In the past few months, there has been more or less of a media blitz on Facebook—both support for and criticism of the social network company now valued by some upwards of $100 billion. Overwhelmingly, the criticism has taken shape around the ways in which Facebook has mutated personal relationships (think breaking up on Facebook—check out Ilana Gershon’s funny but poignant book The Break-Up 2.0 for more) and even, in extreme cases, ruined the lives of some (social networking addictions…sexual predators…exposed perversity (Congressman Weiner? Even though that’s Twitter…).
But the danger that has not been so often addressed is the issue of how Facebook and social networking as a whole have the potential to revolutionize not only humanity but also humanity’s products. In his Commencement speech later adapted for publication in The New York Times as “Liking Is For Cowards. Go For What Hurts.”
Franzen’s broad focus in the way that technology is changing the ways in which we view interpersonal relationships, especially the ways in which these relationships are often mediated through technology. (Franzen maybe overemphasizes the point when he suggests that his bond for his BlackBerry has erotic undertones. He does helpfully note that products of recent years are often “sexy;” which, when you stop and think about it, makes no sense. Unless you have mechanophilia?)
But what stuck with me in Franzen’s address was his attention to the recent “transformation, courtesy of Facebook, of the verb “to like” from a state of mind to an action that you perform with your computer mouse, from a feeling to an assertion of consumer choice […] liking, in general, is commercial culture’s substitute for loving.”
~
This all seems rather alarming when you consider it in conjunction with Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of a future Internet world where people travel to “personalized” websites that display clothing or films or music or articles or games that their friends or family have “liked.” Facebook, for lack of a better way to put it, is trying to supplant that one really annoying friend you have who always tells you what you have to listen to or watch or read. This person may sometimes be a pain in the ass, but more often than not they’re not so far off the mark.
So now Facebook wants that job. Facebook wants to tell you that your sister “liked” Taylor Swift three days ago, while you’re reading comedy articles on Cracked.com. Not that I myself would ever go out and buy one of her albums, but Facebook just thought I should keep that in mind. But maybe I’ll buy it for her for her birthday! What an idea!
You probably see where I’m going with this. It’s very much what worried Marx (among other cultural critics) more than a century ago: commodity fetishism. Once I see that Taylor Swift album online, it assumes a unique sense of subjectivity in my mind because it has the power to sway my sister. Granted, this is taking Marx’s capitalistic theory a little simplistically, but the example still stands. (Truthfully, I think Marx would argue that the mere existence of the album already points to its having been fetishized.) Zuckerberg, unlike Marx, sees no issues with this model; he sees it as the ideal consumer solution.
~
Out of argumentative habit, I would normally beg to differ with Zuckerberg and shoot for a little less anthropomorphizing of my consumer products. But I’m helpless when I think of my recent habit on Facebook of following the little music artist tabs that appear (for me, anyway) on the right side column.
I’ve found more than a few interesting artists through this method, many of them on minor-league labels and still struggling through the songwriters’ circuit. Some of them have been very bad and some of them have been rather interesting. (Not many have been all that great.) My earlier post about the Tim Robbins album, in fact, had its genesis in one of the music ads on the side.
So far I have avoided clicking the “Like” button, but I’m not sure that conscious oversight carries any moral weight to it. By clicking on or even looking at the little ad, I’ve already signed myself up for Zuckerberg’s long-term plans. Facebook keeps track of the websites I visit; I’m sure they can figure out that I’m following their little ads.
~
The point of this digressive post was originally just to share an artist I found with you. But that got me thinking about how I discovered the artist. I didn’t wander into a bar and hear him playing nor was the song playing in a clothing store or shopping mall or outdoor café or a friend’s car nor even did a friend hand me a list of bands to check out. I found him on the Internet—a uniquely lonely, if still gratifying, experience.
And post-discovery: who to share it with? how to share it? I shared it with my brother, of course, in the next room over. But how to share it with friends? I’d venture to say that you’ve already seized on the answer by now… But on top of posting it on Facebook, I also post it here. Am I being hypocritical in all this? Maybe…sort of? I have to admit that it’s really sort of a gray area. Anyway, here’s a song by Frank Turner, an English punk-rocker-turned-singer-songwriter. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment