine. Enjoy your definition."
I'm sympathetic to the many, many criticisms of Facebook. It's true, a lot of my FB "friends" are mere acquaintances, and I've unfollowed many of those in the past year or so, and it has made my feed a better place. I'm envious of those of you who are able to #deletefacebook and still have the emotional energy to keep up with your friends via other means. I'm not one of those, at least not in regards to more than a very small handful of friends. But I don't think that means I should be limited to just that small handful.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:55 PM on April 30, 2018 [14 favorites]
It literally is. Being able to live a comfortable and connected-enough life without the wide (even if sometimes flimsy - but I argue it's only as flimsy as you want it to be) social safety net of the kind Facebook enables IS an actual privilege.When I was getting kicked out of the house under suspicion of Being Gay it sure as hell wasn't Facebook that had my back.
posted by inconstant at 3:08 PM on April 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
I really wish people would stop equating "X works for me" with "everyone for whom X doesn't work is PRIVILEGED".
posted by inconstant at 3:09 PM on April 30, 2018 [39 favorites]
posted by inconstant at 3:09 PM on April 30, 2018 [39 favorites]
I was on there for a while and it was a blast. I went to all kinda parties; I set up my own parties with their invite thing; I made friends with Andrea Juno and Lolis Eric Elie and Tim Torkildson and a bunch of fascinating boutique celebs like that; I remembered people I hadn't thought of for years and found them and we made friends; I found and made friends with my beloved revered primary and high school teachers; I started groups and made wack events and rabble roused and tagged and was tagged and it was all fun as hell. At some point I noticed how much of it is eyestabbing stupid and I quit posting anything ever and then the Cambridge Analytica story turdblossomed all over everywhere and I went on and started deleting every post and every like, I would do it for hours every day and it felt just faaaaaaaaabulous. I remember sweating over these stupid posts when I made them and making them perfect and then counting the likes. I didn't even read the fuckers, just delete, delete, delete. It's beautiful. I deleted all my friends' posts and likes, too. Then I deleted friends. I deleted a bunch of people. I deleted all my photos and unjoined all my groups. Then more friends. Then e-mail conversations. I changed my profile picture to an image of the words, "I'm outtie." The background thing, whatever they call it, says something like, "Hit me up on the landline, I'm in the book!" Then more deleting, deleting, deleting.
The second nicest thing about it, second to the delicious scratched-itch feeling of deleting every single little stupid goddamn thing I did or said and thereby laying waste to the lie that all my wasted time was not wasted not to mention acknowledging that every time I "liked" I felt a creepy shuddery subterranean discomfit that now, unliking, I unfelt ("UNLIKE!" "UNLIKE!" "fuck you, I hate your birthday cake I hate your hat i hate your baby I do NOT like your cat I UNLAUGHAT your joke I UNRAGEFACE your annoyingcoworkerstory fuck it fuck it aaaaaall"), is that I don't have FOMO anymore. I just have endless, restful MO. It's beautiful.
When I finally delete the last friend, I don't know, I might not get around to deleting the profile. I'll just leave it there floating around empty, maybe. Like an old tube sock in the road that's been rained on and run over a few hundred times.
posted by Don Pepino at 3:12 PM on April 30, 2018 [10 favorites]
The second nicest thing about it, second to the delicious scratched-itch feeling of deleting every single little stupid goddamn thing I did or said and thereby laying waste to the lie that all my wasted time was not wasted not to mention acknowledging that every time I "liked" I felt a creepy shuddery subterranean discomfit that now, unliking, I unfelt ("UNLIKE!" "UNLIKE!" "fuck you, I hate your birthday cake I hate your hat i hate your baby I do NOT like your cat I UNLAUGHAT your joke I UNRAGEFACE your annoyingcoworkerstory fuck it fuck it aaaaaall"), is that I don't have FOMO anymore. I just have endless, restful MO. It's beautiful.
When I finally delete the last friend, I don't know, I might not get around to deleting the profile. I'll just leave it there floating around empty, maybe. Like an old tube sock in the road that's been rained on and run over a few hundred times.
posted by Don Pepino at 3:12 PM on April 30, 2018 [10 favorites]
There's an event I'm planning on going to next month and all the details are on the events page for a closed Facebook group. I'm going to have to track down one of the organizers, who is a family friend, to get the details. I'm not griping about this particular case though because the group is for LGBT Muslims and many of the participants probably have pretty strong reasons for their posts not showing up elsewhere on Facebook. As far as I'm concerned groups like it are one of the best things about Facebook. It gives people who are probably doubly or triply isolated from the society around them a way to connect with other people like them.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:26 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:26 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
I made it a month before I gave up and created a new account. I had no idea what was going on. Four of my friends kept up with me via texts; I never heard anything from anyone else. I guess you can say "well those people aren't your real friends," and that may be true, but I still enjoy doing social things with them.
If I want to e.g. go hiking this weekend, I can individually text twenty people who I think might want to and be able to go, then coordinate locations/schedules with the people who say yes. Or I can post something on Facebook and not put anyone on the spot. Plus it's much easier to get updates to a group, include additional people, etc. Group texts exist, but don't offer the same flexibility and functionality.
This is probably a chicken/egg issue, but IME people don't commit to things anymore, so asking multiple people to make plans a week from now pretty much guarantees most of them won't show up. Facebook facilitates that kind of indecision, but being able to see who is/is not going can be the deciding factor.
Anyway. Since restarting my account, all of my friends are 1. local; 2. people I have spent time with in the last 3-6 months and plan to again. There are almost no posts, but my feed was never the point.
posted by AFABulous at 3:46 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
If I want to e.g. go hiking this weekend, I can individually text twenty people who I think might want to and be able to go, then coordinate locations/schedules with the people who say yes. Or I can post something on Facebook and not put anyone on the spot. Plus it's much easier to get updates to a group, include additional people, etc. Group texts exist, but don't offer the same flexibility and functionality.
This is probably a chicken/egg issue, but IME people don't commit to things anymore, so asking multiple people to make plans a week from now pretty much guarantees most of them won't show up. Facebook facilitates that kind of indecision, but being able to see who is/is not going can be the deciding factor.
Anyway. Since restarting my account, all of my friends are 1. local; 2. people I have spent time with in the last 3-6 months and plan to again. There are almost no posts, but my feed was never the point.
posted by AFABulous at 3:46 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
Livejournal let you filter: Facebook by design does not, and it is only one of the many reasons it deserves to be consigned to the fourth circle of hell.
What are you talking about? You can have as many filters as you want and they can be overlapping. I had lists for coworkers, family, acquaintances, trans people, [people I know from] metafilter, people I've met in person, close friends, local friends. There was no point in asking people in England if they wanted to go hiking tomorrow, so I restricted that post to local friends. I didn't let my family see anything more controversial than a cat photo.
posted by AFABulous at 3:53 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
What are you talking about? You can have as many filters as you want and they can be overlapping. I had lists for coworkers, family, acquaintances, trans people, [people I know from] metafilter, people I've met in person, close friends, local friends. There was no point in asking people in England if they wanted to go hiking tomorrow, so I restricted that post to local friends. I didn't let my family see anything more controversial than a cat photo.
posted by AFABulous at 3:53 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
What are you talking about? You can have as many filters as you want and they can be overlapping.
