Facelessbook.


I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with Facebook: I love to hate it.

Despite writing a daily blog and tweeting incessantly, it might surprise people to learn that I’m actually very private. I’ll use social media as an excuse to work up ideas and force a little creativity – but when it comes to Facebook, I’ll keep myself to myself.

I joined it reluctantly, on the eve of mine and Glyn’s first Edinburgh Festival. Doggett & Ephgrave had been ‘trading’ for a couple of years with us making little money from it (some things never change). All of a sudden we needed to find somewhere in the region of £8,000 - £10,000 to fund our trip to Scotland; a number of fund-raising events were hastily organized, and Facebook seemed the best (and cheapest) way to promote them.

I sometimes worry that the way I use Facebook gets on people’s nerves; you may not want to be constantly confronted by things I find amusing, or information about our latest gigs. I guess there’s no point in losing too much sleep about it: Facebook is frivolous by its very nature and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. If someone doesn’t want to read my jokes they can always filter me out (something considerably harder to do in person).

Facebook is supposed to enable friends to stay connected, but if anything, it encourages the opposite. It becomes voyeuristic: we watch each other’s lives from a distance and seldom interact. When we do, our dialogue is carefully considered: we draft and redraft our thoughts, presenting them in a way that’s esthetically pleasing - and sometimes far from the truth.

We choose photographs that show us at our best and write statuses that portray us at our most well-adjusted; we may as well publish a daily press release with all the bad bits airbrushed out.

On the flipside, a fleeting bad mood can provoke a status which – depending on how carefully you filter your friends list – can be read by the sort of work colleagues or passing acquaintances to which such an outburst would never be appropriate in everyday life.

I suppose the trick with Facebook is not to overuse it – and when you do use it, to use it for the best. While it can be a convenient way to stay in contact, it should never become a replacement for seeing those you care about in person. A couple of my closest friends aren't on Facebook; consequently we make more of an effort to stay in touch - and our relationship is probably the better for it.

Let's face it: life's too short to spend the best part of it staring at a computer screen.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...
Read more

Hoo-ray and up She Rises.

So much has happened since my last post in March that this blog risks sounding like an itinerary. The main news is that Hitchin Mostly Comedy will return in the summer at a new venue, the Queen Mother Theatre . The road to this decision was convoluted, though enough fell into place en route to leave me optimistic about this new start. The catalyst was a survey I ran via our mailing list a few months back, in which I asked, "If the club returned in the current climate, with tickets still around £15 (and with similar line-ups), would you still attend?"; the response to which, in simple terms, was a resounding yes. Nearly 250 mailing list subscribers responded in a single week, with around a hundred also taking the option to leave some feedback. And only two people were abusive, which counts as a win when you consider they posted their comments online anonymously. Imagine how many more insults we would have received if the comedy club was a woman. Particularly if she was Diane ...
Read more