VERSATIONS

On Facebook

I've belatedly come to accept that what Facebook really fosters is not conversation or discussion, or rather, conversation and discussion are the least of the many many many things it offers to its subscribers. With its incessant insistence to like and tag, the obstructive imposition of friending even sixth-degree acquaintances, the fan pages and questionnaire memes, what Facebook really fosters - promotes and celebrates - is yet another continuation of the Culture of Celebrity, and that celebrity is Me. This is not exactly the eureka of the decade, it's meant to be a book with your face on it, and on the surface it is all well and good, but when in the context of less baser things like say art criticism - things that ought to be more open for discussion than the latest quippy exchange you had with your boss over lunch that you just put in as your status message a few minutes ago - that's when the whole thing just simply throws its arms up in the air in disgust and surrender and utter frustration.

The form just can't handle the content: Facebook was built merely to contain personal detritus and ephemera - its search field is only for its online population and not for actual content produced by the same; its turnover of said actual content is quick, often by the hour, sometimes even by the minute, just miss checking it for one day, you're already behind on what's what; it has no edit function for the comments section, which is basically the most immediate requirement in online conversation and discussion; and even in the most liberal privacy settings, ultimately all actual content produced in Facebook are only accessible - reading-wise, commenting-wise - to Facebook subscribers, to the people that you tag, to the people who are in your friends list, and contrary to popular belief, not everyone is in Facebook.

In light of all this, all conversation and discussion in Facebook are merely all exercises in solipsism, all merely - consciously or not - to promote the self as whatever one wants to promote the self. When the conversation and discussion's main form is promoting what is conceivably the easiest reply that requires the least amount of effort, ie the status message and the like thumbs-up button, and when these conversations and discussions are only really visible to your friends, all that really fosters is self-assurance, that one is saying something right and correct and true and likable, and conversations and discussions are never about those things.

On Joel Salud

I'm afraid that I've come to realise that as long as I insist on questioning your Facebook poetry modern renga compilation Anthology of Rage along the context of art and society as you continue to insist on talking about yourself as replies to these questions, well, I've come to realise that that will only be a complete waste of my only too precious time in front of the keyboard and monitor. So go on continuing your Persecuted Hero Complex while getting backrubs from Luisa Igloria and Marne Kilates in your comments section. It's all well and good. It's Facebook. It's okay. I'll still continue on insisting on questioning your Facebook poetry renga compilation along the context of art and society.

On Angelo Suarez

I live for the day that Gelo - Philippines' number one promoter of Facebook-as-legit-forum-for-conversation-and-discussion - will say something controversial and actually stand by it without his usual safety nets of self-involved pomo paradoxes, the latest being his staunch debased disavowal of the possible role of art on extreme acts of cruelty like the Maguindanao Massacre in the latest High Chair Journal. Again, this is all well and good, maybe even admirable, as this is something a lot of people believe in, something a lot of people far more intelligent than me and Gelo has written about - my own polarities in this debate would be Berger and Oppen, the middle guy more or less being Benjamin - only Gelo's stand is tarnished by his own insistence to paradoxically not talk about it by talking about it in Facebook, pushing that in critical doublespeak up until straining only to backpedal at the eleventh hour, paradoxically - glibly - discrediting his own non-talks with even more critical doublespeak, in effect paradoxically not only failing in not talking about it, but also failing in talking about it as his non-talks only come off as glib and even pretentious and at worst solipsistic - or rather, far glibber and pretentious and solipsistic than if he only just wrote something about it. And as his discussion "enemies" now rally around him as Facebook friends, I find out coldly harshly matter-of-factly just what it all really means. And yet I still live for the day. Yeah, I know, it's a paradox.