When last I saw, Facebook had permissions that let friends-of-friends override some of your own privacy protections (if they were tagged, etc), and it doesn't have any permissions at all that allow you to hide your activity from friends.
So for example, if I commented on my dad's post, it would let all my friends know "Corb commented on X post" regardless of what my personal privacy settings said that I had commented there, despite the fact that none of them were friends with my dad. Apply the same to a lot of my other friend groups. So my biggest problem was friends following me to other people's posts where they did not know the other person and getting in fights there.
If you know a fix for this, I sincerely would love to hear it, I know a lot of people who've had similar issues.
posted by corb at 4:02 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
When last I saw, Facebook had permissions that let friends-of-friends override some of your own privacy protections (if they were tagged, etc), and it doesn't have any permissions at all that allow you to hide your activity from friends.
So for example, if I commented on my dad's post, it would let all my friends know "Corb commented on X post" regardless of what my personal privacy settings said that I had commented there, despite the fact that none of them were friends with my dad. Apply the same to a lot of my other friend groups. So my biggest problem was friends following me to other people's posts where they did not know the other person and getting in fights there.
If you know a fix for this, I sincerely would love to hear it, I know a lot of people who've had similar issues.
posted by corb at 4:02 PM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
When I was getting kicked out of the house under suspicion of Being Gay it sure as hell wasn't Facebook that had my back. I really wish people would stop equating "X works for me" with "everyone for whom X doesn't work is PRIVILEGED".
Well, think of it like various sources of funding: people can get their income from any combination of sources - from jobs, from royalties, from welfare checks, from alimony, from investment dividends, or from lottery winnings. Now it turns out that the system via which royalties is enforced/disbursed is dangerous or exploitative or [insert huge concern] and there's a movement to #deleteRoyalties. People are arguing that we should obtain royalties informally via other channels, or should find other sources of income, or whatever.
I'm just pointing out that it takes a certain amount of privilege to argue that. There are people for whom royalties have saved their lives. Doesn't mean royalties have saved EVERYONE'S lives. Doesn't mean ONLY royalties save lives. But it takes the specific privilege of "I don't need royalties at all, I have sufficient income from other sources" to say #deleteRoyalties.
posted by MiraK at 4:32 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
Well, think of it like various sources of funding: people can get their income from any combination of sources - from jobs, from royalties, from welfare checks, from alimony, from investment dividends, or from lottery winnings. Now it turns out that the system via which royalties is enforced/disbursed is dangerous or exploitative or [insert huge concern] and there's a movement to #deleteRoyalties. People are arguing that we should obtain royalties informally via other channels, or should find other sources of income, or whatever.
I'm just pointing out that it takes a certain amount of privilege to argue that. There are people for whom royalties have saved their lives. Doesn't mean royalties have saved EVERYONE'S lives. Doesn't mean ONLY royalties save lives. But it takes the specific privilege of "I don't need royalties at all, I have sufficient income from other sources" to say #deleteRoyalties.
posted by MiraK at 4:32 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
"Royalties" isn't a corporation.
posted by inconstant at 5:49 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by inconstant at 5:49 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
So for example, if I commented on my dad's post, it would let all my friends know "Corb commented on X post" regardless of what my personal privacy settings said that I had commented there, despite the fact that none of them were friends with my dad. Apply the same to a lot of my other friend groups. So my biggest problem was friends following me to other people's posts where they did not know the other person and getting in fights there.
That only happens if you comment on posts set to "public." Ask your dad to set his post privacy to friends-only, or don't comment on public posts.
posted by lazuli at 6:39 PM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
That only happens if you comment on posts set to "public." Ask your dad to set his post privacy to friends-only, or don't comment on public posts.
posted by lazuli at 6:39 PM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Maybe it's not that people who don't need Facebook for whatever reason aren't privileged, maybe it's that people who do need facebook for whatever reason are unlucky because they have to use a real shit system.
posted by nushustu at 8:04 PM on April 30, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by nushustu at 8:04 PM on April 30, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'd be curious to see the demographics of people who eschew Facebook. My guess is that they're disproportionately married or long-term partnered. It's tougher to make and maintain friendships as a single, childless adult over 30, especially if you don't belong to a church or similar organization. It's obviously not impossible, but some of the usual routes are inaccessible.
My parents (and stepparents) are not on Facebook. Their social life revolves around people they've known for 20+ years. They're people they knew in school or through church or a mutual hobby. Even so, probably 90% of their time is spent with each other.
posted by AFABulous at 8:22 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
My parents (and stepparents) are not on Facebook. Their social life revolves around people they've known for 20+ years. They're people they knew in school or through church or a mutual hobby. Even so, probably 90% of their time is spent with each other.
posted by AFABulous at 8:22 PM on April 30, 2018 [6 favorites]
i won't ever use facebook nor god willing will i ever get married. the only way i will stand the presence of a child is if one is stapled physically to me by deranged criminals. similarly i can only imagine myself inside a religious institution if i needed to use a restroom or was looking for shelter in a weather emergency.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:38 PM on April 30, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 8:38 PM on April 30, 2018 [11 favorites]
admittedly the majority of my current friends are from lj, circa 2007
posted by poffin boffin at 8:40 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 8:40 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
My one buddy, who doesn’t have fb, we have to text party invites especially for him, what work. Thank goodness he’s interesting or we wouldn’t bother. Then he got married and his wife is on fb so now we just invite her and pass the work along.
Also I moved away and it’s a great way to keep in touch. Since I actually see these people irl every once in a while I can reference “hey saw you got a new job” or “nice vacation!” Or whatever.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:33 PM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also I moved away and it’s a great way to keep in touch. Since I actually see these people irl every once in a while I can reference “hey saw you got a new job” or “nice vacation!” Or whatever.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:33 PM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Wow, and so to the contrary, I really, really like Facebook. I engage with it on my terms, similar to how I used Livejournal before - a small curated group of friends who see everything, then a larger group (mostly acquaintances / relatives and family) who see "some" things, then a larger group (work / other social environments) who only see public posts, about 300 people all up. It really adds a lot to my knowledge and awareness of the world when I get to read the opinions and feelings of other people from other cultures and circumstances, when otherwise I would not ever be able to engage them in real life. And I hope that I in turn enrich their lives with thoughtful prose and ideas.
I engage with Facebook just the way I did with Livejournal, or even earlier, when we were hand coding HTML updates weekly because blogging wasn't a concept yet. I write essays, not status updates. It also appeals to my sense of gamification. I'm closing in on 5 million views on Youtube, 1 million views on Google Maps Photos, in both cases I'm sure I've contributed significantly to the value of those services. I've had people tell me privately the only reason they're on Facebook is so they can read my status updates, so hey, I'm sure I've contributed significantly to Facebook's value as well.
posted by xdvesper at 9:34 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
I engage with Facebook just the way I did with Livejournal, or even earlier, when we were hand coding HTML updates weekly because blogging wasn't a concept yet. I write essays, not status updates. It also appeals to my sense of gamification. I'm closing in on 5 million views on Youtube, 1 million views on Google Maps Photos, in both cases I'm sure I've contributed significantly to the value of those services. I've had people tell me privately the only reason they're on Facebook is so they can read my status updates, so hey, I'm sure I've contributed significantly to Facebook's value as well.
posted by xdvesper at 9:34 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
I see Facebook as a net emotional labor generator. What it saves people on needing to keep an address book up to date is completely swamped by the amount of utterly bullshit interpersonal drama it creates. To me, the article reads like testimony that it's also addictive and causes withdrawal symptoms.
posted by flabdablet at 9:41 PM on April 30, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 9:41 PM on April 30, 2018 [9 favorites]
I'm just pointing out that it takes a certain amount of privilege to argue that. There are people for whom royalties have saved their lives.
