The following was a guest post on a “blog about blogging,” now defunct. The audience was mostly writers and bloggers: Gen-X, liberal creative types with an appetite for self-deprecation, irony, and irreverence. I was aiming to convey a saucy, sassy sense of humor while still conveying the message that self-exposure on the internet has changed the way we read social media, thus Gen-Xers have to adjust to that reality.
25 Ways to Feel Superior to Your Facebook Acquaintances
“These waves of collective exhibitionism on social media now fall into the same category of selfies, for me: They might not always float one’s boat, but one shouldn’t wet one’s pants over it.”
Just in time for my annual social media break, there it was, again–that “Share 25 Random Facts About Yourself” vanity project circulating on Facebook like the clap in a whorehouse. I pretended to recoil. I watched in mock horror as my feed tumesced with variously cloying, cringe-y, clever, and calculated lists of humble brags. While sneering at “friends” who (with superficial reluctance, of course) dutifully submitted their so-called “random” facts for public approval, my skin prickled with an alarming collision of contrary twinges.
First… I desperately wanted to participate in this ridiculous exercise. I’m neurotically extroverted (until I’m not), and if you pair my desperate need to spray my thoughts and feelings everywhere with my overwhelming FOMO–well, dang. Everyone was doing it. My “list” (i. e., my artfully structured sequence) of “random” (i. e., strategically curated) facts was already composing itself in my head.
However. I also wanted to murder the whole monstrous concept, dissolve its corpse in a lye bath, then launch the resulting pozole into space. “Just. STOP,” I hissed at my Facebook feed. Too many overshares, lurid sex details, squirmy admissions, glances toward possible childhood trauma. Too much hinted at but left unexplained. Each list was like reading an infuriatingly bad interview, where bold revelations evoked no razor-sharp follow-up questions. Too much, too much!–and yet, not enough.
I declined participation in protest, but did I merely opt out? Oh, no—I opted to “cleverly” and coyly deconstruct this heinous practice from within. Yes, I would heroically devise a weaponized 25-item list, not about myself, but about what exactly is wrong with this blasted trend, with our insatiable appetite for exposure and attention. My work would shame them all into agreeing with me, and these lists would vanish from the interwebs.
Heh. Right. Who was I kidding?
Clearly, I was…wrong, or at best, blinkered. And my disastrous drafting process proved that to me no fewer than seven humbling, unreadable times.
How embarrassing. I’m a young Gen-Xer, almost an honorary millennial; I should have known better. It’s not that exhibitionism isn’t a thing that is happening. It’s just… not always a bad thing, and, really, attention whoring is just not a big deal. This is the world now, and if information “quality” were truly my primary pursuit, why would I go looking for it on Facebook?
Besides, no “list” exists on anyone’s feed in a vacuum. It’s one cog in the broader machinery of a person’s online presence. If I crave follow-up questions, that’s what the comment section is for. If I want the bigger picture, I can stalk that “friend”’s entire feed.
In an era when social media’s influence far outstrips that of politicians, network news, or, say, all printed matter on earth taken together, it’s a massive understatement to declare online self-exposure “on trend.” Posting about yourself has become more than an indulgence, a quirk, or even a hobby—it’s almost an expectation, an obligation. For the young and attractive, “influencing” is even a legitimate career option.
In sum, these waves of collective exhibitionism on social media now fall into the same category of selfies, for me: They might not always float one’s boat, but one shouldn’t wet one’s pants over it. Writers much smarter than me have analyzed the significance of these social media trends, which I should have researched before embarking on my doomed writing project. For example, [Xxxxxxxxxx]<<link removed>> examines the relationship between social media and identity formation (surprise! social media isn’t terrible in all ways). [Xxxxxxxx] <<link removed>> postulates that discovering gaps between our real experiences and our online personas can reveal ego fractures that are crying out for healing. [Xxxxxxxx] <<link removed>> lauds the selfie trend, as it fuels movements that empower marginalized folks.
Don’t listen to me. Listen to them.
P.S. In case you need proof of my failure, here is just one fantastically awful discarded draft. In this version, I attempted to compose an “organically random” list by just recording 25 consecutive thoughts that came to my head about composing a list of 25 random facts about myself. Uh… yeah.
1. Y’all, I’m still hung up on the notion that you can choose 25 specific bits of trivia about yourself and declare them “random.” Words mean things, people!
2. Then again, my first instinct was to write, “I have three kidneys!”
3. Which I do—I do have three kidneys.
4. But that’s the furthest thing from a random fact—in fact, it’s quite the opposite: it’s my go-to factoid that I whip out whenever someone implies that I should build myself up as unique and interesting. Anti-random.
5. And really, isn’t that what this challenge solicits? By “random facts,” don’t we really mean “interesting quirks—things that mark you as special, but in a particular way, not a random way—not so ‘out there’ that you come off like a total weirdo, but not so mundane that you sound like the world’s most boring bore; things that people probably don’t know about you, but that don’t come across as overshare-y”?
6. And I’ve filled these out before…
7. …so I know what I’m talking about.
8. Although last I remember filling one out, it required 6 random facts, which is way easier to deal with than 25.
9. And really, I never know what I’m talking about—that was a bluff.
10. I’m only on item 10, and I’m already working pretty hard to maintain my “meta” posturing.
11. You know what really does strike me as random? The songs that get stuck in my head, rotating on a weekly-or-so-basis.
12. This week it’s an old R.E.M song–its video features a cellist getting her ass handed to her by life.
13. The reality is that I just like the video because Michael Stipe is adorable.
14. (The Facebook exhibitionist-me is screaming right now at the cultural-critic-me to scrap the interior dialogue and just pummel you with 25 a-touch-too-personal Elizafacts.)
15. (But that exhibitionist-me has a blog for staging her exhibits, so, for the moment, she can just go ahead and can it.)
16. Sigh.
17. I really can’t do this.
18. I give up.
19. I was right—you can’t generate “random” facts about yourself.
20. It’s all a ruse!
21. A ruse I say!
22. …
23. Coffee sounds good right now.
24. Mmm. Coffee.
25. …
E. Sterzinger -- Writer, Editor, Educator 