Inside Doug's Head

I am of the opinion that the rise in popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are due more to the general increase in our overall levels of boredom. Movies and television, the old standbys of passive mindless timewasting, have become so filled with smelly awfulness that we can’t take it anymore.

Hey! There is that computer sitting on my desk that I bought for myself because everyone told me that I needed one for some undisclosed purposes. Perhaps I could put it to some useful distraction activities. As it turns out, working on spreadsheets is only entertaining for a few weirdoes, and in spite of our parents telling us that we could be anything that we want to be, that great idea for a novel is not writing itself anytime soon.

If only there were something besides pornography on the internet that I could use to distract myself while I am sitting here bored to death in a meeting with some people that I would actually be paying attention to if only they didn’t have such smelly ugly faces. Fortunately for you, Facebook came to save you from your painfully lonely existence in among all those other people.

To help you get started, I have assembled a list of common activities you can indulge in through the miracle of Facebook. In no particular order:

• Stalking people from the comfort of your own hovel. It used to be that you had to brave the wild outdoors in order to harass the people who want nothing to do with you. Now, with Facebook, you can creep on complete strangers from wherever you have internet access. Find out where they are and what they are doing at this very moment, discover what they like so you may tell them that you like it too, and be sure to tag yourself in all of their pictures so they know how close you actually are. You no longer have to risk getting caught holding a flashlight while hiding behind bushes (George and Barbara) as you try to peer in through a curtained window to catch a momentary glimpse of the object of your unholy desires.

 

• Finding out how many incredibly huge douchebags you know. Normal people don’t really care about advertising the crappy looking pictures of the food they ordered at a grimy public restaurant. Unless they are eating it with Tiger Woods, or being attacked by a tiger while dining, non-douchies keep the camera in their pocket. Wow, is that an actual cheeseburger? I had no idea they looked like that.

 

• Demonstrating to the world what a huge and mindless douchebag you are. Posting banal comments and observations on the nature of rice versus potatoes, voicing your uninformed but pedantic social or political opinions, and pretending to be the embodiment of erudition on all things related to art and culture really lets everyone you know (rather, it more confirms what they knew all along) what a great big giant douchenozzle you turned out to be. You will be on everyone’s restricted list in no time.

 

• Revealing how mundane your life really is. Let everyone know every thought you ever have the exact moment you have them by textualizing, publishing, and continually uploading your insipid stream of consciousness. I just made cookies. I am waiting for a bus. My dog farted and it smells like cookies. There’s a woman with blue hair in line in front of me. I went poop in a closet at a funeral home. I need to get a real life.

 

• Looking up past acquaintances to see what they have been up to. Now that you have found them again after all these years, you may compare your life’s worth to theirs and conclude you are way better off. What ever possessed you to find them in the first place? Your unlimited awesomeness is unabashedly unlimited.

 

• Letting employers know you exist. Voluntarily give your potential future employers all of your personal demographic information that they are not legally permitted to ask you for before or during an interview. Tell them your age, show them all the great pictures of that time when you were arrested for doing cocaine off the back of a dead hooker (they don’t have to find out that you didn’t know she was dead at the time), and share your xenophobic and racist political views. Lay it all out there for them, all the information they need to ensure you are their kind of person, and not of the wrong color, race, religion, or species. Well done, you!

 

• Hide from the public in plain sight. Of course you want to be with all of the cool people on Facebook, but you don’t want anyone to know it is actually you. So, use pictures of your dog wearing a hat, your kids at the park, a popular cartoon character, or even a rock as your profile image. That way, no one will be able to know for certain that it is you they are friending. How would you feel if your dog used a picture of you on his Facebook profile?

So there you have it. All this time you thought you were only surrendering all of your privacy and intellectual property rights just to make a giant corporation even more profitable. Yet, some said it would never catch on.

-DG.