I think the contrary point being argued is that the particular model of "connection" facilitated by Facebook isn't even necessarily a net positive for everyone who uses it.
posted by atoxyl at 10:05 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
I think the contrary point being argued is that the particular model of "connection" facilitated by Facebook isn't even necessarily a net positive for everyone who uses it.
posted by atoxyl at 10:05 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
If Twitter gives person A a positive outlet for self-expression, and gets person B caught up in anxiety-inducing online drama every day, it's fair enough for Person A to point out to Person B that it actually is good thing for some people, but applying the discourse of privilege to the comparison isn't terribly illuminating.
posted by atoxyl at 10:11 PM on April 30, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 10:11 PM on April 30, 2018 [11 favorites]
So for example, if I commented on my dad's post, it would let all my friends know "Corb commented on X post"
Think of it this way: comments on a post always inherit the privacy of the parent post. You can't set privacy on your comment on someone else's post; the original poster controls that. So if dad's post is set to public or "friends of friends" then all your friends can see it (and will potentially be alerted to it), in the latter case because "your friends" is a subset of "dad's friends of friends."
Which makes sense because otherwise, if everyone sees different comments on posts, it quickly becomes confusing as hell. If you comment on your dad's post, and then a mutual friend of you and your dad's responds to your comment, and then I come in — a friend of your dad, and said mutual friend, but not you — and I see mutual friend's comment, but not yours, its out of context and likely to sound completely bizarre.
Though I agree it's suboptimal, from the commenter's perspective, to have FB go advertising it to their friends. It's one thing to have a comment where your friends could theoretically see it if they took the effort to go digging for it, and another thing entirely to have it front and center on their own newsfeed.
If you want to say something to your dad about his post that no one else can see, don't comment on it, send a PM. Which, admittedly, is clunky because it may not be immediately obvious which post of his you're talking about if you don't explain it.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:16 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Think of it this way: comments on a post always inherit the privacy of the parent post. You can't set privacy on your comment on someone else's post; the original poster controls that. So if dad's post is set to public or "friends of friends" then all your friends can see it (and will potentially be alerted to it), in the latter case because "your friends" is a subset of "dad's friends of friends."
Which makes sense because otherwise, if everyone sees different comments on posts, it quickly becomes confusing as hell. If you comment on your dad's post, and then a mutual friend of you and your dad's responds to your comment, and then I come in — a friend of your dad, and said mutual friend, but not you — and I see mutual friend's comment, but not yours, its out of context and likely to sound completely bizarre.
Though I agree it's suboptimal, from the commenter's perspective, to have FB go advertising it to their friends. It's one thing to have a comment where your friends could theoretically see it if they took the effort to go digging for it, and another thing entirely to have it front and center on their own newsfeed.
If you want to say something to your dad about his post that no one else can see, don't comment on it, send a PM. Which, admittedly, is clunky because it may not be immediately obvious which post of his you're talking about if you don't explain it.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:16 PM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
The one thing I take issue with is the idea that "our parents" did all this stuff manually. Some of them did. Lots of them did not, or did so intermittently.
This is sorta my feeling about it. People have always prioritized who they want to keep in touch with. Facebook has made it easier to be in casual contact with a larger number of people. In turn it may require a certain investment of one's own time, energy, and mental real estate. It's a particular sort of connection and I don't think a person should feel bad about wanting more connection of that sort and I don't think they should feel bad about not wanting it.
(and of course there are specific things in one's personal or professional life that may be mediated by one site/app or another but I think those can vary a fair amount these days depending on who you are and who you know)
posted by atoxyl at 10:27 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
This is sorta my feeling about it. People have always prioritized who they want to keep in touch with. Facebook has made it easier to be in casual contact with a larger number of people. In turn it may require a certain investment of one's own time, energy, and mental real estate. It's a particular sort of connection and I don't think a person should feel bad about wanting more connection of that sort and I don't think they should feel bad about not wanting it.
(and of course there are specific things in one's personal or professional life that may be mediated by one site/app or another but I think those can vary a fair amount these days depending on who you are and who you know)
posted by atoxyl at 10:27 PM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Every one of these seemingly weekly threads completely ignores that for some people, Facebook is an organising tool. I'd have quit a long time ago if it wasn't where all the protests and rallies are organised, where the public submit questions regarding LGBTQI+ issues and racist incidents on campus. Within my organisation we can use email lists, texting and google drives but if we want to interact with the public at large, we need to use Facebook. I could maybe get my friends to switch to texting me, but I can't demand the public change as a whole, and for effective activism we need to interact with people as a whole, who use Facebook here.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 12:51 AM on May 1, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by AnhydrousLove at 12:51 AM on May 1, 2018 [15 favorites]
Speaking as a third culture kid, Facebook was a bit of a godsend to me in the earlier days in helping me to keep up with friends and family scattered across the globe. That would have been the reason in the early days that I would have not wanted to leave Facebook. I mean, yeah, I hear all the "if you were really friends with these people you'd email/call/whatever them" but Facebook just makes it easier to keep up those low-stakes relationships. I feel like my life is not really as community-focused as it should be (as I live far away from anyone I would consider part of my community) so Facebook allows me to keep up with things that people at home are talking about and keep up a spurious, better-than-nothing sense of connection with my community.
Nowadays I don't really go on it so much as my newsfeed tends to be populated with the same frequently-posting people so there's not really much new stuff going on there - Instagram on the other hand, I find to be more widely used at least in my small sample group. I still wouldn't leave Facebook, despite the fact that I post on it less and less, because I enjoy seeing photos of my friends' kids or debating current affairs with one friend whom I never see or exchanging theatre recommendations with another friend I never see. I have friends for whom Facebook has been distinctly harmful to their self-esteem, and know other people for whom Facebook has brought out a wildly performative streak, and I myself sometimes question the motivation behind posting certain things (do I authentically feel this thing, or am I performing this emotion for social media likes?) - which is why I try less and less to actually post things. So I get that it's as much a force for negativity as anything else. But I think the main problem with Facebook is how they use your data and that would be the main reason I would leave it, should I ever leave it.
posted by Ziggy500 at 3:09 AM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
Nowadays I don't really go on it so much as my newsfeed tends to be populated with the same frequently-posting people so there's not really much new stuff going on there - Instagram on the other hand, I find to be more widely used at least in my small sample group. I still wouldn't leave Facebook, despite the fact that I post on it less and less, because I enjoy seeing photos of my friends' kids or debating current affairs with one friend whom I never see or exchanging theatre recommendations with another friend I never see. I have friends for whom Facebook has been distinctly harmful to their self-esteem, and know other people for whom Facebook has brought out a wildly performative streak, and I myself sometimes question the motivation behind posting certain things (do I authentically feel this thing, or am I performing this emotion for social media likes?) - which is why I try less and less to actually post things. So I get that it's as much a force for negativity as anything else. But I think the main problem with Facebook is how they use your data and that would be the main reason I would leave it, should I ever leave it.
posted by Ziggy500 at 3:09 AM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
AnhydrousLove: Within my organisation we can use email lists, texting and google drives but if we want to interact with the public at large, we need to use Facebook.
