Social Media Is: Driving Me Up The Wall

The following is my column from this week’s issue of the Synthesis Weekly. And yes, pot, kettle, black, etc. But hey, it takes one to know one, right? Extra irony points if you came to this link via the Synthesis Twitter feed, although it might be a tl;dr for Twitter people to stomach. Sry br0 :/

Daniel Taylor Is: Taking a THE BIGGEST dump EVER!!

Daniel Taylor Is: Watching THE BEST TV show.

Daniel Taylor Is: Eating the MOST FUCKING AWESOME pancakes EVAR!

Daniel Taylor Is: Breathing In. Then Out. Then BACK IN!!

Facefuck: If you thought any of the above statements were at all interesting then you sir, or madam, are in luck! Now thanks to the marvels of modern technology and the advent of internet social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, et al, you too can stay informed about the meaningless minutiae of every single person you know, and many, many more people you don’t know at all. For example did you know that your friend’s roommate’s girlfriend who you met once at a party and drunkenly friend requested is feeling PMS-y today? I’ll be you didn’t! But now you do! Did you know that X was just tagged in Y’s photo? Oh you didn’t? Why don’t you go look, then? And then look some more. And then refresh and look some more. And then download the app to your phone so you can look while your really supposed to be looking at other, more tangible things like the road, or the person you’re hanging out with in real life. But who wants to look at someone’s face when you can see that X and Y have officially changed their relationship status to “it’s complicated.” Oh man now that’s SOMETHING.

Oh Yeah? Man, This One Time…: Remember back when you were a kid (which for some of you may be easier than for others), and there was always that one fucking cocksucker in every group who would best any story, or anecdote offered by anyone else with one of his own? We used to call this guy the “Topper” because no matter, he could always top whatever it was that you did: you drank 12 beers and puked your guts out? Man this one time, he drank fucking 20 beers and died of alcohol poisoning but got brought back to life. You got front row seats to see Slayer? Man this one time, he went and saw Slayer and did lines off of hookers tits backstage with Kerry King. You saw some kid get hit by a car out in front of your house? Man, he WAS the kid, and also the guy driving and he died but got brought back to life, and the whole thing was on an episode of Rescue 911. Now you can experience this unique brand of self-aggrandizing chest puffing in digital form all day long. X is eating lunch at the totally most badass restaurant in the whole world, to which Y replies, “Man I ate there TWICE last week” to which person Z chimes in with “Oh man my cousin OWNS that place” and you get to just see it all go down in real time. But instead of feeling disgust, you start to wish that you had eaten at that restaurant, twice, and that your family was cool enough to own a restaurant like that, but since they’re not, you have to think fast of something else, something to fucking TOP that shit, so you try to think of the coolest thing you’ve done lately, but there’s really nothing there, so instead, you take the opposite tact and just post something about how much you don’t care about doing anything and you “don’t even like food” anyway, and man, people sure are gonna be interested in what you have to say because it’s just so different, so unique! And then X replies to your post with “I DON’T LIKE FOOD EITHER! IN FACT I HAVEN’T EATEN IN MONTHS” and you have to think of something even more witty, more apathetic to say in response because you can’t let that fucker top you. Not again.

Man It’s So Much Fun Here, Looking at This Thing That I Was Looking at Before I Was Looking at My Phone To Tell You How Rad The Thing I Was Looking At Was: The most convoluted outgrowth of this phenomenon is the fact that, as someone is posting to their Facebook status how rad whatever it is their doing is. the fact that they’re no longer doing whatever it is that they were doing seems to get blocked out magically. But this is no coincidence, because in the new world of online status topping, the only reason to do anything is so you can tell someone else that you’re doing it, and they would totally wish that they were doing it instead of doing what they were doing, but the truth is, you both are just staring at fucking screens on a phone or on a computer, and might as well be in jail, or be in Siberia. I mean, Its like that scene at the end of Into the Wild where Christopher McCandless figures out that human happiness only exists if it’s shared with others, but then shits his pants and dies of starvation alone anyway. Every time someone shares their happiness online, a part of the true essence of human happiness, actual honest to god smiling, laughing happiness, dies alone in the woods. And still the world turns. I know because I just checked his status on Facebook.

The Earth Is: Gonna be turning all day! Come hang out!!11

Tags: advent, anecdote, beers, best tv show, cocksucker, Daniel Taylor, facefuck, girlfriend, irony, madam, marvels, media tools, minutiae, modern technology, pancakes, relationship status, roommate, takes one to know one, topper