After recent articles in The New Yorker, The Week and posts in every twentysomething’s blog about Facebook being too intrusive and totally outdated, I now have enough confidence to close down my page.

I don’t maintain a regular Facebook page, just a fan page, so maybe I’m missing the point of Mark Zuckerberg’s epic empire because I don’t get to see all the good news about people I’ve lost touch with. Even if I did, I’m still not sure the chance for a midnight snack of happy hyperbole would be a good enough reason to check in before going to bed.

I’m usually the only one who posts on my fan page; people really only talk about me if they “Like” me. In and of itself, this screams that something must be wrong with me and every other artist who needs a page on the Internet to keep a running count of people willing to call themselves “followers.”

But I do wonder if I will miss having a place to put all my thoughts in excess of 2 sentences that won’t fit on Twitter. I could blog of course, but my thoughts usually burst out in the form of a rant about something that annoys me or seems unjust. This style of writing tends to invite the opinions of those in opposition.
I’m open to opposing viewpoints, except when they come anonymously. Dissenting or negative comments that are put on the Internet anonymously are usually just too dumb to engage in. Which is the reason I don’t check my own blog before bed.

I could try Tumblr, whose approach seems cool for both not tallying your popularity with a friend or fan counter and because it only allows you to “heart” other people’s ideas. If you have something negative to say about someone else’s page, you need to say that on your own space. Thus no hiding behind a thumbs down or a blogger name like “I just think you suck.”

But frankly, I have a lot of things I want to complain about. Or, more specifically, I have a lot of vaguely humorous things to say about outdated, ignorant and egregiously wrong behavior. My voice is not exactly the right fit for Tumblr, either. Or Pinterest or LinkedIin or any of the moderate modifications of the social networking giant.
Perhaps what we really need is an Anti-Social Network. One that is designed to air thoughts on what’s wrong in the world today, where the masses can “Hate This” as one.

Yes, that might sound like a bastion of bullying that could cause undue sadness. As if we all don’t want to cry now when we see our mortal enemy at work has more than 1,000 followers on FB. Or that every student does dream about home schooling just a little when the meanest bully in their class has 500 friends because everyone’s too afraid to de-friend her.

Just think how it might feel if the party-pooper at work or the torturing soul at school were to have double or triple the amount of “naysayers” or “dissenters” on the Anti-Social Network? That would wonderfully negate any amount of following fans.

But really I have no interest in hating any individuals in my fantasy Internet empire because we don’t need another public forum to attack people. We already have Fox News.

So in the interest of dealing with bigger concepts that affect masses of people, personal names cannot have hate pages on my Anti-Social Network. Rather, it is reserved for attitudes, social concepts and cultural trends.
Like a hate page for airlines who charge passengers for their first checked bag. And another for the Electoral College voting system. Perhaps we could use “a tongue sticking out” to denote our shared dislike of the closing of national parks and libraries and for how many vacations Congress takes over the course of one year. And don’t forget a page for McDonald’s because they stop serving breakfast at 10:30 a.m.

Ah, yes, we could make just another cute, vaguely interesting, time-suck for the masses. Or we could hate things like world leaders massacring their own people. Creating a shared space on the Web  where even narcissistic dictators cannot ignore or continue to pretend that millions of people are not giving up their lives to have them step down. Thus creating pages on the Internet with a quantifiable number of people who view them – which could generate income but more importantly, becomes headline news. Headline news that might fund donations to NGOs and peacekeepers to begin their work and perhaps, eventually, even governments around the world . . . that just might put an end to some outdated, ignorant and or egregiously wrong behavior.

But first, I have to actually shut down my Facebook account where I just posted pictures from my iPhone.
 
(Diane Farr is known for her roles in “Californication,” “Numb3rs” and “Rescue Me,” and as the author of “The Girl Code.” You can read her blog at getdianefarr.com, follow her on twitter.com/getdianefarr or contact her on facebook.com/getdianefarr.)
COPYRIGHT © 2012 DIANE FARR
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

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