(no subject)
Dec. 7th, 2007 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
violachicOkay, so over the last few months I've written several things about body image, self-acceptance, etc. I've also mentioned a few times about how I love who I've turned out to be, regardless of things beyond my control that currently make life difficult. But now I'm wavering in these things that I've worked hard over the years to cement for myself. Why?
Facebook. Damned Facebook.
Why is it Facebook's fault?
Well, many of the people I'm close to know about where I grew up. My family moved from a lower-middle class suburb of Chicago to Wheaton when I was ten. My dad still lives in the house we moved into then. For those of you who are unaware of this significance, Wheaton is extremely conservative- home of Wheaton College-, extremely White- 89% White-, and extremely wealthy- the median household income for a family is $104,000. While my family is pretty firmly White (in fact, we are technically WASPs), we are not, have never been, and will never be either conservative or wealthy- my parent's combined salaries when I was in high school barely broke the $50,000 mark.
I will be first to admit that I got a good education there. Certainly, while we did not rival schools like New Trier, we had a well above average music department for a public high school. I had five years of French, and spoke fairly fluently going into college. I have very fond memories of quite a few teachers, because they not only gave a crap, but they really knew how to teach. I also will be first to admit that I had friends, some even good friends, and had good times. Heck, sometimes I even had great times.
However, despite these things, I never felt like I fit in. I know everybody feels like they never fit in in high school, but I felt outside for different, non-emo reasons. I got along with pretty much everybody, and had friends from many different subgroups, but I certainly was never a "popular" kid- indeed, the only place I was distinguished in any way was music, but the only people who cared as much as I did about that were the teachers- I mean, it just wasn't cool. But beyond this, I could see the differences. I remember having an argument with a friend about the way I wore my earrings. I had a thing for dangly, artsy earrings back then. However, I couldn't wear dangly earrings when I played the viola. Having my ears double pierced (I didn't get the 3rd set till college), I solved the problem in my own way, by putting a pair of studs in the left ear, and wearing the pair of dangly ones in my right ear. This friend, who had recently made the "pom squad", informed me that this made me "look like a lesbian", and she wouldn't sit with me at the lunch table until I changed it around. I stood up to her until a couple of my other friends chimed in with "yeah, it looks dumb, you should change it". I'm still ashamed to this day that I caved.
I could go on for pages and pages about the problems in that high school with racism, sexism, homophobia/transphobia, classism, all sorts of things, but I won't, not right now. Maybe later. But this stuff really overrode the good stuff for me. Quite frankly, I hated going to school in Wheaton. It represents everything that is vile about the suburban lifestyle to me. I'd never dream of living back there, and I'd definitely never consider raising my children in that environment. I find it toxic.
So here I find myself, at 31. I am single, I have no children, I do not have a bachelor's degree, much less a masters- or three!-, I make well under the poverty line, I am considered medically morbidly obese (not that its actually all that hard), I live in a hippie commune, I've been arrested for civil disobedience- and I'm proud of who I am and what I've become. Why am I letting Facebook take this away from me? Why am I so worried that these people will judge me? Will they judge me? Will they care that these things are by choice? Will that make it even worse?
I suppose one answer is to just delete my Facebook account. I'm not really thrilled with Facebook, as a site- its pretty lame, has no discernible benefits as far as I can see except to prove to the people you went to high school with how great you are now, has a terrible, complicated interface made even more complicated by stupid "applications" that people write themselves. (And I ran across this very interesting paper about class divisions between MySpace and Facebook, and I tend to agree with it.) Except there's a big part of me that feels like this is just running away from the problem.
Another answer is to make my profile so scary that it keeps the riff-raff out- you know, write blatant, defensive things about stuff I'm certain will make people go "oooh, she's too liberal, I don't know if I want to be in contact with her again". But that feels immature.
Another answer is to be there, but not really interact. This is kind of what I'm doing now, mostly because I'm paralyzed by indecision. But if that is the case, why be there?
I don't know. Is anybody else dealing with the Facebook Dillemma? What are you going to do?
Facebook. Damned Facebook.
Why is it Facebook's fault?
Well, many of the people I'm close to know about where I grew up. My family moved from a lower-middle class suburb of Chicago to Wheaton when I was ten. My dad still lives in the house we moved into then. For those of you who are unaware of this significance, Wheaton is extremely conservative- home of Wheaton College-, extremely White- 89% White-, and extremely wealthy- the median household income for a family is $104,000. While my family is pretty firmly White (in fact, we are technically WASPs), we are not, have never been, and will never be either conservative or wealthy- my parent's combined salaries when I was in high school barely broke the $50,000 mark.
I will be first to admit that I got a good education there. Certainly, while we did not rival schools like New Trier, we had a well above average music department for a public high school. I had five years of French, and spoke fairly fluently going into college. I have very fond memories of quite a few teachers, because they not only gave a crap, but they really knew how to teach. I also will be first to admit that I had friends, some even good friends, and had good times. Heck, sometimes I even had great times.
