All about Facebook

This is a rare English post, because some friends have been complaining of the excessive Chinese in my blog, and erm they have extreme difficulty in reading it. So here is one English post for all you kentangs out there, and here we go.

I am finally on Facebook. Yes, I have been asked, told, urged, begged, coaxed, extorted, threatened and demanded to get myself on Facebook until I gave up, and gave in.

I have to agree what Xinying wrote in her blog today, that while keeping in touch with friends is desirable in itself, all the throwing-sheep and giving-booze do give people the illusion of personal contact.

And we start to think that it replaces the real thing. We start to think that since you poke your friends everyday, you don't have to call them and ask them what's going on in their life. We take solace in adding more "friends" into our network because it shows that we are popular. We send growing gifts and colourful wall posts to remind others that we exist, and we start to define ourselves based on the people around us. [This reminds me of a sociology course I took, that there is no such thing as a real personality.]

It's a me era. Me me me, look at me. [This sounds pretty corny on hindsight, but heck it.] We don't hesitate to publicize to the entire world that we are currently sleeping/ working/ eating bad fast-food takeout/ depressed because my gay dog eloped with the neighbourhood stray cat. I am not against it per se, I simply wonder how ironic it is, when we glamourize individualism while preaching building of communities. Could they co-exist, and how far they can co-exist without being a paradox?

This is cynical and inflammatory, yes I am talking about myself too, so take note of that before you shoot me. Meanwhile, I will not install any application that requires me to compare how hot you/me/he/she is, fighting, werewolves and vampires, whether you are interested in me/ want to sleep with me/ whatever [I am seriously not interested to find out].