There's an odd entry missing from your list: Your own website. You could communicate with the public using a website. It would be much more work to set up and maintain (and protect from spam and DDOS attacks and...), but in a roundabout way that's an illustration of the article's point: It's not that Facebook does things which are otherwise impossible to do, it's that it makes those things much easier/cheaper. Facebook puts the labour in so that we don't have to.
posted by clawsoon at 3:58 AM on May 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
There's an odd entry missing from your list: Your own website. You could communicate with the public using a website. It would be much more work to set up and maintain (and protect from spam and DDOS attacks and...), but in a roundabout way that's an illustration of the article's point: It's not that Facebook does things which are otherwise impossible to do, it's that it makes those things much easier/cheaper. Facebook puts the labour in so that we don't have to.
posted by clawsoon at 3:58 AM on May 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
If Twitter gives person A a positive outlet for self-expression, and gets person B caught up in anxiety-inducing online drama every day, it's fair enough for Person A to point out to Person B that it actually is good thing for some people, but applying the discourse of privilege to the comparison isn't terribly illuminating.
Among other things, it ignores that Facebook has been a vector for discrimination for some groups of people, including trans people and people who face rent/food insecurity.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 4:36 AM on May 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
Among other things, it ignores that Facebook has been a vector for discrimination for some groups of people, including trans people and people who face rent/food insecurity.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 4:36 AM on May 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
I think the contrary point being argued is that the particular model of "connection" facilitated by Facebook isn't even necessarily a net positive for everyone who uses it.
Like in the sense of increasing anxiety, lowering self-worth, and getting pulled into arguing with strangers on the internet? Yeah I can see that - and it's shitty that this is price some of us have to pay in order to have any friends outside the bubble of our abusive relationships, and to see old friends while living in brand new countries , and find paid gigs through random acquaintances to help us leave said relationship, and have ready access to a secret group to process our PTSD in, and , you know, generally have our lives saved.
What Facebook is is a microcosm of the internet. It has no competitors that do what it does. The set of happy personal circumstances one requires to quit either is the same and differs only in degree.
Among other things, it ignores that Facebook has been a vector for discrimination for some groups of people, including trans people and people who face rent/food insecurity.
It has been my impression from those I know who are disprivileged in these ways that facebook (finding their tribe) has helped. But clearly I don't know enough!
posted by MiraK at 5:16 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Like in the sense of increasing anxiety, lowering self-worth, and getting pulled into arguing with strangers on the internet? Yeah I can see that - and it's shitty that this is price some of us have to pay in order to have any friends outside the bubble of our abusive relationships, and to see old friends while living in brand new countries , and find paid gigs through random acquaintances to help us leave said relationship, and have ready access to a secret group to process our PTSD in, and , you know, generally have our lives saved.
What Facebook is is a microcosm of the internet. It has no competitors that do what it does. The set of happy personal circumstances one requires to quit either is the same and differs only in degree.
Among other things, it ignores that Facebook has been a vector for discrimination for some groups of people, including trans people and people who face rent/food insecurity.
It has been my impression from those I know who are disprivileged in these ways that facebook (finding their tribe) has helped. But clearly I don't know enough!
posted by MiraK at 5:16 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
you know, generally have our lives saved
Again, it's great that Facebook filled that role for you. For others, Facebook is another vector for monitoring and surveillance in abusive relationships, or a source of bullying or anxiety or emotional turmoil, or a serious contributor to unsustainable levels of emotional labour. People who do not experience Facebook as a net good in their lives, or who refuse to use it, are not necessarily privileged. To claim this is true is as unsupportable as your other claim, above, that atheism is a privilege. If the church is the only game in town for emotional or social support, nonbelievers are less privileged than believers, because they're locked out. So, ideally, the church is not the only game in town. Ideally, Facebook wouldn't be, either. Both the church and Facebook profit from that level of exclusive monopoly; others in the community don't necessarily profit.
The fact that you belong to a church, or to Facebook, and are supported by and benefit personally from that belonging, doesn't mean those who don't belong have chosen to do so thanks to their 'privilege'. Consider that, just maybe, they don't have the ability to exist there at all. Privilege is a canard in this argument.
posted by halation at 5:32 AM on May 1, 2018 [18 favorites]
Again, it's great that Facebook filled that role for you. For others, Facebook is another vector for monitoring and surveillance in abusive relationships, or a source of bullying or anxiety or emotional turmoil, or a serious contributor to unsustainable levels of emotional labour. People who do not experience Facebook as a net good in their lives, or who refuse to use it, are not necessarily privileged. To claim this is true is as unsupportable as your other claim, above, that atheism is a privilege. If the church is the only game in town for emotional or social support, nonbelievers are less privileged than believers, because they're locked out. So, ideally, the church is not the only game in town. Ideally, Facebook wouldn't be, either. Both the church and Facebook profit from that level of exclusive monopoly; others in the community don't necessarily profit.
The fact that you belong to a church, or to Facebook, and are supported by and benefit personally from that belonging, doesn't mean those who don't belong have chosen to do so thanks to their 'privilege'. Consider that, just maybe, they don't have the ability to exist there at all. Privilege is a canard in this argument.
posted by halation at 5:32 AM on May 1, 2018 [18 favorites]
My anxieties with Facebook comes because it's not strangers (which I prefer). Facebook's model of sociability insists on disclosure to employers, people who knew me in abusive contexts, and family members who demand the emotional labor of not talking about important aspects of my life. Some bridges I've burnt for good reasons, and one of my "friends" recommendations was a Spacey-esque chickenhawk back in the 80s FFS. I never could figure what part of participation in groups might leak out to my "friends" (the Facebook definition of friend including my boss).
Facebook's deadnaming bias and assistance in building financial-security profiles for employers and landlords for the purpose of discrimination has been reasonably well documented. If Facebook works for you, great. But quit assuming that it's safe and wonderful for everyone, and that those of us who don't use Facebook have magic phonebooks or something and are rolling in social contacts.
The notion that religious minorities are privileged by not having the bulk of American culture cater to our needs and sensibilities is ass backwards BTW. (Note, not an atheist.)
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 6:26 AM on May 1, 2018 [21 favorites]
Facebook's deadnaming bias and assistance in building financial-security profiles for employers and landlords for the purpose of discrimination has been reasonably well documented. If Facebook works for you, great. But quit assuming that it's safe and wonderful for everyone, and that those of us who don't use Facebook have magic phonebooks or something and are rolling in social contacts.
The notion that religious minorities are privileged by not having the bulk of American culture cater to our needs and sensibilities is ass backwards BTW. (Note, not an atheist.)
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 6:26 AM on May 1, 2018 [21 favorites]
There's an odd entry missing from your list: Your own website. You could communicate with the public using a website.
In many larger, institutional organizations, this is not true. Corporate IT and marketing have any public web locked down and welded shut, filled with bromides and fluff. The web isn't where interesting things happen. It's slow and clunky: it's got to go through approvals, editing and comms, you need accessibility checks, then another round of final approvals. Author to live can be months. The web, or a lot of it, has been bureaucratized to death.
posted by bonehead at 6:53 AM on May 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
In many larger, institutional organizations, this is not true. Corporate IT and marketing have any public web locked down and welded shut, filled with bromides and fluff. The web isn't where interesting things happen. It's slow and clunky: it's got to go through approvals, editing and comms, you need accessibility checks, then another round of final approvals. Author to live can be months. The web, or a lot of it, has been bureaucratized to death.
posted by bonehead at 6:53 AM on May 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
In my case, I’m GenX and most of these people I’ve known for twenty years, and we all grew up calling each other on phones.
