I posted this on facebook yesterday and people there seemed to find it amusing, so I thought I'd immortalize it here for those of you who are not so blessed to be my facebook friends.
"Reasons I am ashamed of myself today:
1. Faced with an awkward silence, I said something to the effect of: "Cold enough for you?"
2. Even though I am generally impressed by her performance, I did mention to my mother that Hillary Clinton looks awful.
3. I have already purchased tickets for tomorrow's premiere of Movie 43."
1. Faced with an awkward silence, I said something to the effect of: "Cold enough for you?"
2. Even though I am generally impressed by her performance, I did mention to my mother that Hillary Clinton looks awful.
3. I have already purchased tickets for tomorrow's premiere of Movie 43."
What I didn't mention is that my comment on Hillary prompted my Mom to confess that she does not love Michelle Obama's bangs, so I dragged my Mom down into the superficial gutter with me. It set off a brief political debate, speculation on Hillary's well-being, compliments of my wittiness as it were, but garnered 29 likes, 12 comments and even 6 comment likes. Objectively a winner.
Hours later, a friend posted the following:
"I hope nothing in my life ever depends on Facebook likes."
She got 11 likes, 1 comment and a comment like.
But my unexpected euphoria over my successful post, her post, my previous post on Twitter forced me to acknowledge that to a certain extent, a bit of my self-esteem is tied to a like or lack thereof. And that’s just messed up.
I would prefer to think that this is a product of emerging from a period of extreme self-loathing and finding a positive affirmation to rebuild my self-esteem is a healthy exercise, but I think not. If I am being honest, my self-infantilization has caused a regression from my actual generation, which came of age before cell phones, email and the internet (I didn’t even have a computer in college), to the current young generation who believe that being famous for being famous is an actual career path (see, e.g., the Kardashians and Paris Hilton). And every follower or like is one more cyberstep toward that goal. And I don’t have any desire to be famous, although the rich part would be nice, but spilling my guts and crafting clever pithy comments for the approval of “friends” and complete strangers feels totally normal.
I guess that’s all I have to say for now, but I really hoped you liked this. I mean, REALLY.
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