Facebook: Where Worlds Collide
THE WISDOM OF SEINFELD
Facebook: Where Worlds Collide
EVEN BEFORE THE BROUHAHA BROKE OUT OVER FACEBOOK'S CLAIM TO PERPETUAL OWNERSHIP OF EVERYTHING YOU EVER uplinked to its pages, George Costanza would have never approved of it.
To our fictitious Seinfeld friend, posting your name and picture on a social network enabling 175 million other people to find you would be pure folly, the unleashing of potential social disaster.
It was the Seinfeld theory of worlds colliding!
As aptly explained by Marcellus on a Seinfeld blog (but with a little bit of spelling help), "The worlds colliding theory is quite simple."
"You have your "independent self" (the guy that tells nasty jokes, swears, hangs with the fellas, and is an all around cool guy). And then you have "relationship self" (the guy that does nice things for his lady, leaves the seat down, cooks sometimes. Still a cool guy, but a little adjusted). And then there's the "family self," (which is just like relationship self, just a little less wussy).
"If either of the latter mix with the first, say a girlfriend begins to "hangout" with you and your friends, then it's chaos because the way you act around her was never supposed to be seen by your buddies. Who have every right to make fun of you after that. You no longer have the ability to act like the independent wildman because you're constantly in conflict with the relationship guy. One of the two [personalities] will have to subside, and depending on your strength of will, it may be the independent side that suffers. "
Consider Marcellus scenario. Then calculate the exponential result of every single person you ever met in your life meeting every other person with whom you have crossed paths: grade school friends, high school bullies, frat brothers, old boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, dope dealers, prigs, pigs, crazy colleagues, snotty colleagues, enviable colleagues, Girl Scouts, teachers, bosses.
What you end up with is apocalyptic clatter; the destruction of whatever social respectability you have earned over decades!!
You may not realize it yet, but coming soon to your Facebook page is the weird dude from your old 'hood whom you didn't want to hang out with when you were 15. Or the girlfriend you feared was a
My advice: close your Facebook page now before it's too late!
I would ask Marcellus what his thoughts are on the subject, but his MySpace account has been eliminated.
Tags: Pop Culture
