Anti-Climacus

LINK: Carrie Brownstein, formerly of Sleater-Kinney, on the very annoying "25 Things" lists and facebook more generally:

You probably already know of or have read about the "25 Things About Me" lists on Facebook. Maybe you've written one yourself. For those exclusively on MySpace, or who are keeping written journals only to be read upon your death, here is the sequence of events: A friend -- or, worse, someone you've friended after meeting them once at a bar -- tells everyone facts about their life in what usually constitutes a massive over-share. Over-shares are intimate details better left for mutual drunkenness or for moments right before an amnesia-inducing head trauma. Over-sharing is a phenomenon on social networking sites (and Facebook in particular) because they conflate the mundane with the exceptional. In other words, your lunch and your herpes are practically the same thing. A Facebook status update such as "Scott is eating oatmeal" is likely to garner as least as many comments as "Eve just upped her dose of anti-depressants and is looking for a new shrink." The latter is too overwhelming, and places too much accountability on the part of the reader, whereas oatmeal is something we can benignly celebrate while maintaining the distance-masquerading-as-intimacy quality of the site.

But I digress. Back to tagging: So your friend writes 25 Things about themselves and then tags you, meaning that you're next; now you have to write your own 25 Things. The list is the ultimate chain letter, and a long stream of me me me me me me me me me. Not that there's anything wrong with sharing, divulging, confessing and declaring -- it's only the context that I find odd, and the intent. Is Facebook the world's most perfect stage, or is it just staged? I can't tell. Sometimes I think, let's meet for coffee and you can tell me the truth.