Tonight, while my pre made ravioli was boiling, I felt compelled to take a picture of my bruised foot and post it on facebook. Since Tuesday when I turned my ankle skating I’ve been updating my facebook feed to let everyone know my new ordeal. Shortly after I posted my foot on facebook I showed my roommate (who deleted his facebook account recently) and he said nobody needs to see that. He is right and I’m trying to figure out when I turned into a compulsive poster on facebook.
I’m really not sure how many years I’ve had a facebook account. I think I got mine in 2007 or thereabouts. Originally it was great to reconnect with people from my past. Half of my high school uses the site as does college friends, grad school friends, work, and skaters I knew are on there. I’m going to spew some negative thoughts about facebook, but I will not delete my account because of these connections I made from it. I think in the pre online medium, people just did not know what happened to people compared to today’s resources. The connections may be thin, but any of these people I could email to see how they’ve been. That’s the positive.
On the negative for a long time I’ve felt compelled to post on facebook daily. I think anyone creative likes the medium to have an audience, or feedback. A comment seems like a simply fun thing, but for writers of years ago could submit tons of pieces and never get any feedback for their attempts. As an aspiring writer it is very hard to get people to read your work. But with facebook, anyone can take the time to read a sentence or sometimes less. So you can take someone like me without too much writing credits, and facebook gives that person an audience. You friend people you know, so anytime you get a comment you feel special. So I guess it’s good that facebook has given me a creative outlet, but I don’t know if it has developed my writing skills. Since I started using facebook heavily and this blog, I haven’t sent out any submissions at all. What I have done is posted things everyday and in some cases may have tarnished people’s viewpoints of myself.
When I check facebook, out of the 200 plus friends I see regular posts from the same twenty or so people. So the majority of my facebook friends do not post as emphatically as I do. I noticed from the people that post regularly, they have an angel, or some purpose for posting. One person owns a gallery, one is an active poet/writer, one owns a small business, and so forth. Basically they need an audience for their livelihood, to create a need for the product they sell. I’m aspiring to be a writer, but that’s not completely my deal with facebook. I work, and skate on my off time, but I do not have an image to uphold to pay the bills.
The other type of compulsive poster is some career librarians. This has been great because they link articles, and I get an array of professional opinion. I hardly ever post about work, because I think it’s dicey. My work involves people, either customers or staff, and I can’t even really talk about it without including other people in my stories or rants. I think if I did a librarian blog I could get an audience much quicker than my current disjointed blog. I won’t do a work blog or posts, but it’s great to have colleagues on facebook that are not afraid to.
In other ways I’ve made a fool of myself on facebook. I mostly post recaps of my skateboarding days. But with that who is my audience? Most of my skateboarding friends on facebook do not use the site that much, and my facebook friends that do may not care too much about it. So it’s kind of futile exercise that gives me undue stress of how people will perceive my posts.
On Tuesday I posted something like ‘less is more. I do not have to post updates everyday.’ Then I hurt my ankle, got bored and posted a plethora of nonsense since then. I think I should take it easy and not be too hard on myself. However with all writing, the writer must consider his or her audience. My facebook friends or ‘audience’ are people from a lot of different parts of my life. I’ve lived in a quite a few places, had different stages of my life, and have been through a lot. So out of the five or more groups I can place my friend set I don’t think there is a single thing or topic that everyone can relate to. Maybe I should not try, but accept facebook as a site I can reconnect with people. Not a place that my writing will be discovered or some selfish purpose, but simply keeping in touch with people. The best way to reconnect with people would be to email them, not clutter up their facebook wall with updates.
In other news, this is about the anniversary of this blog. It’s been a good start, and I hope to write more in the upcoming year.
Mallisonwhat's Blog 