Social Networking
From Frikipedia
Overview
Social networking is defined as the process of making fake friends in an attempt to make yourself seem slightly more three-dimensional.
The Theory
Social networking was invented quite recently by a pair of geeks with no concept of copyright legislation. It was invented more recently by a guy who enjoys screwing his so-called friends over, and thus Facebook was born. Myspace came about shortly after when someone vomited blood onto a scanner and uploaded the result to a bit of free webspace they had. Bebo was born even more recently as a place for paedophiles to groom pre-teens by engaging them in conversation about Girls Aloud.
Social networking will one day be remembered by historians in the same bracket as the Holocaust and the Peterloo Massacre.
For starters, the name just screams out to be ridiculed. I'm not talking to my friends, oh no, I'm "social networking", don't you know. How pretentiously abhorrent is that? It's like a bin man who describes himself as being in "refuse management", or Friki saying that it's ability to whip up a bacon sarnie for its flatmates on a Saturday lunchtime as reason to call itself a "catering consultant". It's the kind of grotesquely exaggerated lie that usually only peppers your CV, as you desperately try to justify having spent three years at uni doing little more than forcibly giving yourself liver disease by dressing the whole mockery of an education up as a series of life-affirming experiences and character building exercises, all the time trying to deflect attention from the singularly appalling overall mark that dribbled out of your tequila-addled brain in a sweaty exam hall at the end of your university life.
If you look deeper, however, the name 'social networking' is also rather apt. "Networking" is something that city slickers and wannabe high flyers do in their jobs on a day to day basis. It is basically defined as ingratiating yourself to as many people higher up the food chain as possible, in the hope that by dousing them with compliments and fetching them a second plate of vol-au-vents from the buffet at company functions, they may be inclined to suddenly turn around and say "You are exactly the kind of person we're looking for to give this massive pay rise to!". It is a horribly false way of putting yourself about, for no other reason than a self-serving effort to make your life ever more affluent. Like a lioness in a pride who always makes herself available for a rutting by the alpha male, knowing that should guarantee her first bite at the next antelope carcass, most people make useful careers out of this metaphorical exercise in bending over.
"Social networking" differs slightly, in that rather than raising your salary, you aim to raise your social standing. Whatever that even means anymore. There is nothing more fake in this plastic post-modern world than adding "friends" to your online ego-fuck page. Most add old friends from school under the pretence that "Ooh, I haven't spoken to them for ages. I can't believe we lost touch. I wonder what they're doing with themselves now?". Roughly translated, this means "Oh god, I remember exactly why I stopped responding to e-mails from that boring tosser. I really hope they're not doing better with themselves than I am. Let's just check and once I'm satisfied I am indeed still superior to them, I can safely ignore them again whilst having an all important '+1' to my friend count.".
It it a terribly hollow pursuit. But this is what the world has come to. In a world where everyone can be judged in an instant, being friends with people has somehow become big business, as programmers turn your life into an incessant rush of acquaintance-plundering. Everybody nowadays is far too busy self-consciously perpetuating themselves to actually enjoy doing whatever it is they're doing anymore. One-up-manship has got in the way. How can you sleep at night knowing that perhaps someone you once shared a desk with in year 10 chemistry now thinks that you are such a revolting mockery of a human being that you can't even muster up 100 friends?
Friki hates this life. It also largely hates people. It pines to return to a day where making friends was a largely fun act, rather than an all-pervading daily grind. A mad, desperate scramble for acceptance across cyberspace. A stupid, posturing fundamental waste of everyone's time and effort, distracting an entire generation from actually enjoying life for what it is, in favour of building up a false picture of what their life might be.
It's rubbish. It's all crap. Stop 'social networking' and start being friends again.
Having said that, if anyone tracks Friki's profile down, do it a favour and add it as a friend. It could do with the support.
