Unless you are an Iron Chef, Life’s savory question is not whose cuisine reigns supreme, but rather why do we have an appetite for a taste of a life that is not our own? Instead of “socially networking”, Facebook’s slogan should be to “socially spy”.
We are ALL stalkers to a certain degree on Facebook, whether we confess to it or not. Which got me thinking; what else do we do on this site that we do not readily admit? I say readily because we will fess up to just about anything with effective encouragement, such as being chained to a basement plumping pipe with threats of incoming urine streams.
I have no problems professing my habits… that I do OFF Facebook that is. Many are probably illegal in most under-developed countries, but one I can share without potential imprisonment is that when I microwave something, I cannot let that bitch hit ZERO and BEEP. I’m not quite sure what would transpire if I heard my microwave BEEP- maybe a mushroom cloud forming above me as I lay gasping underneath rubble?
Dunno, but I ain’t trynna find out! In the meantime, I will NOT allow my Pepperoni Hot Pocket that final second of moisturized heat, as I will whip that mini-appliance door open at the VERY LAST second so FAST and FURIOUS that even Vin Diesel will give me props.
I’m sure many of you have weird habits too that you readily admit, such as inserting your finger up your butt while in the shower to see what it feels like. However, when it comes to social media activities, it’s a different story. We will lie, deny, and downplay like we are a former 7-time Tour de France Winner.
Now, I’m not talking the obvious things, like stalking an EX. We ALL do that! Stalking someone you previously performed Cunnilingus or Fellatio on, is like the RSTLNE in the Bonus Round on Wheel of Fortune; IT IS A GIVEN.
Instead of viewing the Facebook painting from afar and pointing out the most obvious picture, let’s zoom in on the subconscious brushstrokes of the less obvious things we do but which we are more obsessed with. After all, every girl looks cute from a distance, but when you close the gap, you don’t know whether to flick Holy Water on her, or call Animal Control.
So here are 5 subconscious, habitual things we all do on Facebook that we downplay. And assuming that there is not an impending risk of a warm, waste-filled, pungent, pale yellow fluid being splashed across your forehead, would you then give full disclosure to these things? Let’s explore, shall we Dora?
1 ) Got an urge for that flesh!
Scrolling through your friend’s photos is normal, because maybe you want to see how much uglier they have grown through the years. But, let’s be honest, as most of us are selectively searching for photos of butt shots, testicle hugging jeans, cleavage, and the Raiders of the Lost Ark Holy Grail find; THE SWIMWEAR PHOTO!
I don’t care if your boyfriend’s body is chiseled from imported Italian marble, or if your girl is so sexy that when she passes gas, you get an erection. When you come across photos of a friend showing some skin, you WILL abruptly halt your mouse-clicking and stare, as your free hand becomes intimate with certain parts of your anatomy. It’s an Easter Egg Hunt, and the search is on for that flesh colored egg!
Girls, if you post a pic wearing skimpy garments, then rest assured, every guy on your friend’s list has gawked and squirted at it, with some even downloading the pic so that they can have a morning release of Yoplait when needed. You women are just as freaky, as you search for that photo of your hot guy friend with his bare pectorals and his swim trunks wet, hoping to see the outline of his Geico Lizard.
Hmm…. 674 photos…. 27 Albums…. Where to begin, where to begi- OH WAIT! What’s that? An Album titled “Beach Vacation 2012”?? CHA-CHING!!!
2) Creeping on our Enemies and Frenemies!
In the Facebook Marathon of Creepiness, the obvious pacesetter is the aforementioned ‘Stalking Our Ex’s’, but nipping closely on its heels is ‘Obsessing Over People We Dislike’, or should I also say ‘SOMEWHAT dislike’. The latter is due to the fact that every girl will, with much frequency, “dislike” each of their female friends. Now, before I get hate mail from women’s empowerment groups, let me introduce Exhibit A to the Jury: JEALOUSY.
Yes, jealousy among the female population is as common as foreskin on an 80’s male Porn star.
