I had my first encounter with Bored@Baker this past Winter term when I pledged a sorority. My friend informed me that she had discovered a post that mentioned my name, and I worried for a quick second that someone had found my poorly advised ARK Music Factory video and it had gone viral (just kidding, obviously I had already sold the rights to a huge record label).
Unfortunately, I had not found YouTube stardom instead, the post went something along the lines of, "I can't believe [sorority A] let [sorority B] steal one of their Yangs!"
Aside from that time that my friend took pictures of me doing a line of coke off of a hooker's torso in central Argentina and posted them on Facebook (hi future employers, I hope you've picked up on my humor by this point), this was probably the first time that I felt like I had received unwanted facetime.
And I didn't do anything to deserve it, other than pledge the sorority where I felt most comfortable. I was being judged for a decision that affected no one else but me, which was unfair, and it was made all the more frustrating because the post was anonymous.
But this whole post-anonymous-shit-to-earn-other-people-facetime-they-don't-want thing really helps if you're my friend Marge (note: this name is clearly made up), who pretends to be someone else and posts her own name followed by a question mark, "Marge?" Then she proceeds to agree with herself. A lot. On a regular basis. Wtf.
For those of us (yes, us I'm not trying to say that I hate facetime) who pretend to do homework on FFB but we're really posting statuses that will garner the most Facebook newsfeed attention, well, I have a different opinion.
Without the guise of clever MySpace names (nice to meet you, my name is ~xoAngiexo~), Facebook forces us to take responsibility for what we post because all of our opinions show up right next to our full first and last names.
Middle names, too, for those of you who 1) have them or 2) think your names sound super cute next to their middle names (you are Jessica in real life, but in cyberspace, they call you Jessica Lynn).
We are far more careful about posting things because we have to take responsibility for them. Jessica Lynn would never say that she hated Marge on her Facebook status, but she would definitely disagree with "Marge?" on Bored@Baker. Facebook facetime is something that you have complete control over. Think you look fat in that picture? You probably look fine, but go ahead and untag it, bitch!
Let's revisit the status thing. The facetimeiest statuses which are also arguably the most annoying occur when your Facebook friends use hashtags. And their friends reply with hashtags. And, just for giggles, noneofthemputspacesbetweentheirwordssoittakesalongtimetofigureoutwhatthey'retryingtosay. (Side note: hash tags are not relevant on Facebook. They do not tag anything.) But obviously, because all of your friends respond with one-line hashtagged responses, that status will pop up to the top of everyone's newsfeeds. #literallystop
The impersonal veil provided by websites like Bored@Baker and Facebook gives us the power to create a very different profile (ha! Get it?) for our online selves than we do for our real selves. With the power of backspace button, we can literally edit everything we say. And the more facetime we get online, the easier it is to confuse our clever, shallow virtual identities with real identities.
