A Virtual Solace pt 2: The Exposure

December 20, 2012

I was truly disturbed at some of the symptoms I observed from my fellow school mates who had adopted the practice of using this social network. When I looked around I saw masses of matured stalkers and fiends of every kind. The sight was quite repulsive. In fact, it was just plain nasty. Yuck. How could my mates let themselves be subjected to the transforming power of this social network? Sadly, I remained silent for about a year after all this had been revealed to me. By this time, hi5 had mostly died down, but a new social network was emerging out of the cracks. It called itself Facebook. I had, had enough. I could not bear to watch again as these sick ‘patients’ ran to another social network that would inevitably destroy their lives. They needed help. They needed a diagnosis…they needed me.

It was 2006, and I would soon be starting my last year of middle school. I was a pretty quite kid throughout middle school, but now I was an eighth grader. I knew I had to speak up before it was too late. One particular morning of my eighth grade year I came to school extremely tired. The previous night I had stayed up late working on a proposal to counteract the madness that social networks had inflicted upon my friends. I felt like Moses, and that day I was going to save my people. Little did I know that, that day MY life would change forever. You see, on my quest to do good I ran into a problem. A straight rascal rather. His name was…sikeeee…I won’t say his name. Anyway, he must have sensed my ability to do greatness based on the information he decided to ‘share’ with me that day.

Before I carry on, I just want to take a second to tell any youngsters reading this entry that the content I am about to discuss is not suitable for you! If you continue to read, however, I will take a guess and say you will experience trouble in your latter life. Fair enough? Okay.

Recess break: “Psssst. Ova here bro. Yea, this way.” Umm…yea dude why are you being so secretive? “I gotta show you something.” Okayy, whats up? “I just found a way to get around the school’s internet filter.” When I heard that I probably should have ran away from this guy, but my curiosity got the best of me. After all, not every kid experienced the heavy internet restrictions that I did at the time. Dude those filters were designed by people way older, smarter, and more experienced than us. I’m sure it’s not that easy. ” Yea, yea I know, but I was able to figured it out.” At this point, I had already urinated on myself due to the silent anticipation I was holding in. Crap. Okayy, so I mean what’s the secret then. “It called a…a…it’s called a proxy server. Ninja Cloak to be exact.” Done.

Facebook: From that point on, my life was never the same. For those of you who don’t know what a proxy server is, it’s basically another computer that serves as a hub in which your internet searches can be processed. Internet filters become negligible. I made a Facebook page shortly after he told me about this proxy and have lived in ruins ever since. I was a happy lil fella when I found out I was able to get around the internet filter at my house. I was finally able to experience the same ‘joys’ of social networking that all the other kids had experienced. Over the years, I have watched as the number of my Facebook friends have increased. I have also watched others silently from my computer screen. Most of these people I barely know or seldomly talk to, but they are still my Facebook friends. I have been on random girls pages, perusing through their photos because I thought they were cute or stopping to check on their relationship status. I have watched the hell out of my ex girlfriend’s pages making sure they weren’t “acting up”, and I have done a lot of other things. You have too.

Tumblr: A little more than a year ago my brother introduced me to a site called Tumblr. At the time, I really couldn’t understand why people were so fascinated by a blogging website. I figured out a couple months later when I made one. There were a couple of strange things I noticed when I used my Tumblr however. The main thing was that people were able to post a variety of content with little to no censoring. I did not want to be exposed to all the nudity and obscene content this site had to offer, so I found myself a “Tumblr culture” that suited my fancy. It was the fashion culture. I had always been interested in fashion, but this site seemed to take my interest to the next level. I started feeling as if I had to constantly dress up to live up to the ” fashion culture” this blog presented to me. One day my roommate and I even made confessions to each other about how this social network had influenced us to live our daily lives, but maybe we were insane. Nonetheless, I noticed many other cultures on Tumblr such as the “sex culture”, the “artsy/artisan culture”, and the “stoner culture” . Of all these cultures, however, I discovered the most captivating one. The “love culture”. Minds everywhere were being clouded with the ‘perfect paradigm’ of a relationship based on quotes and visually flawless couples in the background to back them up. The true foundations on which a relationship stood were embellished by appearances. Accordingly, the leniency toward mistakes in this “picture perfect” relationship was severely lessened. Because Tumblr said that when you meet that perfect person they would naturally inspire you and you them. Then you would undoubtedly have love, and If it didn’t work that way then the relationship was a mere lesson.

Instagram: Sometime last year I was looking for a cool app in which I could edit my pictures to put on Tumblr. I found this app called Instagram. One day, when I was about to edit my pictures, I noticed a little box that said I had 5 followers. The rest is history. I can’t tell you how many of my mornings begin like this: wake up, smell my breath, run to the bathroom to brush my teeth, have my devotion, then check my updates on Instagram. I am still perplexed at how pictures with captions can be so intriguing. Anyhow, I don’t consider myself to be an outgoing person, but I do enjoy meeting new people. I can recall a handful of times in which I actually ‘knew’ a person before I meet them. The conversations would go something like this. “Hey, what’s your name.” “Maria,…” No. Stop it. I was on this chicks page like earlier this morning . Like how do I do that? Besides all the creeping that I do/did on Instagram, my self-esteem is/was constantly on the line. Why? Because of the unspoken “followers to following” rule. The amount of followers you have must exceed the amount of people you are following. The larger the gap, the cooler you are. This really became clear to me when some of the people I called my friends refused to follow me back after I followed them! I don’t know how many times I have unfollowed people when I realized they didn’t follow me back. It happened today actually. Hell yea. Cause I’m sitting here thinking, “Dudeee, you have like a 400 to 200 (2:1) ratio of followers to following. I did not follow you because I was amazed at the quality pictures posted. I just wanted another follower. Like help me out man.” But nahh, no one could think about it that much. Their probably just not interested in the stuff I am posting. It’s just me. Oh, shout out all of my people who’s ratio resembles more of a 300 to 600 (1:2) ratio of followers to following. I admire you guys, honestly, but I’m to self-conscious for all that nonsense. And by the way, if I (you) see my old girl take a picture with some random dude…ohh please believe I’m Sherlock. There will be an investigation.

Twitter: I never could bring myself to register for a twitter, but I could remember desperately wanting to know what my ex or ex’s (not saying names) tweeted about me. Well at least I thought they were tweeting about me because I just knew I was that important. I would always hear about all the controversy that started over twitter, but I never was directly affected by anything that went on, on there. Until one day. Most of my good friends know that I like to joke around a lot. I will ramble. I will burp extremely loud. I will even pop that thang if ya need me. But you will never hear me fart. That’s that **** I don’t like! My family members won’t hear me do it. My girlfriends/friends won’t hear me do it. My lizard won’t hear me do it. Got dang I won’t hear me do it. But one day one of my boys caught me off guard. I was in an unconscious state…aka sleeping. I must have let one rip because when I was “observing” people’s twitters one day I happened to run across one of his tweets. “That awkward moment when your friend farts in his sleep.” My gosh, really?

I’m a much different person than I was years ago, but you are too. I may be a stalker, but you are a fiend. Actually your both. Many years ago I had a chance to save many people. I had a chance to save you. Sorry I waited until now.