The more jealous you are of someone or SOMETHING, the more you seem to creep. You and your BFF may very well be on the Thelma and Louise level, but if your bff posts a pic of you two where she is looking extra hot in a tight dress while you are in Lee jeans and a Cosby sweater, then you will be creeping on her Page hoping that someone (NOT you!) makes a sly comment that she looks like a $4 Hooker who takes layaway. Why? Simply because it will make YOU feel better.
The thing is we can all sympathize with a schmuck who stalks an Ex because he may still be Soundgarden Truly, Madly, Deeply in love with her. Hey, I’m sure you’ve been there, sniffing a stolen pair of panties as you simultaneously enter your credit card info online to pay the $39.95 fee for that Search Report from Intellius.com. I get that. I also get that you need to double up your daily dose of the ‘Get DaFuq Over Her’ pill.
But OBSESSING over someone you “DISLIKE”? To pull a Tommy Lee Jones and conduct a hard target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, doghouse, and Facebook posting, in order to stalk them? Why do that? To DISLIKE them even MORE?
Maybe the answer lies in this truth: Love me or hate me, both are in my favor. If you love me, I’ll always be in your heart. If you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind.
Yes, Tambo is getting deep up in this hipiddy dipiddy.
3) Here, get my good side!
There are a few things that will give women severe panic attacks. One is regaining consciousness amidst a pile of Bollywood men, having nothing on but a horse’s saddle strapped to your back. Another is getting a Facebook notification that a tagged photo of you has been uploaded by a friend! OH HELL NAWL!! Commence Operation: Frantically Log on to Make Sure It Is Not an Ugly Pic!
Face it ladies, every photo of which you appear has to go through a 28 point Jiffy Lube Inspection to make sure it meets the criteria of the “Female Photo Trifecta”, which is ‘Face looks good’, ‘Boobies look larger’, and ‘Body doesn’t look too fat’. As far as guys, we could care less what photos of us pop up, because simply, we jusss don’t givah fuuuuuu’! Well, unless you are one of those dudes that STILL take self-angled cell phone pics of yourself. If that is the case, then someone needs to repeatedly beat the crap out of you with a whisk broom.
But you estrogen-filled mammals, yaw treat Facebook like America’s Next Top Model. AND, what is up with the constant stiff posing with your arm bent and hand on your hip?? What are you, a teapot? Short and stout?
And let’s not forget the other people in the pic. Or rather, LET’S DO forget the OTHER people in the pic! As long as YOU look good, who cares what everyone else looks like! Your best friend has her lopsided titty exposed? But YOUR smile is radiant? POST! You are in war torn Syria among battered, beaten, bruised, and bleeding people? But your summer dress looks cute against the piles of the dead? POST!
You got that rare photo of yourself with Pope Francis chilling in St Peter’s Basilica as he is wearing a do-rag, and waving gang signs. Priceless! Your smile looks radiant! Your L’Oreal hair glimmers with its fake color! Your boobies are Panini perfect; Pressed tightly together with the goodness oozing out! TMZ offers you $1M for the photo!
But, waitaminute….. You didn’t tuck in your fat ass belly, and the Forever21 Lycra shirt you are wearing looks like it is straining to hold back a stack of IHOP buttermilk pancakes. DELETE!!
4) I’m thirsty for an Ego Boost drink!
Did Obamacare raise the cost of your antidepressants and now you can’t get a refill? No worries, because for a limited time, if you find yourself feeling self-absorbed, insecure, and shallow, then you too can get that same feeling of manufactured happiness by posting on Facebook!
Sally, a 4 year veteran of putting up self-indulgent posts testifies “When I have depressing thoughts of a less than mediocre life while waiting for my Zoloft to kick in, I simply put up self-indulgent posts that I know will get me LIKES!” She adds “Every time THAT little red notification box pops up telling me I got another LIKE, I get such a feeling of hollowed happiness that just leaves me feeling empty!”
We live in a vain society where ego is paramount. It is a virus that is tough to cure because it goes undetected by the Host. You can spot the stricken ones by their behavior, such as them entering a party smiling, nodding, and pointing in random directions when NO ONE is even looking at them.
