Well, after some contemplation, it is decided that I shall stop haunting facebook as part of my routine from now.
I started that account on the 29th Feburary 2008 along with friendster. The main goal then was to know more people- to widen my social circle and to
anticipate a better life beyond that land of sorrows. University's cool, university's promising, universitiy is where I want to be.... those were the thoughts that had persisted then- get 100 facebook contacts in one year and thereforth. Whats the moral of the story? the more the merrier.
It was cool to see the list grow. I remember posting a post (up here) then about me having 14 contacts and other people having 149 faces on their book (LOL). I wasn't too bothered with the inclusion of
everybody I knew before so I just let the number grow naturally. I added some and others added me- it was great ( I still don't deny this), and so it went.
What changed? The facebook applications came and went- the games were cute and neverending, so after a while I decided that it was quite pointless breaking my own highscore. I went
online frequently, reserving it as one of my tabs even when i am in school, and saw nothing but a constant update of status among people. "John was tagged in another album (again...) and Sally needs your help in slaying the level 94 cerebus (That shy girl is a monster killer?!) and Tom's invities you to take the
love at first sight test (omg wth you doing Tom?!) and Jane's just beaten her own highscore of 250000 in bejeweled blitz (Honey, okay you win....).
Well these status were a little annoying I guess, there was the more meaningful status and comment section where people can discuss thoughts of the day and show some concern, but I guess not much people wanted to get cracking up there. So for much of the day, it was probably refreshing pages every other hour (and it takes forever to load sometimes) and seeing more quirky statuses. The whole idea was pretty much like a observe and exhibit show. Everybody congregated to merely exhibit their activities, or watch people exhibit themselves.
Yeah, like cart-wheeling point, or flirting point, or philo point, or no point.
So comes in the homework, and bleagh..... so comes in the the question of the point in this point:
why do we really go up to facebook for? Well, it would be really cool to say: to genuinely contact with people, which you know won't have time to sit down and have a nice long conversation but nevertheless still want to keep in touch with. But well there are always other ways to circumvent having to sieve through a monstrousity of ads and statuses for such gems (and there is always offline messaging which is private, so you don't have to shout:
oh my darling I havent seen you for ages!). Otherwise, the reason to carry on is pretty dodgy.
No, Jesse is not getting antisocial- he is not falling back to the quiet and quirky ways, and there is NO deranged theory that compels him to quit facebook and mantain it that way for good (so I guess I'll still log on intermittenly for more personal activities like catching up and stuff). But I guess i'll can finally say goodbye to this onslaught of meaningless statuses and updates (which I had pretty much put as primary)- and the boredom of going online knowing that little would be done by evening when I get offline. And goodbye to people whom we have added for the sake of adding (probably as exhibitionism), and to that dangerous notion of
hey, I add you on facebook ar? and subsequently treating a newly acquainted human being as no more than another face in a book.
Yes- I don't want a book of faces as a trophy, or a exhibit my book of trophies to faces, of face myself to no more than a book of trophies 24-7.
Cheers to the improvement in quality of relationship between individuals. I'll see you guys on msn messenger, or on this domain (more frequently now- it replaced the tab for facebook); otherwise- enjoy valentines day, enjoy chinese new year, and do re-affirm your romantic love for Bah Kwa eh?