I am a Gen X person and I have never owned a cell phone. Never. I'm not a luddite (tho we still do have a landline if in the unlikely event that I would want to use a phone at home I could). I use many other technological marvels of our modern age to make my life work, including some social media in a restrictive way. My partner uses a cell phone for work but never gives out the number to anyone and never uses it for social media. For us this is great but we recognise that we are an aberration for a lot of people.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:05 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I am a Gen X person and I have never owned a cell phone. Never. I'm not a luddite (tho we still do have a landline if in the unlikely event that I would want to use a phone at home I could). I use many other technological marvels of our modern age to make my life work, including some social media in a restrictive way. My partner uses a cell phone for work but never gives out the number to anyone and never uses it for social media. For us this is great but we recognise that we are an aberration for a lot of people.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:05 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
accessibility checks, then another round of final approvals
Yet, they let fB through?
posted by filtergik at 7:27 AM on May 1, 2018
Yet, they let fB through?
posted by filtergik at 7:27 AM on May 1, 2018
The singlemost infuriating thing about facebook is that it wasn't here and ubiquitous sooner. We needed it after Katrina, when everybody got separated and people had to get on George Bush's planes and buses and go to Houston or Minnesota or who knew where and were lost there and couldn't find their families and had no way to tell them they were okay and no way to hold on to the way they had been living, so we just lost basically an entire goddamn city oh well.
It is a useful tool for activism, no question, but it could be a lot more useful if it were not so nauseatingly monetized. My neighbor whose house burned down last month is now trying to clean it out. He's a local activist and everyone in town loves him and wants to help with this effort. His first bucketbrigade "dumpster party" was on like a Monday morning and still drew hundreds of helpful people who heard about it on facebook. No dumpster party since has had anywhere near the numbers because facebook is sickeningly "first one's freeeeee" pusher-ey about this shit. I live down the street, so I know when he's having a "dumpster party" and can go pitch in. I was one of TWO people last Saturday. I know that if facebook allowed for this he could get a big crowd every time, but he's not in a position to pay to push--ya know, because his fucking house just burned down--so facebook won't help him. A few years ago I started a group to save the community garden that's likely to have a condo set down on top of it. Every two seconds facebook tries to get me to pay to push that. To hell with it. TO HELL WITH IT FOREVER
posted by Don Pepino at 7:38 AM on May 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
It is a useful tool for activism, no question, but it could be a lot more useful if it were not so nauseatingly monetized. My neighbor whose house burned down last month is now trying to clean it out. He's a local activist and everyone in town loves him and wants to help with this effort. His first bucketbrigade "dumpster party" was on like a Monday morning and still drew hundreds of helpful people who heard about it on facebook. No dumpster party since has had anywhere near the numbers because facebook is sickeningly "first one's freeeeee" pusher-ey about this shit. I live down the street, so I know when he's having a "dumpster party" and can go pitch in. I was one of TWO people last Saturday. I know that if facebook allowed for this he could get a big crowd every time, but he's not in a position to pay to push--ya know, because his fucking house just burned down--so facebook won't help him. A few years ago I started a group to save the community garden that's likely to have a condo set down on top of it. Every two seconds facebook tries to get me to pay to push that. To hell with it. TO HELL WITH IT FOREVER
posted by Don Pepino at 7:38 AM on May 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
So, say I want to completely quit facebook. How do I do something like, "but I'd really like to keep in touch with all of you through texting or email," without having either their or my phone#s or emails appearing on facebook? That is, I can't post "please send your phone#/email to 773-xxx-xxxx" because I don't want to post my phone number (or email) to facebook, and they can't just reply with their info because then that's posted to facebook. What's the safest way to do something like this?
posted by tzikeh at 7:48 AM on May 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by tzikeh at 7:48 AM on May 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'd be curious to see the demographics of people who eschew Facebook. My guess is that they're disproportionately married or long-term partnered.
41F. Permasingle. I don't have a girlsquad and I spend 95% of my time alone.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:51 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
41F. Permasingle. I don't have a girlsquad and I spend 95% of my time alone.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:51 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
How do I do something like, "but I'd really like to keep in touch with all of you through texting or email," without having either their or my phone#s or emails appearing on facebook?
Short-lived, throwaway email? "If you'd like to keep in touch, please send your phone number and/or email to tzikeh_throwaway@gmail.com within the next month, and I'll send my regular email and/or phone back." Except use something other than gmail if you don't trust Google either.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:32 AM on May 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Short-lived, throwaway email? "If you'd like to keep in touch, please send your phone number and/or email to tzikeh_throwaway@gmail.com within the next month, and I'll send my regular email and/or phone back." Except use something other than gmail if you don't trust Google either.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:32 AM on May 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Halation: Consider that, just maybe, they don't have the ability to exist there at all. Privilege is a canard in this argument.
Wow that's a good point. This is changing how I describe other things too: for instance, I've always thought being an atheist was a measure of my privilege, but even if I wanted to be in the religion of my culture, it would have me only on excruciatingly oppressive terms. I'm sure that's true for a lot of people, across all kinds of "quittings": families, religious communities, facebook.
posted by MiraK at 9:04 AM on May 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Wow that's a good point. This is changing how I describe other things too: for instance, I've always thought being an atheist was a measure of my privilege, but even if I wanted to be in the religion of my culture, it would have me only on excruciatingly oppressive terms. I'm sure that's true for a lot of people, across all kinds of "quittings": families, religious communities, facebook.
posted by MiraK at 9:04 AM on May 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
I've been off FB for a month now and it has been very inconvenient. One of my good friends is seriously ill and other friends had to text me to let me know. I have his phone number but he's busy being seriously ill and isn't very responsive. I was FB friends with his wife, but now I'm not. I had to rely on friends to find out information, get her email address, learn how and when to visit him.
I had a birthday party a few weeks ago and I was able to invite about half of who I wanted through email and text, but the remainder of the guests found out through a FB event that my partner created. I don't like outsourcing emotional labor to my partner like that. But our social lives would suffer significantly if neither of us were on FB, I think.
I'm in my hometown this week and I just ran into the partner of an old colleague who I hadn't seen in ten years. I knew her name and I knew that she had just published a novel and I was able to basically just *be certain that it was her because I had seen recent photos of her on facebook* and that helped me say hello to her and reconnect. If I had quit facebook a year ago instead of last month, I might not have been able to do that.
I've gained a lot of time not compulsively scrolling through the feed, learning things about people that I don't care about. My relationship with Facebook was not healthy. But it is already bearing significant costs to not be on there, and I'm not sure what my long term relationship with or without FB will be.
posted by Kwine at 9:30 AM on May 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
I had a birthday party a few weeks ago and I was able to invite about half of who I wanted through email and text, but the remainder of the guests found out through a FB event that my partner created. I don't like outsourcing emotional labor to my partner like that. But our social lives would suffer significantly if neither of us were on FB, I think.
