Although my Facebook account has been created on June 24, 2007, I posted my first picture on January 11, 2008. My haircut was horrible, and I was holding a cat, whose owner existed in my life only for a few years during that period. I remember being somewhat confused by the general concept of the platform, not understanding who would be interested in me so much to care about what I would put there. I suppose this is how bullied kids thought of public life before social media.
I was 25, young enough to catch it quickly yet old enough to show some wisdom. People at this moment of human evolution were either eager to spread their whole life for everyone to see, or so cautious that they would never post a picture of even their cat. Personally, I didn’t care much of showing my life, but I never went too far as to show myself in a bikini.
For years, I have been a scroller, I would spend way too much time learning nothing and accumulating information that I didn’t care for nor needed. It wasn’t long before I got bored with all the girls posting their picture or changing their profile pic just to be drown in compliments and feel like their life is meaningful. It was lame then, it is lame still. This function seems to have migrated to Instagram now. There were also all the uncles and aunts with horrible profile pics, taken from below, where you were VIP in their nose and could see their ceilings as a background.
At some point in my Facebook disciple years, I hid all my personal info, birthday, status, etc., because I hated the idea of people asking questions or wishing me things when I don’t give a damn about them. I was still young and married at the time and didn’t plan to get a divorce yet. Meanwhile, some people in my family were using this very platform to play with their love life, going from ‘single’, to ‘in a relationship’, with ‘it’s complicated’ in between, many times a week. That was also lame.
Through the years, I hid more and more people from my feed, because unfriending them was a statement for which I wasn’t willing to face the consequences and ended up not scrolling very much anymore. So little in fact that I was keeping my account mainly for my pictures and my Messenger.
Back in the days, the Internet was not for regular people, and the only ways to celebrate things were either to call someone, or to celebrate with them. In those days, when we saw some uncles a few times a year, in holiday circumstances, all we knew about them was that they were alcoholics and that around 11:00 p.m., they were full blown unpleasant. We would talk about it a little afterwards, realizing that most were on the same page about it, forget it, and go through that again next time we would see them, as part of the cycle of life. Same with the cousins we saw twice a year or even weekly, at Grandma’s. We would see people in a context, and generally, everyone would behave, sort of. All in the same package deal as falling asleep in the fur coats on Grandma’s bed in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Those were the good years. No, they weren’t.
When Facebook came, and later all the other social media, is it allowed us to see everyone’s ugly side all the time. In a way, I think I liked to believe that my inappropriate uncle was making inappropriate comments only when he had an audience, and many drinks down. Facebook told me that he was like that in his daily life, posting dirty jokes constantly, and liking other dirty publication that would end up on my feed, because why not?
In 1990, you could make a scene in a family reunion, and it would leave an impression at this very moment, for the people present there. Of course, people would whisper a little now and then, but those were also the days were public shaming had still some glory moments. Today, you realize that those people who were throwing tantrums during a party have found their own way to do it online and good for them, public shaming (the good useful one) is phasing out.
One of my favourite features of Facebook is Messenger. I think this is a useful platform and it allows me to stay in touch with most people I kind of want to keep somewhat close, but not so close that I would call them on the phone. The dark side of Messenger, however, is the group chat function. I can understand the use of it, I have one for my improv classes, one for my son’s judo school, one to share absurdities with some friends, one with the in-laws so we can share cat pictures and some recipes, and one on my mother’s side family.
This last group has been created when my grandmother was about to die, then she didn’t, and the group didn’t either. For some reason that aren’t in my core set of values, some members of said group chat thought they could use it to show off on how well they were treating Grandma, how better than all of us they all were. OK, this is some equivalent of changing a profile pic just to feel pretty and be told by quasi-strangers. I get it. Sort of.
For the large group chats, I never enable notifications. Life is too short for that. I just go occasionally to make sure Grandma hasn’t died without anyone telling me. Last time I did, there were many unsent messages, and Lina had left the chat, along with one of my cousins. For me, leaving a chat is a powerful statement. My boyfriend often does it when he is trying to sell something on Marketplace and the other person is being a jerk. Leaving a chat is a demonstration of ‘power’. You want people to know that you’re fucking gone. Otherwise, you would have disabled notification and went on with your life. One does not simply leave a chat.
Lina leaving the chat sounded a wee odd to me, especially that she was the one bragging about giving a massage to Grandma a few days prior, so I decided to scroll up a little. I got gossipy, and I hate myself for that. I work alone at home so a little drama is often entertaining, I am ashamed to say. The picture she had posted with Grandma wasn’t there anymore. Neither was all her most recent comments in the chat. I scrolled up and up and up and it was “Lina unsent a message over and over again”. She had unsent all of her messages. Oh crap.
Many things that made me take my distance with social media through the years were lame or made me uncomfortable. This time, this was childish. Unsending over 100 messages and leaving the chat was simply Lina throwing a tantrum inexistent room and ending up violently slamming the inexistent door. Personally, if I had been angry enough, I could have left the chat, but wasted no time in unsending all my messages, one by one. Recovering the one message I had in there could have been a little too time-consuming for my busy schedule.
My shameful curiosity made me ask questions, and I later learned that this drama was caused by my mother. She rented a shack with three of her siblings without inviting one of her brothers, the unpleasant uncle, Lina’s husband. Apparently, he told my mother as a response that she wasn’t his sister anymore and as we all know, Lina left the chat. My mother will turn 70 in 2024 and her brother is somewhere in the mid-sixties. We aren’t talking about teenagers having an attitude here. Those are teenagers with an attitude who never grew out of it, had four kids who also had kids, and now reply a rude “You are not my sister anymore” when they aren’t invited somewhere.
Thirty years ago, I wouldn’t have known that these people were like that, that they were seeking attention to a point of making scenes in virtual places so that everyone can witness their ugly side. Just like my mother playing with her relationship status online, just like someone describing her diarrhea on a normal workday, or like a cousin posting that her mother (another aunt, families were large in Québec) just died two hours ago while the news hasn’t reached me yet.
When I started this Substack, I found myself dreaming of being read, of having something to offer. As time goes by, I am questioning this whole virtual life more than ever. I just spent hours writing this, somewhat hoping that people would relate, while I could have played the bass, worked on my many projects, taken a nap. I am no different than Lina. Just kidding, I know I am way better. The proof is that I can write about her in English, and she can’t read it.
I mainly use Facebook for the Marketplace option these days, and our business. What is your relationship with the app now?