This is real heavy metal, by the way.
So, this guy whose name I swear I'd never heard but appeared to have gone to my high school tried to friend me on Facebook. His main interests were the band Stryper and Republicanism, so I didn't add him. I mean, really, Stryper? I thought teens in the 80s only listened to them because they liked metal and their parents forbade any other band as a direct path to the worship of Satan. When you leave home, you throw away their records and listen to real metal.
But then I read this article that said we are all getting trapped in a bubble of like-minded people who parrot our ideas back to us, due to social networks and rss feeds and apps only giving us the people/opinions/stories we want to hear. And I thought--maybe I was wrong. Or maybe I'm OK, because I do have a lot of weird interests that make it pretty hard to find people who are on the same page with everything. I have social network connections with people around roleplaying games, anime, kung fu movies, punk rock, feminism, horror, The New Yorker, libraries, public transportation, corporations not having all the rights and none of the responsibilities of people, stoner rock, psychotronic movies, Apple products, my college, TV Tropes, cyberpunk, steampunk, art toys, lowbrow art and indie comics.
What do you guys think?
Comments
To me, it's more of an issue of your not even knowing the guy, than it is of what he is into. If you opt into Facebook, that doesn't mean you are openning your life to the whole world! I mean isn't the fact that Facebook is a more exclusive network than MySpace, one that allows you to select who you want to share information with, the reason that many people liked Facebook to begin with? When you friend people, it allows them to
see your page, as I understand it, and you should feel under no obligation to open up to just any random person who remembers your name from Middle School!
As you know, I took it a step further and got rid of Facebook altogether. If someone cares enough to email me, I respond, if not, I could care less whether they are cooking muffins at the moment or whatever other insights
on the microdetails of their lives their wall might offer!
Stick to your guns baby!