Everything you need to know about Facebook is in this darkly funny episode of “South Park.”
Kyle “friends” the wrong person on Facebook. Now all of his friends are unfriending him. His situation is desperate.
His father and even grandma start hassling him for not friending them. Frustrated and tired of wasting his life online, he attempts to delete his Facebook profile, but gets sucked into the the inner Tron-like vortex of Facebook, where he’s forced to into exile in Farmville.
I mention this South Park episode, because it’s a biting satire about the ways that Facebook and life begin to become inexorably intertwined.
When you start a profile on Facebook, you enter into a new level of relationship with your “real world” friends and business connections. They begin to expect you to actually read and respond to them. It’s a time commitment that can start to feel like you’ve been sucked into the Matrix and no longer have time for the Real World.
Adding the wrong friends can diminish your status–or cause your higher profile friends to “unfriend” you. Forget to check “in a relationship,” and it will inevitably lead to offline drama with your girlfriend.
And if you neglect to “friend” someone, they’re sooooo offended. Especially people you don’t want to show your profile to, like Grandma.
“Friends shouldn’t be some sort of commodity for status,” says Stan, wisely, but it’s too late. He’s trapped in the Matrix of Facebook, where everyone (even Grandma) expects him to respond to their pokes — and Facebook won’t let him delete his profile.
Giselle Bisson Visibility Shift 
Leave a Reply