However, despite these things, I never felt like I fit in. I know everybody feels like they never fit in in high school, but I felt outside for different, non-emo reasons. I got along with pretty much everybody, and had friends from many different subgroups, but I certainly was never a "popular" kid- indeed, the only place I was distinguished in any way was music, but the only people who cared as much as I did about that were the teachers- I mean, it just wasn't cool. But beyond this, I could see the differences. I remember having an argument with a friend about the way I wore my earrings. I had a thing for dangly, artsy earrings back then. However, I couldn't wear dangly earrings when I played the viola. Having my ears double pierced (I didn't get the 3rd set till college), I solved the problem in my own way, by putting a pair of studs in the left ear, and wearing the pair of dangly ones in my right ear. This friend, who had recently made the "pom squad", informed me that this made me "look like a lesbian", and she wouldn't sit with me at the lunch table until I changed it around. I stood up to her until a couple of my other friends chimed in with "yeah, it looks dumb, you should change it". I'm still ashamed to this day that I caved.
I could go on for pages and pages about the problems in that high school with racism, sexism, homophobia/transphobia, classism, all sorts of things, but I won't, not right now. Maybe later. But this stuff really overrode the good stuff for me. Quite frankly, I hated going to school in Wheaton. It represents everything that is vile about the suburban lifestyle to me. I'd never dream of living back there, and I'd definitely never consider raising my children in that environment. I find it toxic.
So here I find myself, at 31. I am single, I have no children, I do not have a bachelor's degree, much less a masters- or three!-, I make well under the poverty line, I am considered medically morbidly obese (not that its actually all that hard), I live in a hippie commune, I've been arrested for civil disobedience- and I'm proud of who I am and what I've become. Why am I letting Facebook take this away from me? Why am I so worried that these people will judge me? Will they judge me? Will they care that these things are by choice? Will that make it even worse?
I suppose one answer is to just delete my Facebook account. I'm not really thrilled with Facebook, as a site- its pretty lame, has no discernible benefits as far as I can see except to prove to the people you went to high school with how great you are now, has a terrible, complicated interface made even more complicated by stupid "applications" that people write themselves. (And I ran across this very interesting paper about class divisions between MySpace and Facebook, and I tend to agree with it.) Except there's a big part of me that feels like this is just running away from the problem.
Another answer is to make my profile so scary that it keeps the riff-raff out- you know, write blatant, defensive things about stuff I'm certain will make people go "oooh, she's too liberal, I don't know if I want to be in contact with her again". But that feels immature.
Another answer is to be there, but not really interact. This is kind of what I'm doing now, mostly because I'm paralyzed by indecision. But if that is the case, why be there?
I don't know. Is anybody else dealing with the Facebook Dillemma? What are you going to do?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:08 pm (UTC)Personally, I'm happy with Livejournal. It's free.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:16 pm (UTC)Like I need more ways to waste time. i think I ought to focus on building my flesh and blood community instead.
It can be hard to block out society's messages about who we're supposed to be and millions of ways we're somehow "wrong". I personally find myself much more vulnerable when I go home to where I'm from. If facebook is making it harder for you to stay true to yourself and your vision of yourself, and there's no discernable benefits? fuck it! ditch that shit.
that's my two cents.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:32 pm (UTC)We singers are a transient lot, and it's very easy for "out of sight, out of mind" to set in. It's also easy to forget someone when you change your email or phone number and lose touch with them.
This is a very good way to keep up with the INCREDIBLY complicated musical world of "who's doing what and where and when and with whom" that you constantly have to keep track of as a professional singer. And if you're gonna be singing in their neck of the woods, hey, you have a local contact.
It's kind of a shame it's not as substantial as LJ for sharing one's thoughts or holding a conversation (but then, that's why I have LJ) and I am definitely having none of the silly "applications" which seem to me to be just an excuse to put as much shit on your profile page as possible and eat up your time uselessly.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-12 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 05:00 am (UTC)It and LJ are all the social networking I need really.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 04:27 am (UTC)TD
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:36 pm (UTC)on the other hand, you SHOULD be proud to be who you are -- and you shouldn't worry about what those ex-classmates think. there's probably a few who were desperately afraid to be who they really were, and would admire you for doing so.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:36 pm (UTC)I've never so much as chased a FaceBook link to someone else's profile, and never intend to.
The only reason I have a MySpace account at all is there are a few people I genuinely care about whose only bloggish presence is there, but even so I'm considering eliminating MySpace from my life because I find its design so hideous and obnoxious.
And lastly, my opinion of most of the people I went to high school with was already so low by the time I left high school that I have hardly any urge to resume contact with the ones I'm not still in contact with.
So ultimately, I'm not sure why anyone would use FaceBook in the first place, and see nothing wrong with walking away from it, especially if it's making you unhappy. If those aren't people with whom you wish to associate, why go where they hang out?
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:55 pm (UTC)That was the thing with Geocities, back when it first started and got huge. Great concept, and grand for those who just wanted a little place to stake out their presence. But so many seem to exist solely in order to viciously impale our aesthetic sensibilities.
Alternate comedy option: "Myspace? Because I'm not in its target demographic. Though if I age ten years and develop a taste for middle schoolers, I'll consider it."