However, the most severe symptom is seeking acknowledgement by putting up pretentious posts on social media. It doesn’t matter that half of the THUMBS UP clicks are due to pity, as when enough people click that LIKE button, you feel acknowledged, validated, and suddenly important!
For that fleeting moment of your middling life, fueled by those 68 LIKES, you are Katniss! Inspiring the people of Panem! The True North of the wisdom of your words shines upon the eager souls of your Friend’s List as they cling on to your every font! You deserve it! You broke barriers with your groundbreaking, profound, philosophical, awe-inspiring Status Update where you stated that *GASP*…….. PEOPLE SHOULD BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER! What?! OMG! This type of revolutionary thinking will get you jailed!!
5) Don’t save the Drama for yo mama! Save it for me!
Nothing stops a Newsfeed scroll as abruptly as a drama-fueled Thread. You don’t care why your friend is fighting with her boyfriend, but hell yea you are going to read every comment! Oh look! A Subliminal Post from that idiot who is more unhinged than a screen door in a tornado? And there are comments? Start the mouse-clicking!
Facebook has ultimately become a Spectator Sport, where we sit on the side, and relish in other people’s misfortunes in life. We don’t want to read 62 congratulatory comments under a Post where someone stated they got a new Job. BOOORRINNG. But that post by a friend stating “My girlfriend is a lying sack of shit” that has 137 comments? Set the DVR; let the phone ring, because you are going to be busy for the next 30 minutes reading that shit.
Although, I will admit that sometimes I wish Facebook had a ‘SLAP’ button. I do revel in people’s public display of idiocy, but some of the posts I come across, nothing can embody my sentiment more for that person than a BIG ASS hand-slap across their face. Wah-PEESH!!
The IRONY here is that Facebook is a SCRIPTED Reality Show, where we are the Writer, Producer, and Editor. Out of 86,400 frames in a day, we post thoughts and upload photos that only encompass mere seconds of our daily lives. That’s NOT reality when we CHOOSE the scenes of our lives that we want to be “recorded”.
Thus Facebook is a Fictional Stage Play, where your friends perform premeditated acts, and portray a persona that is not entirely real. That supercool selfie pic of your buddy with his shirt off could have an entirely different meaning if the naked Chinese boy next to him was not cropped out. Deep down we probably know most of FB is a façade, but we don’t care because something can be false, but if it triggers a FEELING or EMOTION within you, then it becomes REAL for at least that moment.
Maybe our lives have become too comfortable, predictable, unassuming, and ultimately devoid of certain “feelings” that can only be felt by the emotional highs and lows while trolling the Timelines of others. Maybe your boyfriend is as exciting as a turtleneck. Maybe your girlfriend doesn’t perform the ‘below the waist head-bob’ maneuver enough. Or maybe you are simply bored, which is possibly the worst thing you can feel in a life.
Whatever the reason, our Newsfeed is addicting because we rely on the flavors of others to give us a taste that our own life’s palate is lacking. We simply had lawn seats to our friend’s lives before Facebook moved us to the front row. Now we ARE that fly on the wall; life-tracking our friends, and vicariously experiencing the thoughts, words, and actions of THEIR lives.
I’m not saying that you are going to don black sweats, and forward roll into your neighbor’s bushes under their bedroom window to watch acts of polygamy. I’m saying that scrolling through hundreds of posts and pics from a newly added friend gives us that semi-guilty-slightly-naughty feeling that excites us on a certain erotic level, and also allows us a temporary Parole from our daily Sentence in life.
We all have an idled engine in our guilty pleasure garage, eager to get turned on. There is a need for it to rumble and accelerate out of us; to give us that rush of fresh air to wake up our stalled lives. That motor is yearning to be revved up, and that vehicle is Voyeurism. Facebook provides that car to us, and we will gladly step on the pedal. Even if we don’t admit that we are driving.
Til Next!
Wham Bam TY Tam!