What I hate about FaceBook

Not that much, except for this.  I used to hate it when someone would write what they were doing every night after work as if it were Scarlett's coming out party at Tara:  "on my way to pick up an anchovy pizza, then put my feet up and watch . . . TELEVISION!"  or "planning to ring up Mopsie and see how her goldfish is doing after the colonoscopy!"  I mean to say -- why should anyone care to read about your anchovy pizza or your friend's goldfish?  That bothered me until I realized I could unfriend them and they wouldn't know the difference because they never really understood that people are reading these pieces of shite in the first place from their own perspectives and that's what makes FB exciting.  In the narcissistic world of average everydayness, what I am is what everyone is and what I do is what everyone does and what I like is what everyone likes -- average everydayness. 

You see, looking at every single human being and every one of their acts as if it is a potentially unique and interesting fact that might be connected to other such facts to get at the glorious harmony in that soul or among all souls, is a habit of only the teeniest tiniest portion of the human population.  Genetic freak that I am, I do that.  Why not?  I'm not especially busy.  I'm not late for my nap or anything.  I watch, listen, ask about, try out stuff and see what happens.  People are interesting.  Why do they do the things they do?  What are they thinking?  I admit it's an anthropomorphic taste, rather outmoded in our time, when human beings are on a par with all the other creatures in the biosphere.  We're even worse than that -- we are the culprits who are stamping out hundreds of species every day in our self-centered quest for domination of the planet.  So, fuck us.

All the same, with certain exceptions such as dogs, cats, tigers, snakes, zebras, owls and ravens, and maybe parasitical worms, I just can't get that interested in other species.  I try to make them interesting -- and the urge to write cartoons that portray animals having thoughts is part of that, but animals persist in acting as if Descartes were right that they are soulless machines, utterly predictable and utterly without self-determination, that is, tools.  And even the most boring and predictable human is more compelling than a tiger who, admittedly beautiful and strong, does tricks.  Ants are kinda fun, because you can block them off while they're walking somewhere and they just go around it.  But that's not really a lot of fun.  Zebras make a cool sound but they don't sing like Kiri Tae Kawana.  Owls are spooky in a harbinger of death kind of way, but even when Stephen King was in his getting hit by a van phase, he was spookier.  I may have a bit of trouble finding a reason some human beings are more interesting than parasitical worms, but that's all conflated with the fact that these parasitical worms are parasitizing humans as their primary "interesting" activity.  And the reason why prions, bacteria, viruses, funguses, etc. are interesting is that they have not only physical effects on humans but they often also have evolving and long term psychotropic effects that are really cool to think about -- phobias, paranoia, hearing voices, aggression, etc.

So anyways, what I hate about FaceBook is not that my friends are boring because they most certainly are not  ; )  but that while it's possible to be utterly tedious on FaceBook without suffering meaningful consequences (as in real life!), even so FaceBook wants you to remember that there are children on FB that may cry when they read your posts. FaceBook reserves the right to remove your posts if they think children will complain.  Or somesuch formula for telling you that you're being watched for content.  It's a fine point, I confess, but nonetheless, it's what I hate about FaceBook.