I'm in my hometown this week and I just ran into the partner of an old colleague who I hadn't seen in ten years. I knew her name and I knew that she had just published a novel and I was able to basically just *be certain that it was her because I had seen recent photos of her on facebook* and that helped me say hello to her and reconnect. If I had quit facebook a year ago instead of last month, I might not have been able to do that.
I've gained a lot of time not compulsively scrolling through the feed, learning things about people that I don't care about. My relationship with Facebook was not healthy. But it is already bearing significant costs to not be on there, and I'm not sure what my long term relationship with or without FB will be.
posted by Kwine at 9:30 AM on May 1, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yet, they let fB through?
Yep. Top level management is Boomers still.
posted by bonehead at 10:12 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yep. Top level management is Boomers still.
posted by bonehead at 10:12 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I would say the biggest privilege I associate with Facebook is the privilege of not caring about surveillance or potential surveillance by governments, including but not limited to one's own government. You know how Facebook has been misusing your data and also misusing the data of everyone in your contacts list, including people like me who actively avoid using Facebook.
The UK has been under which, thankfully, has been ruled unlawful within this past week and will be amended before November. Until then, a vast array of government agencies have warrantless access to store and search our web history with no suspicion of wrongdoing.
In a country where a third of the workforce is in poverty, and unemployment is an accelerated route to homelessness and starvation, and unemployed people are required to spend 37.5 hours a week actively looking for work in order to qualify for benefits that don't even cover a fraction of the cost of jobseeking, let alone subsistence - just imagine how quickly the wrong Facebook activity could be used against you.
I admit it's inconvenient not being on Facebook, and I have to accept that I'm left out socially, but I was left out socially before. People just aren't particularly incentivized to lift a finger - except those that are, who always keep me informed by email. You probably have to be actually likeable to get anything out of Facebook, is my suspicion.
posted by tel3path at 11:33 AM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
The UK has been under which, thankfully, has been ruled unlawful within this past week and will be amended before November. Until then, a vast array of government agencies have warrantless access to store and search our web history with no suspicion of wrongdoing.
In a country where a third of the workforce is in poverty, and unemployment is an accelerated route to homelessness and starvation, and unemployed people are required to spend 37.5 hours a week actively looking for work in order to qualify for benefits that don't even cover a fraction of the cost of jobseeking, let alone subsistence - just imagine how quickly the wrong Facebook activity could be used against you.
I admit it's inconvenient not being on Facebook, and I have to accept that I'm left out socially, but I was left out socially before. People just aren't particularly incentivized to lift a finger - except those that are, who always keep me informed by email. You probably have to be actually likeable to get anything out of Facebook, is my suspicion.
posted by tel3path at 11:33 AM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
We very much do have websites, and I don't think anything goes up on FB that doesn't go up on the websites, but the public will come to our Facebook pagez when they won't come to the websites. The events moreso than anything. People seem to live by the FB event calendar here, so if we publish an event only on our site instead we'd never have anyone but our own members attend. I don't know for sure but assume the reduced potential for/ease of cross-group pollination would be a big part of that.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 11:56 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by AnhydrousLove at 11:56 AM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Like in the sense of increasing anxiety, lowering self-worth, and getting pulled into arguing with strangers on the internet? Yeah I can see that - and it's shitty that this is price some of us have to pay in order to have any friends outside the bubble of our abusive relationships
I switched to talking about Twitter because... well I besides being more personally familiar I think it's more widely agreed to be "optional" but some people do owe their careers to it. If I really wanted to drive the point home I could say some people find Twitter to be a net negative because of the hoards of frog-Nazis telling them to eat shit. Coming back to Facebook, it can be a refuge from abusive relationships but it can also be a venue to extend them over distance. It can be a place to organize but it can also be a hostile place for gender/sexual minorities because of the "real-name"-ness and pressure toward disclosure. But I didn't want to just invert the argument - it can be an idiosyncratic/personal issue too and that's fine.
It seems like you feel like people are being dismissive of something that was helpful to you and that's fair enough - I just wanted to say that others can have good reasons for not wanting to be part of it.
posted by atoxyl at 12:26 PM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I switched to talking about Twitter because... well I besides being more personally familiar I think it's more widely agreed to be "optional" but some people do owe their careers to it. If I really wanted to drive the point home I could say some people find Twitter to be a net negative because of the hoards of frog-Nazis telling them to eat shit. Coming back to Facebook, it can be a refuge from abusive relationships but it can also be a venue to extend them over distance. It can be a place to organize but it can also be a hostile place for gender/sexual minorities because of the "real-name"-ness and pressure toward disclosure. But I didn't want to just invert the argument - it can be an idiosyncratic/personal issue too and that's fine.
It seems like you feel like people are being dismissive of something that was helpful to you and that's fair enough - I just wanted to say that others can have good reasons for not wanting to be part of it.
posted by atoxyl at 12:26 PM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I mean, I'm missing out by not being on Facebook, but mostly because Facebook users are unable to conceive of any way of communicating outside of Facebook.
To me, saying I can't communicate without Facebook is like saying I can't get news without the Daily Mail, Fox and Russia Today.
posted by tel3path at 12:37 PM on May 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
To me, saying I can't communicate without Facebook is like saying I can't get news without the Daily Mail, Fox and Russia Today.
posted by tel3path at 12:37 PM on May 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
What it saves people on needing to keep an address book up to date is completely swamped by the amount of utterly bullshit interpersonal drama it creates.
If people are getting into drama on Facebook, it's their own fault. Unfriend or unfollow anyone who posts racist or other garbage. Turn off notifications for posts that get heated. I literally never see an argument. Mefi is much, much worse than my Facebook. People who complain about garbage on their Facebook feeds are like people who keep touching hot stove tops.
tzikeh, Facebook already has your phone number and email, so what difference does it make? Even if you never gave Facebook your number, one or more of your friends has it in their phone contacts and allowed their Facebook app access.
posted by AFABulous at 12:50 PM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
If people are getting into drama on Facebook, it's their own fault. Unfriend or unfollow anyone who posts racist or other garbage. Turn off notifications for posts that get heated. I literally never see an argument. Mefi is much, much worse than my Facebook. People who complain about garbage on their Facebook feeds are like people who keep touching hot stove tops.
tzikeh, Facebook already has your phone number and email, so what difference does it make? Even if you never gave Facebook your number, one or more of your friends has it in their phone contacts and allowed their Facebook app access.
posted by AFABulous at 12:50 PM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
Mefi is much, much worse than my Facebook.
Honestly one of my main reasons for staying away from social media is that I have at least three "traditional" web fora I keep up with. Can't afford to do any more internet!
posted by atoxyl at 12:57 PM on May 1, 2018
Honestly one of my main reasons for staying away from social media is that I have at least three "traditional" web fora I keep up with. Can't afford to do any more internet!
posted by atoxyl at 12:57 PM on May 1, 2018
The other thing I'm noping out of is how the friend/unfriend/follow/unfollow dynamic generates a whole mess of interpersonal drama that fills slow moments in family and workplace gossip.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 2:11 PM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 2:11 PM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
Not having a Facebook account is eccentricity, failing to like cousin gun nut's baby pics is a betrayal on the order of failing to entertain Miss Jane Bennett for weeks after her arrival in town.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 2:38 PM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 2:38 PM on May 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
I quit Facebook and Twitter “temporarily” a year ago, when I got a new job and needed to lose a distraction or two. To my mild surprise I found I liked being gone, so I stayed gone.
