The Facebook Execution

“On this day shall I send forth a decree, that whomever does not contact me within the next hour and tell me in seventeen different ways how much they love and adore me, how incredibly wonderful I am in their life, and how heartbroken they would be if I was not a part of their networking circles, I shall ultimately delete them from the face of my social media existence, and ban them from any future contact.” 

That’s how big of a douche you sound like.

For full effect, download “Red Cotton” by Elvis Costello, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post. 

On a side note, this having absolutely nothing to do with this post whatsoever, last night while laying in a hotel bed in the middle of somewhere, I began to get a sudden sharp pain in my chest, thus caused by my two and a half hour long flexing session of my pectorals while watching “Skyfall”.  Tell me, who doesn’t watch James Bond movies in manly positions?

I would like to social media slap the next schmuck that writes a post about how they’re “cleaning up” or “tightening” their Facebook friends list, and by doing so are deleting any friends who they don’t feel matter to them anymore.  You and I both know that’s just a cover for a load of crock.  The only reason you would ever post an egotistical status like that is if you’re fishing for compliments from a barrel full of Facebook carp.

For the record, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and any other form of social networking has turned our society into a bowl of egotistical dipsticks.  We are people who live and breathe for thumbs up and positive comments on the troubles we’re going through in life, for hashtags we make about motivational pictures with inspirational quotes, or for a burnt sienna pic taken of the spinach/soymilk breakfast shake we’re about to eat. Heck, I even fall into this narcissistic category myself.  Why do you think I post my blog as a status? It’s so I can check how many of you will read this two hours later and then have my self-esteem boosted a few more levels when you comment about how great of a writer I am. 

Go ahead, you can do this for me now. I can wait.   

But taking narcissism to a whole new level is when a few of you pompous putzes make the bold statement that you are going to be deleting a whole slew of handshake-only friends from your list, and leaving only the “true, remaining, stalwart loyalists that have stuck by you over the years.”  Come on now, if you post something like that, you probably don’t have those true, remaining, stalwart loyalists anymore.  You never have.  You’re only saying this because you want more people to adore you.  You want more people to come out of the woodworks after reading that status and text, IM, e-mail, call, post any way possible that they belong on your friends list.  You want the satisfaction of knowing that other people care about you, and gave more than three milliseconds of a glance at what you wrote, and went out of their way with an extra mouseclick to tell you that they almost L-word you. 

It’s a load of crap I tell you. 

If you come to a point where you feel that the value in your Internet connection isn’t really there anymore, why don’t you man (or woman) up and just delete them from your list without the public broadcasting? I’ve had plenty of those in my life.  Steve Christensen from Municipal Elementary, gone.  Jamie my-last-name-changes-every-time-I-get-divorced, axed.  That one girl whose name starts with a K that lost interest in dating me once she found out I was interested, off the list.  We all have people who if they get hit by a grand piano in the middle of the sidewalk, we wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over, so why do you need to fish for compliments from them with Facebook ultimatums?

It’s because you don’t think that you’re amazing.  And you need someone else to tell you that you are. 

That’s the most groan-inducing, head-slapping, pathetic point of relationships created by modern technology.  We need, nay, we thrive off of emotional gratification from others. Everyone does.  But do you need that extra push by challenging the X-number of friends on your list to flaunt you with compliments and pray that they aren’t deleted from your imminent social media demolition? 

No, you don’t. You’re better than that. Now like this post, and move on with your life scrolling down the Facebook feed like everyone else.