why facebook is like high school: an introductory case study

today was a really normal day in my life - i went to work, i got groceries, i shot the breeze with some friends, i had my run, i binged on ice cream - super normal.  for some other people in my life, though, it was less normal.  for some people in my life, today was the day they found out they passed the ontario bar exam.  this is a huge moment!  so congrats to all those wonderful friends who made it through the end of law school only to have to immediately return to the library and write two horrible exams and who have now found out it all paid off.  i'm proud of these people!

of course, as in many moments of big excitement or chaos or fury in an age of social media, there were some facebook status updates.  they ranged from simple euphoric internet shouts of "i passed the bar!" to videos which represented the particular set of feelings my pals were experiencing (which i'm sure we're quite funny, but i was too busy eating ice cream to watch them, sorry!).  on top of that were a few statuses shooting down the jubilation emanating from their peers' fingertips that made their way into cyberspace.

i get it.  nobody likes "bragging".  put too many type A, big personalities in one place and you're bound to get some clashing.  there were also some thoughtful comments emanating from some people - why shout your personal triumphs when you don't know how all of your similarly situated friends fared?  i remember getting my grades back after Christmas in first year of law school and seeing the status about how happy a friend was because they smoked the exams.  meanwhile i was sitting on a C+ and some other letter grades that suddenly had the very distinctive appearance of sad faces...  in any case, that was awful!  

what i did, however, was "like" my friend's status.  here was some moment in my friend's life that made my friend happy.  my life is obviously going to work out just fine!  i was stressed about my own grades, but my friend's status really didn't affect me.  so i hit the thumbs up.

facebook is a weird place.  i've thought often about how we use it.  some of my closest friends and i (who are all scattered across eastern canada) have an ongoing thread that we post in several times a week.  my dad has a facebook page for this business and posts updates for what he sees on his boat tours.  my little sister is a fantastic photographer and posts some of her amazing shots.  i post everything!  i'm always (erroneously) sure people want to read what i want to read.  including this blog.  i will post this blog on facebook.  if you're here, it's only because you saw it on facebook.

facebook is also a place where it has become normal to tote your accomplishments and other life events - people's babies, people's engagements, people's marriages, people's slim figures, people's new hair cuts, people's graduations, people's future endeavours, people's trips...all of these things.  they all go up on the 'book, these little snap shots of moment's in people's lives.  i have a friend who hiked this one time...obviously a photo appeared of him on top of this mountain and i had to laugh because, god love him, i just question how easy or fun the whole thing really was for him.  but if you didn't know him better, you might just think, well, i had no idea so-and-so had become such an avid hiker!  and you might feel impressed or jealous or maybe even sad because there you are, sitting on the couch, hiking nothing.  just on facebook.  meanwhile look at these mountains so-and-so has been hiking!  

the ultimate thing about posting on facebook is that, even though it is real, it isn't.  it's a totem pole of accomplishments, or funny or inspiring moments, or utter hysterical happiness.  when you take the stroll through facebook in the morning and you see the rundown of things people are doing, should you forget that it's not somebody's actual real life, you could be perplexed by all the jibber-jabbering about success or excitement that you see.  but seeing it that way is a personal choice.  it's just a little corner of cyber space!  it's just me mouthing off!  it's just my friend being proud of passing the bar!  it's just my friend's four-week long euro-trip!  but it is most certainly not, in any substantial way, real life.  and it definitely most certainly is not a malicious attempt at rubbing people's noses in something.  i think it's very often a celebration with people who aren't doing what you're doing and feel some joy for you without feeling that you're acting off side or in poor taste.

choosing to put pieces of your life on cyber space isn't new or interesting anymore.  what's more, a person's reasons for posting something are likely never "reasons" - as if they are calculated or contemplated before they are acted on.  

i feel like facebook is like high school.  first of all, you've got that little box of nine friends on the left side of your personal page.  they're your best friends.  that little box of friends never changes.  that's your posse, your homies, the b'ys you chill with in the hallway at recess time.  secondly, you've got your announcements that come on at the beginning and the end of the day - all the events you get invited too and inbox messages you get about parties that are happening on the weekend.  then you've got the personalities that exist at school - the people that are always telling you that interesting thing that they read, or the rich kids that are always coming back from vacation and can't stop showing you their pictures, and the excitable types to whom everything is funny and everything is a triumph and they're yelling in the hallways because they got an A on their report card (again).  if you get all swept up in the dichotomy of that world and all the parts you hate, you'll just be rushing to graduate.  and since, in this case, there's no government agency stopping you from dropping out, your decision to be there is really and truly your decision.

there's too much actual, profuse negativity around us to get all caught up in who's yelling what in the hallway.  let the rich kids flash their pics, excitable girls babble on and the party planning carry on.  i mean...if you have to take the good with the bad, you KNOWS you need that party planning to carry on.