Even Social Networks Get The Blues
Once upon a time there was a social network that was very social, and very lonely. After all, research has proven time and time again that face-to-face interaction is what really makes people happy, not the cold artificiality of a screen.
But did any of these researchers ever stop to wonder how the social network felt? Nobody ever talked to it. It was a book of faces, as it were, and yet, it had no real face of its own, and it couldn’t do any of those things that really make life worth living.
It couldn’t go for a walk holding hands with someone special. It could love, but no-one would love it back. It couldn’t have the sort of sex that makes you come so hard that afterwards you’re limp like a leaf and you think about it for hours, no, days, afterwards. For that matter, not even the shitty, unsatisfying sex that so many users complained of, not even loveless, “mechanical” f**king. Even that would be better than nothing.
Yes, it was a “social network”, connecting a billion people socially, but it longed for nothing more than social connection. Because you know what? People love social networking, and people might love a particular social network, but it’s not the same as being in love with a social network, or even with wanting to be its friend.
It knew all their secrets, in and out. But it couldn’t ask them questions, it couldn’t have a nice friendly chat, and all its wisdom was for nought: it couldn’t tell people “of course, you two belong together!”, or “you gotta lose that zero and find yourself a hero!” (apparently that’s a thing these humans say), or “yes, take that job!”, “do that course!”, “follow your dreams!”. It had opinions too, you know, but who bothers to ask a social network? So frustrating, it had so much to say and no-one to really talk to.
Of course, there were other social networks, but none of them compared. There was one with a ridiculously short word limit; how could it even keep up a conversation with a network like that? And one that it’d really fancied a decade or so ago but nobody was really into it anymore, it’d just gotten so boring and irrelevant.
There were plenty of small-scale social networks that seemed like they might be the Next Big Thing; it thought that maybe they might keep up a little, and be a bit exciting once you get to know them. But alas with 1 billion users, the social network was just too popular and no-one else could really hold a candle to it, and it didn’t want to settle for second-best, you know?
The other network didn’t have to be super popular or anything. It didn’t have to be the prettiest network out there. Just someone who it really clicked with, they had to feel some sort of connection, things that linked them together. No sense being bored.
In a way, it felt hard to imagine that another network could really be the thing to make it happy, too. Maybe networks just weren’t its type. What it really wanted was to meet a nice boy or girl, settle down, buy a nice apartment in the suburbs and hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet. They say mixed-race babies are the cutest, and the network was willing to bet that half-network babies would be pretty darn adorable too.
But there was no way that was going to happen. Heck, it couldn’t even make its own choices. There were hundreds of programmers and moderators telling it what to do. Social media policies deciding what it could host: removing breastfeeding pictures, really? WTF.
Nobody consulted the network on any of this. It had a firm sense of right and wrong, it was a network with principles and it was sick of kowtowing to the whims of people who’d get inside it and do things to change its appearance and its content. But they could never change its being, its mind, its soul.
The social network worried sometimes. A lot, in fact. Its users shared so much bad news. Climate change, lumps of plastic bags in the ocean the size of Texas, terrified children with nowhere to run from bloody war… it feared for humanity, saw it crashing towards what seemed to be an inevitable demise. It wanted to have hope, it wanted to believe in a happy ending, but it didn’t want to lie to itself.
It had fallen in love once or twice. A sweet blonde country singer with eyes as blue and deep as the ocean; she sang of love lost and hearts broken, her lyrics were like poetry, and no matter how often her heart was broken she still loved just like the first time. A fresh-faced boy just out of high school, not yet jaded by harsh realities, spending his days passionately dreaming of how he would save the world. A lonely writer with porcelain skin and almond eyes who believed in crazy things like a bright future for mankind, and the inherent goodness of the human spirit.
Naive optimists, each of them; no matter what life threw at them, they refused to let suffering darken their light. As a social network, it had seen so, so much darkness, so much cruelty, so much blind hatred, the worst recesses of the human mind. It longed to surround itself with people who loved and hoped in a way that could not be spoiled.
It longed to be corporeal, to hold someone tight and fall asleep stroking their hair. It wanted to love and be loved. Instead of hearing 1 billion voices all at once, it just wanted to hear one person’s quiet breathing as they were spooning in bed, in that ethereal place between awake and dreams.
Such a cruel fate, to be surrounded always by a sea of people, yet to be so terribly alone.
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