My husband is still on FB but doesn’t log in much. So I do have a sneaky back door channel to news I would have otherwise missed - a birth announcement, a friend’s sick child. I won’t lie, this is a cost. Losing access to weak-tie contacts also has costs I don’t know about, in terms of missed opportunities. But I feel happier.
I have missed socializing on the internet the way I’d done it before social media got big. I missed getting to know new people through text in spaces with less “performativity pressure” than Facebook or Twitter. So I recently joined Metafilter!
posted by eirias at 3:45 PM on May 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
My husband is still on FB but doesn’t log in much. So I do have a sneaky back door channel to news I would have otherwise missed - a birth announcement, a friend’s sick child. I won’t lie, this is a cost. Losing access to weak-tie contacts also has costs I don’t know about, in terms of missed opportunities. But I feel happier.
I have missed socializing on the internet the way I’d done it before social media got big. I missed getting to know new people through text in spaces with less “performativity pressure” than Facebook or Twitter. So I recently joined Metafilter!
posted by eirias at 3:45 PM on May 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
I've always thought "Most of your Facebook friends are not really friends" to be a curious objection. Well, of course not. Aren't there people in your life who are not friends, but could become friends? The woman who joined your trivia team? The guy in your church choir? The person in your painting class? Should you just stop talking to all those people because you don't deeply care about every aspect of their lives? That's what quitting Facebook is like. Do an experiment and ask for the phone number of every person you have anything in common with, and text them daily to ask what's new. Awkward, right?
A few years ago I went to a wedding. I chatted with a variety of people I'd never met before. I added 5 or so on Facebook. I'd comment on pictures of their dogs or vacations or whatever, and vice versa. One of them is now one of my closest friends and we text every day. This would not have happened without the medium of Facebook, because the friend we have in common (the groom) doesn't live here. Maybe it's a generational thing (I'm Gen X) but asking for someone's phone number after one conversation feels too personal.
posted by AFABulous at 4:09 PM on May 1, 2018 [10 favorites]
A few years ago I went to a wedding. I chatted with a variety of people I'd never met before. I added 5 or so on Facebook. I'd comment on pictures of their dogs or vacations or whatever, and vice versa. One of them is now one of my closest friends and we text every day. This would not have happened without the medium of Facebook, because the friend we have in common (the groom) doesn't live here. Maybe it's a generational thing (I'm Gen X) but asking for someone's phone number after one conversation feels too personal.
posted by AFABulous at 4:09 PM on May 1, 2018 [10 favorites]
A guy who used to live in my house drove up the driveway to ask about my house because he used to live in it in grad school with a bunch of roomates that became friends for life. I knew he was a kindred spirit because the whole appeal of that house is that it's like all the houses I used to live in with bunches of roomates who became lifelong friends when I was in grad school. Total stranger, just happened to be driving by and saw us outside. He and I exchanged numbers so that we could text one another and exchange anecdotes about the house. We texted a while and he sent me to his website. Not once did it occur to either of us to ask "are you on facebook." That used to happen every time you met anybody ever. Nobody's asked me that in ages, and of course I haven't asked anyone. I no longer seek out on facebook the Tim Torkildsons I run up on out in the world. I hope it is the harbinger of the end. I hope it means it's going to die and somehow be reborn less vile.
posted by Don Pepino at 4:38 PM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Don Pepino at 4:38 PM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
I mean, yay for you if you and your friends love talking on the phone, but me and other GenX cohorts do not. Especially if you suffer from anxiety and depression.
As with all things, this varies by individual [I'm also GenX]. I have a lot of issues with anxiety and my preference is video > voice > email > IM/text/SMS. The more clues I have as to someone's emotional state, the less anxious I will get. Since text removes so much of that, it becomes much more difficult to have a conversation that way. I think it depends on what triggers your anxiety specifically (for me, its worrying what the other person is _really_ thinking/saying).
(So why am I posting here? Places like MeFi are easier than, say, SMS --- mostly because I don't really know everyone here and its easier to detach from it when I navigate away. I'm not going to spend hours worrying about what someone _really_ meant by some comment or w/e).
For organizing things or general catch-up or "look at this" or whatever, my friends all use email. I know 2 people who use SMS, and I don't use Messenger (although I do use Facebook, but I have Messenger disabled). The exception is my Japanese friends/family who all use LINE.
posted by thefoxgod at 5:28 PM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
As with all things, this varies by individual [I'm also GenX]. I have a lot of issues with anxiety and my preference is video > voice > email > IM/text/SMS. The more clues I have as to someone's emotional state, the less anxious I will get. Since text removes so much of that, it becomes much more difficult to have a conversation that way. I think it depends on what triggers your anxiety specifically (for me, its worrying what the other person is _really_ thinking/saying).
(So why am I posting here? Places like MeFi are easier than, say, SMS --- mostly because I don't really know everyone here and its easier to detach from it when I navigate away. I'm not going to spend hours worrying about what someone _really_ meant by some comment or w/e).
For organizing things or general catch-up or "look at this" or whatever, my friends all use email. I know 2 people who use SMS, and I don't use Messenger (although I do use Facebook, but I have Messenger disabled). The exception is my Japanese friends/family who all use LINE.
posted by thefoxgod at 5:28 PM on May 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
inconstant said: "TIL not being a very social person who needs to keep up with everyone else is a "privilege"."
Here's the thing, though. Let's say I'm visiting a new city for a weekend. I can join a facebook group and pretty quickly find a safe place to stay or events where I probably won't be misgendered. Sometimes, a friend of a friend will even offer to show me around town. Hell, I still have an account purely so I can find housing, because there's no better way to find trans-friendly flatmates without already knowing a bunch of people. I also can't count the number of times I've searched for a venue and found out that it was homophobic or racist. It's not just queer shit— my friend who walks dogs joined a small facebook group for dog walkers to share their stories of harassment so she can figure out whether that creepy guy on S 6th and locust has done it to others. A lot of organizing happens there as well.
It's ridiculous that a single company is so pervasive, but I don't know that I would have left facebook if I couldn't afford to pay for a single room at that more expensive hostel or earn a living without having to walk around the city by myself or attend monthly meetings to get caught up on all the organizing shit i missed in the group. You can call it what you want.
posted by yaymukund at 6:58 AM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Here's the thing, though. Let's say I'm visiting a new city for a weekend. I can join a facebook group and pretty quickly find a safe place to stay or events where I probably won't be misgendered. Sometimes, a friend of a friend will even offer to show me around town. Hell, I still have an account purely so I can find housing, because there's no better way to find trans-friendly flatmates without already knowing a bunch of people. I also can't count the number of times I've searched for a venue and found out that it was homophobic or racist. It's not just queer shit— my friend who walks dogs joined a small facebook group for dog walkers to share their stories of harassment so she can figure out whether that creepy guy on S 6th and locust has done it to others. A lot of organizing happens there as well.
