The Facebook Alter Ego

1. Log in. Ten new notifications! I am complete!
2. ~HOME PAGE~
3. Notification: Iskra Dzundeva liked so and so’s link on so and so’s wall.
-Alien-O M G, now that must mean that Iskra likes so and so!
Fatal consequence: Gossip Girls (males included) thrive. A like on someone’s post is worth a thousand words, of course.
Drama ensues. The Facebook alter egos come alive. We, the real people, become aliens.

In fact, making a decision to push that like button on someone’s profile can mean nothing, but to some of the most prominent Facebook socialites it means absolutely everything. It is a pity that societal communication has come down to such exchange. Pushing a button instead of expressing an opinion? How amoeba-like. It is a pity that I partake in it.

However, it didn’t always used to be so. How has Facebook changed my life? What was my social life like before Facebook, 3 years ago, when I was a wee bit freshman, inarticulate in the eloquence of the virtual world? Actually, I was one of the strongest opponents of the cyber face. Scratch that, I was THE enemy of the virtual world and networking. Wasting countless hours on MySpace, forgetting reality’s face, no way, I was so above that. Mock the hypocrite I have become; so I succumbed. Now, I am just one the many faces in the world’s largest encyclopedia of information: Facebook.

Why did I make a decision to join? Oh, surely, that’s simple: I was smitten by the allure of retaining contact with my long distance friends.

Alien- Wait a minute, by that you mean checking your Facebook ten times a day just to get “in touch” with people?

Obviously, the Facebook addiction stems from something else, a concept far more complex. Why do we have the urge to follow people’s lives and acquire intimate information that in no way we should have access to?

Alien-Geez, why would you care about my profile? What a stalker. Oh, what has HE been up to?

The answer is simple. It is not what we demand, but it is what the market supplies that hooks us. In other words, Facebook users have access to whatever their friends post on their profile pages. Thus, if you decide to have a public argument with your best friend on Facebook, guess what: your private life has been penetrated. In less than five minutes this dispute will appear on everyone’s home page, and the whole world will know about that dude cheating on your best friend. Oops; so much for privacy.

Let’s face it: it’s not like most of you don’t know this. All Facebook users in fact, are very aware of the information they post on their profiles. After all, this is the face that we would like the world to identify us by, isn’t it? This is the face that is supposed to be a reflection of the real self; a metonymic representation of the people behind the screen. In reality, through our desperate attempts to identify ourselves as the unique individuals that we are, the Facebook profile has become its own persona, our alter ego, cooler than our real selves. This alter ego defines itself through the lame self taken pictures and the never ending list of our wide interests, because we are incapable of making a choice and being selective. Of course, let’s not neglect the most important segment, the more friends the better, because we are just THAT popular. Who cares if we don’t even have a clue about who half of them really are? Reach out and grab them, they are the closest that we will ever get to reality, they are part of our virtual world.

Let’s turn the tables: something must be wrong with the real world for us to flee to our alter ego and create a new world with several clicks of the mouse. What exactly is wrong?

Analyzing the different socio-economic factors of our decade, I’ve come to the conclusion that the general global devastation has led to people’s self imposed alienation from society. People choose to stay at home because they do not have the means to go outside; in today’s material culture, having fun means spending tremendous amounts of money, and of course, the more you spend the better. So what do those who cannot afford such expensive entertainment do? They, in fact, stay at home clicking away on the internet, bonding in the virtual way. Sad yet true, materialism has driven the world into two extremes of alienation: one in which individuals turn to the excessive material pleasures to fill their emotional holes and the other in which individuals turn to the virtual to escape reality. Siddhartha’s words have been forgotten; could it be that we prefer reading the Face-Book over real books?

Alien-Wait, like, those old things that ppl used to read bak in da Neanderthal age? Y read those when I can just go on Spark notes. LMAO, YOUR SO ridic.(Yes, the objects with dusty covers sitting alone on your bookshelves, the lonely remnants of the distant past).

Similarly to Siddhartha’s struggle with materialism, nowadays, the extreme trend of the material escapist modes has created a shift in the way that individuals communicate amongst themselves. Today’s youth does not use the internet to facilitate their communication with people; rather they abuse it to meet new people. The tragedy lies in the practice of getting to know people more profoundly through MSN, Facebook chat, or other internet sites, rather than through good old human contact. Call me old fashioned, but whatever happened to dates, frequent social gatherings during the day, and spontaneous meetings with people to have a chat,” on a coffee”*?

The more time we spend clicking away, the less time we spend with real people, which leads to our self inflicted alienation from society. Let’s face it: the more friends we have on Facebook solely distances us from our real friends. We need to reevaluate our priorities and focus on quality over quantity, because after all the most valuable things are the scarcest of them all. Let’s reach out for the people who exist outside of the virtual world; those who do not necessarily have a Facebook alter ego as the passport substitute of the 21st century.

Alien logs off Facebook and proceeds to call her friend up for coffee so they can talk in person. Like real people. Alien masks fall. Humanity is reborn. Just like in that Coca Cola commercial.


*”On a Coffee” refers to the newly built sculpture by GTC on the Kej in Skopje. It is a literal translation of the archaic Macedonian tradition of meeting up for coffee, “na kafe”.