This world is full of happy, original, funny, creative, artistic, joyous, active, wonderful people. They can all be found and enjoyed on Facebook. Together with their countless jolly friends, cat photos, movie and dinner reviews, likings, jokes and puns.
This is why to us, the depressed outcasts, Facebook is so very very very very depressing. We just don’t belong in this happy, sparkling, glamorous Facebook world anymore. We’ve become the misfits. We would only spoil the fun.
Every Facebook profile we happen to see painfully reminds us that we ourselves could never be that happy, original, funny, creative, artistic, joyous, active, merry or wonderful. And we also know that even if we tried, we could not even fake such a thing.
Which is, of course, what all those others do.
Centuries ago, French nobleman François de La Rochefoucauld already said: “To succeed in the world, we do everything we can to appear successful already.” That’s exactly what Facebook is for: it’s a Facadebook.
We, the already depressed, only get even more depressed by all this fun, success and happiness that appears to be the Facebook norm. Maybe it’s just our being jealous or spiteful, but still, there it is. Seeing all that polished perfection, all those friends, it reminds us of what we will never be. It makes happiness, something we’ve already trouble to believe in anyway, ring false even where it’s actually true.
And at least we get more depressed when we see how most people on Facebook manage to hide all common problems from sight: no dark secrets, no horrible worries, no nagging doubts, no incredible dullness or boredom. We’re supposed to believe it’s all success and enjoyment.
But depression doesn’t tolerate any kind of mask. Depression forces us into a deathly kind of honesty that kills not just our dreams and fantasies, but destroys masks and facades as well. And not just our own.
Once you see through it, Facebook becomes a cruel kind of joke. Like this:
Last week, I dynamited my own Facebook profile. First I excused myself with my handful of friends, said I hoped we would find other ways to keep in touch, and then: Whamm! I almost got hit by the debris from the blast. I won’t deny it gave me a sadistic, destructive kind of pleasure.
To my friends, of course I mentioned all the official reasons people have for leaving Facebook. Like the way Facebook ignores personal privacy more than ever; their moneymaking strategy based on selling your data; the irritation of ever more Facebook notifications that turn out to be poorly disguised advertisements; and so on.
Those are all true motives. But I left out the one reason I now confess here. Every time I looked at Facebook, I got a bad, hopeless, depressed feeling. The feeling that I simply couldn’t keep up with all others.
Well, now that I’ve made my confession, it’s time for a…
Music Facade
Here is Ilia Akselrod. I’m 100% sure you never heard of him. The song he sings is Facebook Life. I’m 99% sure you won’t understand any of the lyrics. Except for the last few words.
Click the green “Play” button – if it’s missing, install Flash.
For a full StayOnTop playlist, go to the Music page.
• footnote 1: Don’t you dare to Like this post!
• footnote 2: Stupid me! I almost forgot this link to Ilia Akselrod’s Facebook page!
May 25, 1965 –
Yes! This is exactly how I feel, and it can sometimes be difficult to remember that most of the image people allow to be seen of themselves online is exactly that: an image, a facade.
Your blog has been invaluable to me, since I came across it a couple of months of you. Thank you for continuing to write.
… and thank you for this comment!
I also wanted to chime in.. I hate facebook for this same reason… Everyone looking like they are having such a good time.. how wonderful their lives all are made out to be… Are they really that wonderful? probably not… but they are the editors so naturally they only put the things that make them look/feel best..
You know, it’s not the bright, shiny lives my FB friends ‘appear’ to have, it’s the fact that in person, the people onmy friends list ask about the garden, the bees, the weather, etc. Then, when I post pics or comments, those same people just ignore me. 98% of the time, no one even seems to notice my posts (have I been prioritized out of view?), so why bother? Or, in the same vein, they remove my posts or comments from their pages…? I don’t do religious or political topics, either, so I’m baffled. (If I ask, they act like they don’t know what I am talking about…?) Maybe I expect too much, but I don’t go on about my health or babble ceaselessly about how wonderful my kids are, so how come no one cares when I usually only post about stuff they actually ASK about? It just makes me feel like all their words are just lip service and makes me sad. Just sad. And hoping I’m not just being paranoid and neurotic!!! ACK!!