now, before i begin, both of us don't particularly like facebook. i could have used hate, but we don't really hate it. we see it for its benefits, such as the ability to be in touch with people we have been far removed from in time, geography, culture and directions. we like that we can get connected to a virtual flowing river of thoughts, and responses, and so on and so forth.
but then again, facebook seems to get under our skins and freak the fuck out of us.
once i saw someone update their status as "just got back from dinner, loved for the yummy food" and about 12 people had 'liked' it. what is there to like, what is there to appreciate in such a banal statement? yet i don't judge it really, i get overwhelmed by it, that virtual river slamming down on me and pulverizing me into its bed.as for my wife, she despises how people turn into vapid sheep blindly embracing the latest 'it' thing on facebook with over-exuberant, psychotic and hollow passion.
to quote an example, remember when israel bitch-slapped gaza, and facebook was inundated with status updates 'donated' to the plight of the palestinians? these were the same people who had been under blockade for almost a year at that point, and yet it was only when the showbiz happened (the ka-booms and the bleeding children) when people suddenly became infatuated with fatah and hammy over hamas.
so this was her retort to them facebookers back then.
of course, it was only fitting that no sooner had she done that (the links are all to stories about swat which back then no one gave a fuck about) people began to be interested in her opinion as well, because facebook junkies love to follow anything and everything.ironically, her rant brought little attention to swat, but a facebook viral video turned out to be the gamechanger in the whole politics of that region.
which proved the power, and emptiness of this whole facebook phenomenon.
(on an aside, i love how the earliest status created responses absolutely unconnected to the content, as if the controversy of it had forced a response, but the addiction to banality did not allow any acknowledgment of it.)now what both of us were fighting about was my decision to post my film on my profile page. she felt that i was whoring out because things that existed on facebook immediately lost all gravitas, all purpose, all integrity. she complained that i was denuding my work of art, robbing it of its purity. that which existed on facebook was meant to be consumed, like a can of pepsi or a box of detergent. it was consigned to be eventually relegated to the trash.
i argued that by being on facebook, i was creating buzz about myself as a film maker. in a country without a breathing institution of cinema, a new comer would need to have people know about him, to have seen his work, to have heard about his reputation in order to be convinced to go out and watch his work. facebook is where viral happens, especially in pakistan. by being there, i was reaching out to an audience i couldn't otherwise reach. my blog for example, generates hardly a pittance in terms of viewership, while my completely meaningless profile page gets a lot more. in essence, what i was arguing was that i needed to 'brand' myself as a film-maker, generate buzz about my brand, so that when my 'brand' offered new products, it would have loyal consumers already present to spread the gospel.
i can feel you cringing.if you are at this blog, you are probably inclined to have a knee-jerk aversion to brands, and corporations, and marketing and all such concepts.
let me enlighten you.
your aversion is surface deep. you are already a brand.
no, i'm not getting all naomi klien on your ass. remember your university applications? remember how you wrote essays about what drives you as a person, and attached certificates of sporting and artistic achievements which provided proof that you were a well-rounded person, and recommendations from experts who attested to your qualities? that was you branding yourself.
in fact, it's not just university applicants. job applicants do the same. and so do rishta applicants.
it permeates even further than that. foucault had argued that modern society was one ruled by discipline. but one of his contemporaries, deluze, reasoned that modern society was not about discipline, but control.
it is a subtle distinction, but a poignant one. deluze felt the reason behind this was that the institutions which governed society, had in contemporary times become highly diffuse, in the form of corporations. hence instead of the omnipotent state you have the omnipresent corporations.
you present one brand to your parents, another to your grandparents. another to your first cousin, a far more liberal one to your friends, a far more devious one to your lovers, a far more honest one to your siblings, a restricted and much convoluted one to your boss, a domineering one to your subordinates, a squeaky clean one when you are at a religious ceremony, an unabashed one at the party you were dying to get invited to and so on.
it is far more easier for girls in pakistan to relate to this, as their brands have to switch rapidly depending on who can see them or hear them, and they are constantly on display, within their homes, on the street, in their rooms, on their profile pages, and ultimately, alone in front of the mirror as well.and so, you are left with the essential question at the heart of this debate - is there a stable core sense of self beneath these ever fluctuating identities, brands or masks that we present to the world? or is our sense of self really an amalgamation of the cluster of brands we are putting out there?
is it possible to know one self, or are there too many selves, each fighting for dominance, each arising when needed, discarded when out of fashion, or possibility of use?
to paraphrase pink floyd, is there anybody 'in' there?
