{"id":2007,"date":"2009-12-07T15:27:55","date_gmt":"2009-12-07T20:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=2007"},"modified":"2009-12-07T15:58:23","modified_gmt":"2009-12-07T20:58:23","slug":"friendship-under-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2009\/12\/07\/friendship-under-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"“Friendship” Under Fire?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image::<\/a>
image:: "Facebook" from The Cartoon Blog\u2014Dave Walker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Crossposted on Rhizomicon<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes when I read The Chronicle<\/a><\/strong>, I think of the slang term “chronic”<\/a>, as quite a few of the articles\/opinions are really hard to take, let alone take seriously. \u00a0A recent offering by William Deresiewicz\u00a0on <\/span>“Faux Friendships”<\/a><\/span> on social media sites like Facebook struck me as a pining for an institution lost, akin to those decrying the demise of the institution of marriage. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

My Best Simulacrum Forever<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of you may find Deresiewicz’s article to be an interesting read. \u00a0He discusses friendship over time {I think he romanticises it quite a bit} and ponders its meaning in this current era of late capitalism. \u00a0Alas, he feels friendships aren’t what they used to be and Facebook isn’t helping.<\/p>\n

“With the social-networking sites of the new century\u2014Friendster and MySpace were launched in 2003, Facebook in 2004\u2014the friendship circle has expanded to engulf the whole of the social world, and in so doing, destroyed both its own nature and that of the individual friendship itself. Facebook’s very premise\u2014and promise\u2014is that it makes our friendship circles visible. There they are, my friends, all in the same place. Except, of course, they’re not in the same place, or, rather, they’re not my friends. They’re simulacra of my friends, little dehydrated packets of images and information, no more my friends than a set of baseball cards is the New York Mets.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Simulacra? \u00a0Well, isn’t that a consequence of being willy-nilly in friending, a promiscuity of sorts? \u00a0Not to judge it, but if you choose to have hundreds of Facebook friends, shouldn’t this be expected? \u00a0He goes on to talk about how Facebook offers a “sense” of connection, as opposed to real connection. \u00a0My “sense” is that this is a case of YMMV, i.e.<\/em>, your mileage may vary. \u00a0Now, I’m not a huge Facebook user and my presence on it is inflated by posting my Twitter tweets to my wall. \u00a0That said, yesterday, a Facebook friend posted on her wall that she would be hosting a table at a craft fair in The Annex neighbourhood of Toronto. \u00a0I saw it and made it over there and had a chance to catch up and have a few drinks. \u00a0My Facebook network tends to replicate my real connections and I tend not to “collect” second and higher order ties {friends-of-a-friend and so on} or very weak ties from my distant past. \u00a0Perhaps I’m an anomaly, but my point is Facebook is what you make of it and the meaning is in the usage.<\/p>\n

TMI and Verbal <\/span>Vomitus<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Are we sharing too much of the mundane? \u00a0Deresiewicz thinks so::<\/p>\n

“What purpose do all those wall posts and status updates serve? On the first beautiful weekend of spring this year, a friend posted this update from Central Park: “[So-and-so] is in the Park with the rest of the City.” The first question that comes to mind is, if you’re enjoying a beautiful day in the park, why don’t you give your iPhone a rest? But the more important one is, why did you need to tell us that?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s been stated for a while that all of these Facebook status updates and Twitter tweets may seem like so much meaningless dross, but the sum of these paints can help to paint a picture of the everyday aspects of a person’s life, affording an intimacy that would be hard to replicate without technology. \u00a0A friend of mine in California said that SMS texting has brought his family closer together with just mundane <140 character texts.<\/p>\n

The Transparency of Everyday Life<\/span><\/p>\n

I have done blog posts on public political figures getting into hot water for content posted on Facebook, with the latest instalment here<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0If privacy is dead on the Internet, is a corollary to this that our lives are now fairly transparent? \u00a0While we have a certain degree of control over what people see of our lives with social media, there’s a lot out of our control. \u00a0Fake personas and being “tagged” in a Facebook photo in an unflattering way are examples of what’s out of our control, but I think there’s a perceptual shift taking place where people are growing accustomed to “oversharing” and its fallout. \u00a0Deresiewicz is concerned by the private going public::<\/p>\n

“The most disturbing thing about Facebook is the extent to which people are willing\u2014are eager\u2014to conduct their private lives in public. “hola cutie-pie! i’m in town on wednesday. lunch?” “Julie, I’m so glad we’re back in touch. xoxox.” “Sorry for not calling, am going through a tough time right now.” Have these people forgotten how to use e-mail, or do they actually prefer to stage the emotional equivalent of a public grope?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I honestly feel that as time progresses, we will get desensitized to “oversharing” of private spheres in public, even at its most lurid. \u00a0One day, something like a decades-old “sexting” photo will appear, involving a political candidate or public figure and there will be a collective yawn. \u00a0Just like how adult content that would result in convictions in the 1980s are now bookmarked on browsers without batting an eye.<\/p>\n

I don’t think friendship is “dying,” but transforming. \u00a0Technology has the ability to transform the social and its institutions, i.e.<\/em>, social conventions. \u00a0Are social media technologies like Facebook “falsifying” intimacy, as Deresiewicz claims? \u00a0That’s an interesting question.\u00a0\u00a0I do agree with Deresiewicz that there is a commodification going on, which has the power to alter meaning systems when it comes to concepts like intimacy. \u00a0Along with commodification, I think there can be a tendency in technologically-mediated interactions to treat some {but not all} “relationships” as disposable. \u00a0Rejection. \u00a0This, perhaps, is the flipside to the immense potential of social media to connect people in ways which are impossible with just face-to-face communications. \u00a0It can be a huge “catch and release” system for some.<\/p>\n

I think the article taps into an uneasiness shared by many. \u00a0Perhaps a dystopic fear that we are losing what makes us human. \u00a0The “sex in the future” scene from Demolition Man<\/a> <\/strong>{1993} also taps into fears of how technologically-mediated interpersonal interactions, albeit in an authoritarian regime with “big brother” overtones::<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

When this is possible, those who decry the demise of friendship with Facebook, well, their heads will explode.<\/p>\n

Twitterversion:: <\/strong>Is #socialmedia & #Facebook killing institution #friendship? CHE art. discussed brings up food 4 thought. #ThickCulture\u00a0@Prof_K<\/a><\/p>\n

Song:: <\/strong>Queen-“You’re My Best Friend”
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Crossposted on Rhizomicon. Sometimes when I read The Chronicle, I think of the slang term “chronic”, as quite a few of the articles\/opinions are really hard to take, let alone take seriously. \u00a0A recent offering by William Deresiewicz\u00a0on “Faux Friendships” on social media sites like Facebook struck me as a pining for an institution lost, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2168,2167,2169,2166,942,106,2162,2165,732,763,2164,2163],"class_list":["post-2007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cartoon-blog","tag-chronicle-of-higher-education","tag-dave-walker","tag-demolition-man","tag-facebook","tag-friendship","tag-queen","tag-sex-in-the-future","tag-social-media","tag-web-20","tag-william-deresiewicz","tag-youre-my-best-friend"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2007"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2012,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions\/2012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}