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:44 pm (UTC)Now about the education thing: admittedly, sometimes I'm an intellectual snob about some things, and with a master's degree, my place of reference is different from yours. But woman!, you are so fun and interesting and learned, based on what I know, and I just don't know what else to say besides I hope you don't feel like your life is comparatively deficient to the various Facebook peeps.
Like, srsly, ur so kewl! In fact, I have to friend you on Facebook right now, for however much longer you're on there. L8r!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 08:25 pm (UTC)if it was hard but fun, i'd say stay. however, it's not sounding like it's fun at all.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 08:54 pm (UTC)Another answer is to be there, but not really interact. This is kind of what I'm doing now, mostly because I'm paralyzed by indecision. But if that is the case, why be there?
It seems like you might already know what you want to do you just don't want to do it, so maybe you could investigate why you want to be there. Unless you've really enjoyed *parts* of your time there. What have you enjoyed?
Is it because of all the cool contacts you've made there? The great stuff you've found relating to what you're interested in? Or just because it's another site where you think you should have an account because everyone seems to and you don't want to miss the fun?
You seem happy when you find someone from high school on there and like to know what they're doing now. I'm not that way - I'm happy *not* to be in contact with them and am not even curious what any of them are up to. Even the nice ones and the ones who were my friends aren't likely to have the same values as me or live in the same reality as me, so I feel like I'd only be courting disaster and letdown if I did make an account and "find" people.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 10:29 pm (UTC)It's a pity we didn't know each other in highschool. I spent a lot of time wearing one dangly earring and one stud. Maybe it was a fashion over here amongst string players, but just about all the violinists/violists I knew did it.
Hm.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:24 pm (UTC)I don't like Facebook, and I only joined to keep in touch with a group of high school friends who are now scattered all over the place. And we're all pretty much the same people we were in high school, which was arty, left-wing, queer or queer positive, and generally awesome. What I didn't count on were the people from every distant corner of my past contacting me, including the girls who picked on me in grade school and the kid who sexually harassed and assaulted me on a regular basis. I felt a guilt thing about adding some of those people back, so I did for awhile, and I was just completely blatant about who I was. And then one of the aforementioned high school friends told me that you could remove people, so I took them all off and felt very liberated.
I'm in a slightly different situation now, where becoming a teacher means that I can be held accountable for things that I write on Facebook (not so much LJ because it's mostly friends-only and not linked to my RL identity). I had a bit of a jolt the other day when my friend's daughter added me. I now have two 13-year-olds on my list—this young girl and another young friend of mine—and while neither have ever been my students, I have to worry a bit about how that's going to look. Which is ugh.
What I would do in your case would be to not add these people, or delete them if you've already added them, make your profile private (which I'll do as soon as I can figure out how), and use your Facebook for talking to people you actually like.
BTW, the one dangly earring and a bunch of studs look is still awesome, at least if you have short hair. I don't care what anyone says.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 05:14 am (UTC)/scrabblefiend -- wanna play? :)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 01:22 am (UTC)I use both sites, but I'm not into the prevailing culture of either site. I use both because there are people I would like to keep in touch with on each and I use the sites for that and only that purpose. When you know 99% of your friends-list well enough to run up and give them a big hug in real life things tend to stay sane (or at least to be insane in good ways =)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 02:29 am (UTC)...What was the question again? I'm sure I had a point here, darn it... :)
*random musings*
Date: 2007-12-08 02:47 am (UTC)I recognize now a lot of what you saw at Wheaton (WN? Or WWS?) in hindsight, but I honestly wasn't mature enough to notice it at the time. My freshman year marked York as my sixth school in ten years, and I was frankly tired of having to start over again, so I withdrew and barely socialized at all. It wasn't until my junior year that I decided to socialize and get involved with various clubs at school, which effectively put me on the same level as incoming freshmen. Perhaps this is why I get along better with people a few years younger than me, as opposed to those my own age.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 03:48 am (UTC)The fundamental question for me about the Facebook Dilemma has for some time been this: Do the benefits outweigh the irritation? At this point, for me personally, they do-- there are some friends (mostly from college, though a couple form high school) I can only keep up with through Facebook because that's how they communicate what they're doing and where they are, and they're far enough away/out of touch that I otherwise wouldn't hear from them. I did also use it to try to promote Think Galactic a bit. And I do enjoy the Scrabulous application. And Facebook and other social networking sites do have some professional value to me in terms of research and networking. So I'm sticking around for now (unless the pattern of really stupid and invasive business decisions continues), but again, the question is about what works for *you*. If it's not serving any useful purpose for you and is causing you angst, maybe it's time to bail.
As for people who were obnoxious to me in high school, I reject their friend requests (it's happened).
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 05:08 am (UTC)That's my view :)
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Date: 2007-12-08 05:11 pm (UTC)It's just a damned website.
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Date: 2007-12-08 05:43 pm (UTC)This is when I decided that I needed to be more like my little brother. There are people from my past that I were mean to me. Why would I want to sit with them?
no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 03:31 pm (UTC)