You’re Just Data, Dummy
8:00 am, Thursday: Barely awake… barely caffeinated… open laptop… enter password… type the single “f” needed to autofill the Facebook URL, and:
Huh? WTF?
9:00 am, Thursday: Nope, it’s not a joke. Someone’s messing with me hard. The question is, who? Who did I piss off enough to jump through the hoops necessary to get my account suspended?
I can only think of one… maybe two… okay, three dozen people at most who needed to be told they’re wrong this week.
Gotta’ give it to them though; going the public figure/business page route is genius. Nothing I’ve written anywhere warrants a ban, so flooding them with false claims about the nature of my account is a very effective way to get the job done.
9:30 am, Thursday: The Facebook appeals process requires proof of identity. That seems reasonable, but when I upload precisely the proof they ask for:
I don’t know… maybe it’s just me, but it seems that Facebook shouldn’t be telling me I didn’t upload an ID file when its own form is listing the ID file I just uploaded. Must be one of those coder things I don’t understand.
So, how exactly do I go about getting Facebook to recognize the ID I uploaded? Are there arcane secrets I’m missing? Special passwords? Secret Handshakes? An ancient Sumerian initiation ceremony with four goats and an old guy named Edgar? Maybe a never to be spoken of one night stand at the GOP Planning Committee’s annual members-only after party?
I feel so out of touch.
10:00 am, Thursday: 12 hours without my Facebook feed. Everyone on my Friends list must be frantic by now.
11:00 am, Thursday: Apparently, the Excite forums don’t exist anymore.
I’ll go walk the dog.
3:00 pm, Thursday: Where did I go online before Facebook? I remember the hours flying by before I ever heard of Mark Zuckerberg. What was so interesting back then? AOL? Myspace? No, that can’t be it…
Porn! That’s what the computer used to be for in the long, long ago! I’ll go find some porn!
3:07 pm, Thursday: No… just no. I’m pretty far from a prude, but how is that even a thing?
5:30 pm, Thursday: Making dinner. Spent the afternoon cleaning the house. Maybe I’ll pull out my guitar after the dog’s next walk. It’s been what… a year?
11:30 pm, Thursday: Falling asleep on the couch watching Netflix.
8:00 am, Friday: Still no Facebook access, and still no response to queries. Yes, I know it’s free, but this is NOT what I consider good customer service.
Time to walk and feed the dog.
10:00 am, Friday: Tried signing in again, but still no go. This is starting to piss me off! I literally use Facebook as my communications hub! Seriously, what if someone needs to get in touch with me? What if I need to get in touch with someone?
Started Codecademy Python course. When did I first promise myself I’d learn to code? Was it really 2004?
3:00 pm, Friday: Talked to Mom. She’s still the one person on earth who can make me question my sanity in less than three minutes.
6:00 pm, Friday: Girlfriend emailed a friend who has a friend whose sister’s boyfriend works at Facebook. Fingers crossed.
10:00 am, Saturday: We took the dog to the park, let him run around like an idiot, and then worked on his recall for about 45 minutes. Once he gets used to a new treat it doesn’t seem to hold as much value for him. Maybe we should buy chicken jerky and only use it for training.
He got to play “Wag Wag… Punch You In The Face!” with Barney the German Shepherd before we left. He smiled the whole way home.
1:00 pm, Saturday: Reading a book on social media analytics that’s been sitting on my shelf for a few years. I’ve always known that companies like Facebook make their money selling data, but once you start grasping just how deeply they’re digging, just how much they learn about you, and just how far beyond simple marketing it goes… well, it’s impressive, but more than a little frightening.
Note to self: look into PHP after completing the Python course.
5:00 pm, Saturday: Still no access. In more than a few of the forums I’ve stumbled across trying to find a solution, commenters write that it’s not uncommon for it to take several days or weeks before Facebook even responds… Seriously?
The more I think about their abysmally shitty customer service, the more it’s becoming apparent that being a Facebook user isn’t necessarily the same thing as being a Facebook customer.
9:00 pm, Saturday: Broke down and paid the $20 Comcast wants to purchase The Force Awakens. Screw it! It’s Star Wars! We all know I’m gonna’ shell out another $20 for the Blu-ray, but I want to see it again right now.
Is it weird that I’m in my forties and still want a real lightsaber? Zuckerberg probably has someone working on one for him right this minute. What an asshole.
9:00 pm, Sunday: When I learned about Buddhism what appealed to me was the belief that to be at peace you first need to become aware of what’s been right in front of you all along. The next step is accepting that once you see something as it truly is, you can’t go back to seeing it in any other way.
Too “spiritual”? Too hokey? Too off-point? Okay, then let’s just go with what people smarter than I’ll ever be have been saying for years:
This… so much, this.
Facebook doesn’t care about me (or you), or the fact that my account never should have been disabled. I’m just one tiny data set among 1.65 billion, and they’ll get to me when they get to me… or they won’t. Either way, Mark will still have his $10M mansion by Dolores Park.
7:00 pm, Monday: Spent all day learning Fusion 360. (It’s just amazing what that software can do.) Came up with a few prototype ideas for a gaming peripheral I’d like to build, and now I need to find a 3D printer to rent or borrow.
I’d forgotten how happy I am when I’m trying to create something. It’s like playing with alien Legos for adults!
4:00 pm, Thursday: Back to Fusion 360 — spent the past two days 3D printing and the first batch of prototypes work, but the designs are going to need some careful refinements before I’m ready to send them off to the tooling service.
2:30 pm, Friday: Facebook finally responded. I’ll open the email and see what they have to say later. Right now I might — just might — have a patentable idea and I need to work it through and get it down before I forget it.
But first, the dog and I are going out to find his pal, Barney… dog punches wait for no one.
