Status Update

My rant about social networking became rather long, so I decided to leave until another blog entry my reflections upon one of Facebook’s main elements: the “status update”. This is the principal means by which a member “communicates” (for want of a better word) with others; users can respond to Facebook’s caring question“what’s on your mind?”, attach and comment an image, video or link, or just type whatever the hell they like, and these ‘updates’ are diffused to “friends” and followers in the Facebook world.

I seem to remember that Facebook status updates used to be restricted in length - a little like mobile phone text messages - to 160 characters, although this no longer appears to be the case (just as ‘unlimited text’ phone subscriptions and multiple-message Smartphone functions have made the SMS character limit obsolete). This restriction required people to exercise their verbal faculties a little, to condense their comments, anecdotes, jokes and observations into one sentence or so. But I think the role these statuses (stati?) play has gone beyond this; thoughts and experiences are no longer reported on Facebook, but evaluated, maybe even shaped by their suitability for a Facebook post.  My Other Half is even more wary and cynical about online media than me, and although finally persuaded (by me) to join Facebook, would probably like to think that he uses it ‘ironically’: however, even he regularly declares something funny enough ‘to go on Facebook’, and has been known to log on straight away to make it so.

While I'm on the subject of social networking and mini-messages, I might as well make it known that I simply don’t get Twitter, the so-called ‘micro-blogging network’. I mean, isn’t it just the equivalent of a list of Facebook status updates, without the other “applications”? And what on earth is a hashtag anyway? Twitter was just getting big around the time I finally joined Facebook: I did even sign up once, but I simply didn’t see the point and stopped checking my account. Rather ironically, I do still sometimes receive emails telling me about what is being “tweeted”.

Of course, the comfort in brevity, of immediate transferral of messages in short sound-bites that do not tax the concentration, is not entirely new to this social networking age; I’m thinking of newspaper headlines, or the popularity of inspirational/motivational quotations. So much easier than having to read a whole book in order to find improvement, enlightenment or solace! The difference is that headlines no longer head anything and quotations are no longer extracted; the mini-message is the sum total, and has become the norm of communication, both private and public.

 Many years ago I was lucky enough to discover the work of writer and artist, Ashleigh Brilliant, probably most famous for his vast series of ‘Pot-shots’ or ‘Brilliant Thoughts in 17 words or less’. He has made a career – and an art - of creating and illustrating humorous, philosophical and often beautifully sarcastic epigrams, following a strict set of self-imposed rules. Amongst my favourite examples that I recall are:

“A world at peace is worth not fighting for.”

“I have abandoned my search for truth, and am now looking for a good fantasy.”

“Please don't tell me to relax - it's only my tension that's holding me together.” (this one describes me very well)

 “Life is the only game in which the object of the game is to learn the rules.”

“I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.”

[All the above quotations obviously © Ashleigh Brilliant. I rather doubt this unpaid, unread blog post will have the power to lead any as-yet uninitiated to his work,  but just in case you are reading this, let me say that you’d do much better spending your time checking out his website www.ashleighbrilliant.com. ]

My sister and I discovered some of his ‘Pot-shot’ postcards in a gift shop, bought a pile and then ordered a catalogue by post (those were the days). We would spend hours pouring over it, showing it to friends and choosing which ones to buy to decorate our bedroom walls. Years later I was moved to look him up again, and am now on his mailing list and own a CD-ROM version of the complete illustrated catalogue of 10,000 Pot-shots, which I have been known to use for teaching purposes (it has a very handy search function).

As tweets and Facebook posts became ever more dominant, I was often moved to wonder what the great man must feel, now that it seems that so many people are constantly trying to be word-limited poets, micro-philosophers and punch line comedians. Does it denigrate his art, bring it to new prominence, or mean nothing at all? I contemplated asking him, and even started writing him an email – I found it years later in my Outlook drafts folder – but never ultimately found the time or courage to phrase the question before the passage of time made it seem obsolete.

Maybe the Facebook/Twitter phenomenon is a good thing. Maybe it pushes people to try to make their public statements that much more humorous, more thought-provoking, more broadly relevant and appealing. But I somehow doubt it. Instead, lives are being shaped and deformed by the tyranny of social networking – experienced in bite-sized, digitized fragments, as a mere mirror of an online profile.