Unliked

I refuse to be called an old fart because I’m only in my mid-40s, but sad to say, I’ve been called worse, much worse, and it’s all because I’ve never been really a fan of social media/networking, particularly Facebook.

What’s up with it, anyway? Why should you want to let the world, or parts of it know about your activities, what you’re eating/eaten/will eat, where you are/will go/have been, who you’re with/were with/hoping to be with?

Why do you need to show the world that you have gazillions of friends? Are those “friends” real friends, btw? Do you even know what’s the favorite color of each one of your “friends” or maybe, at the very least, the birthday of each one? No?

How about where you met? Do you know or remember? Oh, you only met online?  Uh-huh, a friend of a friend, huh? And you? Ah, you met at a party, that person’s group and your group, and you all exchanged facebook account names and asked to be added.

I see.

NO. I. DON’T.

Facebook may have some real people who have real friends, and care for, and interact with those friends in the real sense of the word but there are still numerous others who are fakes, fakes, fakes.

Why is there such a need to be have a “Like” when for all we know, those are fakes?

Facebook itself is aware of the situation.  It is taking huge steps to correct it, in a move to clean up its community.

The question though is, why did it have to come to this tawdriness, that all over the world, there are truly people who have such low self-esteem that they need to buttress it up by showing how “influential” they are in the world of social networking?

I’m no hermit and I enjoy socializing occasionally, but I’d rather stay home and read my digital books while nibbling cheese like a loner rat, than have to update my status now and then for the benefit of some real-human friends (maybe) and a bunch of spammy fake accounts (more likely).

I mean, unless you’re a celebrity like Eminem or Rihanna, why or how in the world could you have thousands of “friends” all over the planet?

Do you even know what a “friend” really is?

Contacts are not “friends.”

People you happen across online and never develop any kind of relationship with, after a while (whether platonic, romantic or whatever), and whom you just ignore and who ignore you after, are not “friends.”

Fans are not “friends.”

Your Likes do not translate to “friends.”

If you are a business or a brand and you need to promote yourself, fine. Amass all the “likes” you need, just make sure they come from real people with real accounts, not fakes (spambots, people hired to come up with a battalion of “likes” etc).

Stay credible and true, and build a good reputation so that people will patronize you for a long, long, long time.

The immediate buzz you get from being popular won’t last long, if you don’t deliver on what you promise.

But in the first place, if you could do that, why would you have to rely on fake Likes to promote yourself?

Duh.

Welcome to an opinion piece by David Garcia.

 Got something to say? Feel free to comment. :)

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Thanks to Josh Peterson for this real cool template design.