Postmodern Communities

I joined a group on Facebook the other day entitled, "Missing the chance to cross a road, then saying 'We could have gone then.'" I saw on News Feed that a friend of mine had joined the group and giggled at the fact that somebody had created a community around a widely experienced yet rarely contemplated occurrence. The group has over 230,000 members and the group wall is cluttered with people describing their experiences, from "This happens to me way too much" to "I did that yesterday but left my twin behind and had to go back to get her and then cross again!"

And while some may see the sudden splurge of such groups, including "Referring anyone younger to you as 'like twelve,'" "I hate when I get in bed and then realize I forgot to turn a light on and have to get up," and even "Why the ugliest jawns always da hypest?" as merely a reflection of the boredom that exists throughout the world and drives people to stay on Facebook for hours and hours at a time, this new occurrence is also evidence of postmodernism in social networking sites.

Indeed, in line with the postmodern notion that everything has been done before is the feeling that all occurrences have not only been experienced but have been experienced by a large number of people. Even a simple remark made while standing at an intersection has been stated by hundreds of thousands of others; we are not original in any aspect of life. The presence of these endless groups, which link people in even the most seemingly insignificant actions or opinions, embody the postmodern sense of jadedness: you're not the only one who likes "being on the boardwalk at night in the summer,">

This is all unsurprising, however, when we consider Facebook in light of postmodernism. Individuals present themselves through profile pictures- images that seem to impact our opinion of someone just as much as, face-to-face interpersonal interaction (a beautiful online picture of an average-looking person stays in our head when we consider their attractiveness, whether we want to admit it or not, and our opinion of someone's lifestyle is widely shaped by how glamorous and cool they look in their newest photo album--ADMIT IT.) We see friends interact, but only through words, and construe our opinions of groups of individuals by how they communicate on the internet. Joining a group is merely another way to define oneself online; not only are you the pictures you post of yourself, the music you list in your About Me section, but also your opinion that you "hate wet socks and hard-boiled eggs" (a group which has 46 fans...not too shabby.)

Hence, the next time you log onto Facebook, keep in mind that you're immersed in a postmodern, online world where you're perpetually constructing your identity with every word you type and picture you post and friend you add and page you join. Oh, and don't forget the fact that everyone else does this too, and your opinion of even your closest friends are shaped by how they present themselves on the internet. But no pressure.