2008 Woodie Awards
Staying out of the beehive and keeping it real.
Nick Rolichaud
Issue date: 4/30/08 Section: Opinions
Recently I was sitting flipping through the Boston Globe. Casually scanning article titles, I found one entitled "The dance of the bees." I dove in head first. What ensued was a college professor's series of observations that mirrored my own on the current college generation. Such online communities such as Facebook and Myspace, as well as mass communication via cell phones, have according to Perry Glasser created a hive-mentality and a breakdown of the individual in young person's society. While I know many people are already going "what a bunch of conspiracy theory bull-sh**," I was completely engrossed.
A few years ago I registered for a Facebook account as a naive and unassuming freshman. The company line at the time was that Facebook would help you meet people on your own college campus. You would have the ability to make friends that you would never meet otherwise if you just sat around a dormroom with your roommate, a couple of dorm mates, or class mates. Immediately on creating the account I received friend requests from people I would be heading to Dijon with in the fall, as well as a lot of other people who I had no real connection to. This was great! Obviously if someone liked Smashing Pumpkins, we would be firm friends. However, on arriving at Colby College for JanPlan I came to realize that I did not have over 300 friends, that most of these people I would never talk to, let alone meet. Disillusioned, I promptly deleted my account. Over time, Facebook grew to include the Mini-Feed and gaming. While I can let sleeping dogs lie as well as the rest of them, I began to see a cyber-world taking hold in an all too real way.
In Oscar Wilde's A Picture of Dorian Gray, the protagonist chats with Lord Wotton about the "immorality" (Wilde's word) of influencing people. An influenced person is not him/herself because they are merely borrowing another's identity. This is a particularly compelling idea when dealing with Facebook. On registering, you put your name, gender, sexual orientation, favorite movies, favorite music, etc. Of these inputs you can choose from a list of options, male, female, single, gay, straight etc. Create your own cyber-identity on the company line. Each of the questions is given priority, and this is how you answer those questions. God knows when I meet someone in the real world my immediate reaction is "I'm Nic, a straight, single, male. Interests: comics, movies, and sailing." The expectations of Facebook seem to have created a mold for how people can now identify themselves. I see this ultimately in pictures. Tell me to stop when this sounds familiar. Picture 1: a group of girls sitting in a row wearing pretty dresses and smiling with their arms around each other. Picture 2: Two guys stand drunkenly with beers in their hands. Picture 3: Two girls are trying not to burst out laughing as they kiss each other on the lips. How many thousands of these pictures appear on Facebook hourly? The mold of what pictures should be has begun to fall into categories. The "cute" pictures are all reproductions of the same one; a model for what a picture should look like is part of the act of posting and tagging.
Now you're expecting a Michael Moore speech about why you should change. You are doing something wrong and here is how I'm going to set you straight. I am not going to. That would be influencing you, which I have already stated as something I reject. If you are fine with living in this kind of mold-mentality than all the power to you! I prefer to stay away from "friends" I will never meet or talk to, I prefer to retain a more individual identity than a male from New Hampshire, but I realize that that is not for everyone. People praise Facebook for the ease of communication, especially abroad. They love being able to see what their friends are up to. I am not asking for Mark Zuckerberg's head on a platter, I am asking people to think about the observations I have made above, and know that other options are out there.
A few years ago I registered for a Facebook account as a naive and unassuming freshman. The company line at the time was that Facebook would help you meet people on your own college campus. You would have the ability to make friends that you would never meet otherwise if you just sat around a dormroom with your roommate, a couple of dorm mates, or class mates. Immediately on creating the account I received friend requests from people I would be heading to Dijon with in the fall, as well as a lot of other people who I had no real connection to. This was great! Obviously if someone liked Smashing Pumpkins, we would be firm friends. However, on arriving at Colby College for JanPlan I came to realize that I did not have over 300 friends, that most of these people I would never talk to, let alone meet. Disillusioned, I promptly deleted my account. Over time, Facebook grew to include the Mini-Feed and gaming. While I can let sleeping dogs lie as well as the rest of them, I began to see a cyber-world taking hold in an all too real way.
In Oscar Wilde's A Picture of Dorian Gray, the protagonist chats with Lord Wotton about the "immorality" (Wilde's word) of influencing people. An influenced person is not him/herself because they are merely borrowing another's identity. This is a particularly compelling idea when dealing with Facebook. On registering, you put your name, gender, sexual orientation, favorite movies, favorite music, etc. Of these inputs you can choose from a list of options, male, female, single, gay, straight etc. Create your own cyber-identity on the company line. Each of the questions is given priority, and this is how you answer those questions. God knows when I meet someone in the real world my immediate reaction is "I'm Nic, a straight, single, male. Interests: comics, movies, and sailing." The expectations of Facebook seem to have created a mold for how people can now identify themselves. I see this ultimately in pictures. Tell me to stop when this sounds familiar. Picture 1: a group of girls sitting in a row wearing pretty dresses and smiling with their arms around each other. Picture 2: Two guys stand drunkenly with beers in their hands. Picture 3: Two girls are trying not to burst out laughing as they kiss each other on the lips. How many thousands of these pictures appear on Facebook hourly? The mold of what pictures should be has begun to fall into categories. The "cute" pictures are all reproductions of the same one; a model for what a picture should look like is part of the act of posting and tagging.
Now you're expecting a Michael Moore speech about why you should change. You are doing something wrong and here is how I'm going to set you straight. I am not going to. That would be influencing you, which I have already stated as something I reject. If you are fine with living in this kind of mold-mentality than all the power to you! I prefer to stay away from "friends" I will never meet or talk to, I prefer to retain a more individual identity than a male from New Hampshire, but I realize that that is not for everyone. People praise Facebook for the ease of communication, especially abroad. They love being able to see what their friends are up to. I am not asking for Mark Zuckerberg's head on a platter, I am asking people to think about the observations I have made above, and know that other options are out there.
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