Losing Face on Facebook

It began small. One comment on The Wall. Two teens, starting something, the way teens are apt to do. In 'real life', something like this stays relatively contained. Five kids find out, maybe ten. In a few days it blows over.

Not on Facebook. Within hours, the comments were flying. Not just between the two original combatants but, when a friend heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend... well, the whole school got involved and one teen who had been successful, popular, is now devastated. Hundreds, literally hundreds of kids know the story and it isn't blowing over. It's viral all right, in the worst sense of the word.

When I heard about this, from the child's distressed mother, I felt sad. Her child may just suffer for the remainder of a school career. Oddly, I also thought that this child's experience is a vital piece of the social media picture. Who knew it could happen until it did, and so we learn a little bit more about how (or how not) to navigate this cyberworld. Hopefully, a company like Facebook (who the mother contacted), will also learn a little bit more about what still needs to happen at the level of functionality to reduce the frequency of such incidents (I'm talking about giving users maximum control and flexibility in how 'friends' are sorted, categorized, etc., to mirror the way we create hierarchies of intimacy and boundary in 'real life'.)

Since it is poetry Thursday (Friday :), I thought to craft a Facebook poem. Because, for me, poetry sometimes speaks best in those ambiguous places the world is still struggling to understand...


"Morning After"

It started out innocent
enough. What did he know?
I felt so round and easy

in his palm, cool and brittle.
I must have seemed hard
boiled, ready to roll onto

The Wall. Anyway, he pulled
the corners of my mouth
into a smirk, then tossed

me up top to taunt the
tall guy who likes to joust
and flirt with ladies in

waiting. Everyone was there
when it happened, all the
kings horses (you know

how it goes) and all the
kings men, dashed me
to pieces again and again,

and I ask you, where does
it end? Even now some
dark-haired woman has

carted me to her blog
and is sorting, poking
through yolk and shell

to see what she might
leverage into a poem that
might be read in Guam.


Mask created by Sara and Sonia. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

POETRY FRIDAY:
High Calling Blogs Poetry as Spiritual Practice
nAncY’s mask poem
Marcus’s Bird Watching
Monica’s Paper
Laura’s Glass
Papa Poet's Progressive Lens
Brian’s Mask
Stacy’s The Cave
Blue’s Swan Song
Emily’s trying it out
Lynne’s Moon Speaks
Yvette’s Master’s Table
Claire's Reflections on Colour
Ted's Silence
Jennie's Standing
Sara's "Cello" and "Piano"
Emily's Scarlet Seeker
Jennifer's Ideal
Deb's Cuff of Thorns
Cheri's Captured
Milton's sping planting