LIMITED SPACE
Does having a relationship merit online validation?
POSTING ABOUT THEIR L OVE LIFE ADDS A L AYER OF INTEREST ON
LIVES” THEIR
Afew years ago, my parents joined Facebook. Unlike previous generations, they didn’t rush to fill in their profile, which resulted in a marriage announcement. Their friends posted their congratulations while some remarked their surprise— so what have they been all these years? Never mind that my parents, who were high school sweethearts, had been solidly married for over 40 years. Never mind that some of these friends attended the wedding (a sweaty, make-do affair that I emulated decades later). My parents had a good laugh over it, but I also realized that my husband and I never changed our relationship status, despite having dated for a decade now and been married for three. Earlier this year, Facebook sent me a video to celebrate my friendship with Chris, complete with photos of our newborn daughter.
In her essay “Generation Why,” Zadie Smith talks about how information systems underrepresent reality. Facebook’s profile, Instagram’s bio, and the social feeds that they broadcast of our lives don’t paint a realistic picture of our actual lives.
Not even your Finsta comes close. In her essay, Smith talks about the arguments of another writer, Jaron Lanier, who wrote an entire book about people limiting themselves to fit an information system’s requirements. We do this all, cramming our lives, dreams, and even our precious relationships on these applications. Yes, they’re platforms, but they’re platforms created by people who may not necessarily have your best interest in mind, never mind someone who intimately knows your life. I recall in the early aughts when a writing teacher asked our class about Sex and the City, a series that we all loved, with characters that we felt we could relate to, identify with. “Do you know that you are not the target market of this show?” he asked us. “When they write it, they don’t think of teenagers in a third world country and how it will affect their lives.”
NARRATIVES
“Posting about their love life adds a layer of interest to their lives.” That’s how Alex, a 28-year-old stylist explains why other people post constantly about their better halves. She specifically points out influencers. “She’s not just a ‘ fashion girl’, she also loves other things—people.” Alex rarely posts about her long-distance boyfriend, reasoning that her Instagram account is about her life, not his. 21-yearold Sophie, has a more deadpan reason: “I can’t get a good photo of him.”
I suppose my own reticence to posting online is due to a past relationship. An exboyfriend and I decided to the end things and agreed not to “announce” it like many of our friends would. We didn’t want to have to explain and relive the period to a network that had grown beyond close friends. Breaking up was difficult enough. Many people I talked to seem to share this feeling, and many more feel the need to not be that person, the one who lives out and lives for their life online. To do so seems to invite unwarranted gossip and out-of-context opinions. Think of the so-called sex scandals that plague many celebrities. It’s unfortunate that there are some people who will still blame the victim, saying insipid things like how they had it coming. For the record, no one deserves their personal videos come to light. Unfortunately our current space has vicious trolls and gossipy bystanders judging people through the constraints of an unfeeling computer system, rendering many of us silent, unable to share out of fear or paranoia.
But is being Social Media of Choice Official important? If you treat it, as many people do, as a school bulletin board or a newspaper, then yes, to an extent. Newlywed photos are everywhere. Alex, posted a photo of her and her boyfriend after he’d met and endeared himself to her parents. That validation is still important to many of us, and it still holds merit. Just ask my newly-married parents.