Tuesday, May 25, 2010

the tagged lives of others

So at first I was like "Awww, this is actually kind of nice. Facebook is reminding me of awesome moments from my past." (And then I colored in a coloring book for a bit and munched on some oatmeal raisin cookies.) It was as if the site was aware of how numbing and dull the daily news feed grind has become and was offering a nice little jolt of nostalgia so you could casually reminisce about that Halloween sophomore year where you dressed as a ninja turtle with a group of six people you didn't really know, or that uneventful BBQ which for some reason was photographed as thoroughly as if it was a movie premiere.

But then, upon closer examination, I realized that these "Photo Memories" that have been rotating through the top right of my screen for the past two weeks are... actually from other people's albums and have nothing to do with me at all! As I rapidly clicked refresh last night and took in the cavalcade of Facebook-selected "memories" being offered up to me, instead of taking me on a pleasant trip down a memory lane of photo tags, all they served to do was make me question my life choices ("Would my life be better if I lived in the black-and-white world of Jackie's London? Would I be more relaxed if that 'LA Summer Lovin' album was my life? Would things be different if I spent my weekends with Benny, who seems to live primarily at themed parties and outdoor concerts?"). As if my Facebook sessions weren't masochistic enough spent clicking through the pictures of pretty randos I'll never meet and checking up on the happenings of former BFFs, now they've delivered me this internet scrapbook of other people's "memories," seemingly only to remind me of all the places I'm not.

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