It's ridiculous that a single company is so pervasive, but I don't know that I would have left facebook if I couldn't afford to pay for a single room at that more expensive hostel or earn a living without having to walk around the city by myself or attend monthly meetings to get caught up on all the organizing shit i missed in the group. You can call it what you want.
posted by yaymukund at 6:58 AM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
To use the knapsack metaphor, what's in the magic knapsack for people who:
* don't have access to Facebook because of geographic or economic disparities in internet access
* don't participate in Facebook due to harassment
* don't participate in Facebook because they've been blocked by malicious reporting
* don't participate in Facebook because they're marked as frauds due to Facebook's real-name/id policy
* don't participate in Facebook because they've experienced income, job, or food insecurity and Facebook sells that information for the purpose of discrimination.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:34 AM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
* don't have access to Facebook because of geographic or economic disparities in internet access
* don't participate in Facebook due to harassment
* don't participate in Facebook because they've been blocked by malicious reporting
* don't participate in Facebook because they're marked as frauds due to Facebook's real-name/id policy
* don't participate in Facebook because they've experienced income, job, or food insecurity and Facebook sells that information for the purpose of discrimination.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:34 AM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
We're all right now using a social network that is inaccessible to many, many people. It's a privilege to be here, too.
Also, privilege is not a straight line. It can be true that being able to be social on facebook is a privilege and that being able to lead a social, connected life sans facebook is a privilege. I don't know that anyone is arguing that only one or the other of those is true.
posted by mosst at 9:03 AM on May 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
Also, privilege is not a straight line. It can be true that being able to be social on facebook is a privilege and that being able to lead a social, connected life sans facebook is a privilege. I don't know that anyone is arguing that only one or the other of those is true.
posted by mosst at 9:03 AM on May 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
Ketchunaise. Mayrup. Whateverthehellit'scalled in the hellscape that is Kraft's or whoever's Division of Raised Awareness for Generalized Sociopathy. Evidently some corporate fuck dreamed up a new gross word for french dressing and paid the facebook fees my neighbor can't pay to alert friends who want to help him with his liferuiningdisaster. As Lincoln famously said, a destructive and evil marketing scheme can travel around the world while a neighbor's plea for help is getting its boots on, so mayonads took social media by storm and people have been spending whole workdays pounding keyboards about it. Now the fanged and slavering monstersized maggot that is whichever corporation is responsible for this can get unpaid "consumers" to create a new condiment category for the corporation so that it can siphon off some more market share. Luckily I didn't miss out on this sociocultural phenomenon because this worth-reading article about a not-worth-even-knowing-about phenomenon made the local paper: https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/mayochup-is-stupid-but-heres-a-real-way-to-make-your-hamburger-or-blt-the-best-ever/
No facebook? No falling into lifewasting pitfall traps devised by condiment marketers.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:08 AM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
No facebook? No falling into lifewasting pitfall traps devised by condiment marketers.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:08 AM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
(DRAGS)
posted by Don Pepino at 9:10 AM on May 2, 2018
posted by Don Pepino at 9:10 AM on May 2, 2018
If something is convenient for you, whether that's Facebook, a library, or a good grocery, it doesn't necessarily follow that people who don't use it are benefitting from a socioeconomic system of oppression that offers all the same advantages.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:26 AM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:26 AM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think a good metaphor is car ownership. One person can't afford a car, while another person can't afford to sell their car.
mosst said: "Also, privilege is not a straight line. It can be true that being able to be social on facebook is a privilege and that being able to lead a social, connected life sans facebook is a privilege. I don't know that anyone is arguing that only one or the other of those is true."
on preview, this
posted by yaymukund at 10:43 AM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
mosst said: "Also, privilege is not a straight line. It can be true that being able to be social on facebook is a privilege and that being able to lead a social, connected life sans facebook is a privilege. I don't know that anyone is arguing that only one or the other of those is true."
on preview, this
posted by yaymukund at 10:43 AM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I think a good metaphor is car ownership. One person can't afford a car, while another person can't afford to sell their car.
Well sure, let's go with the car metaphor a moment. Treating pedestrian, bike, and public transport commuters as privileged hipsters (which is a thing that happens) obscures the very real forces of racism, segregation, and class that are fundamental understanding the geography of the American city and its transportation systems. Similarly, Facebook exists alongside post-WWII capitalism's erosion and privatization of community engagement. People excluded from Facebook are not necessarily benefitting from alternative forms of sociability.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:27 AM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Well sure, let's go with the car metaphor a moment. Treating pedestrian, bike, and public transport commuters as privileged hipsters (which is a thing that happens) obscures the very real forces of racism, segregation, and class that are fundamental understanding the geography of the American city and its transportation systems. Similarly, Facebook exists alongside post-WWII capitalism's erosion and privatization of community engagement. People excluded from Facebook are not necessarily benefitting from alternative forms of sociability.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 11:27 AM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah and how about "reverse privilege" maybe check for that too.
It's not even a analogy: it's a special case of the generalized accusation that being "woke" or progressive is a form of privilege. It's a category error, and/or invalid in the way a claim of reverse racism is invalid.
posted by polymodus at 1:01 PM on May 2, 2018
It's not even a analogy: it's a special case of the generalized accusation that being "woke" or progressive is a form of privilege. It's a category error, and/or invalid in the way a claim of reverse racism is invalid.
posted by polymodus at 1:01 PM on May 2, 2018
Oh, speaking of racism, OTHER GODDAMN THING THAT HAPPENED in like 2008 and I should have quit facebook there and then even though I had just joined: someone started a group called "You know you're from Gainesville if" that was mostly African American. I was already in a bunch of white "our town" nostalgia groups like the "Skeeter's Big Biscuits!" group, but this new group was completely different. It was full of people talking about parts of town and traditions that I had lived next to but never known anything about. I was these people's age and grew up alongside them, but I didn't know any of this stuff. Of course not: they were at Fletcher's while I was at The Hardback; they were at Mama Lo's while I was at Skeeter's. For a day or two it was amazing, but the person who started the group let everybody join who asked, and enough white people joined that very shortly it changed to a carbon copy of the groups I was already in. And the original people got shouted down. Just over and over and over and over and over and over hey everybody remember all the stupid shit we did in college every single Wednesday through Saturday night world without end? "Who remembers the miniskirt and wet t-shirt contests at Dubs, all?" "When you were wasted you went to Skeeters and got chocolate chip pancakes and what? A BIG BISCUIT ROTFLMAOOOOOOOO!!1!!"
posted by Don Pepino at 1:25 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Don Pepino at 1:25 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
For all those thinking of disengaging from Facebook, but are concerned about FB-users forgetting about them, try this: Update your profile to centered block text on a solid-color background that says something like: "NOT ON FACEBOOK" or "TEXT ME." Make it big enough so it's legible even with the pic is shrunk to the minimum size in event invitation screen or messenger box.
That way, all the Facebook users get a little nudge to contact you off of Facebook, and even if they don't, you can still get emails with event info, etc.
This doesn't help with people's broadcast announcements to their walls, but I feel that kind of stuff is dying down.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 8:27 AM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
That way, all the Facebook users get a little nudge to contact you off of Facebook, and even if they don't, you can still get emails with event info, etc.
This doesn't help with people's broadcast announcements to their walls, but I feel that kind of stuff is dying down.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 8:27 AM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
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And oh, is it ever. People boast that they no longer have it or deride those that do seem to forget pretty easily that not everyone has the same privilege to not use it. Much like the other hated platform, Twitter, these social media outlets have been invaluable for people who don't have a voice. It's just a goddamn travesty that there are Nazis and your racist relatives also using it too.
posted by Kitteh at 10:13 AM on April 30, 2018 [22 favorites]