Facebook Commentary - Part 1

A recent article titled "Campus Exposure" in the NY Times Magazine discussed the appearance of student-produced porn magazines on several college campuses throughout the country. The writer of the article at one point noted:

"Vandenberg described a social landscape changed irrevocably by the rise of networking Web sites. After meeting someone, it's now de rigueur to check out his or her profile — a collage of pictures (often risqué) and preferences — on MySpace or Facebook.com. "I have a BlackBerry — so immediately," Vandenberg said. "You might run into someone at a party, and then you Facebook them: what are their interests? Are they crazy-religious, is their favorite quote from the Bible? Everyone takes great pains over presenting themselves. It's like an embodiment of your personality."

The writer's mention of Facebook got me thinking. I've always found the modern networking site a bit troubling. Although created presumably to serve as a connector between people of similar interests, these sites often become very popular, very fast – and I'd venture to guess the reason for that is their secondary use as a place to socialize, show-off, and create a picture of oneself that may not be anywhere near the truth.

The link between Facebook and the rise of porn magazines on university campuses is a troubling one, at the very least. At first, the relation between the two may seem tenuous, but upon further thought, it seems a little inevitable. Many times, I've been shocked to flip through profiles of people I thought I knew, only to find that all this time they've lived a second life. Pictures of themselves and their comrades, often depicting acts better left undisclosed, are plastered all over their Facebook profile.

The presentation of these pictures seems almost proud. It is the pride that makes me wonder if the person I knew prior to venturing upon his/her profile is the real person, and the Facebook version merely his/her performance. Likely, they've taken great pains to manufacture an online persona that is cool, hip, popular…and, well, manufactured.

The conformity is apparent not just in the pictures, but in the language as well. About 90% of the Muslim youth whose photo commentary I've read use the word "hot" about 90% of the time. Pictures of people who have painstakingly selected for posting the most flattering ones of themselves, along with more natural pictures, are uniformly described as "hot." After a while, the overuse of the word becomes almost comical…

…and a bit troublesome, not just from the perspective of linguistic conformity, but from the perspective of what this all means in reference to Muslim youth. Commanded by our faith to be modest, what does it mean to use terminology that, in its very nature, is immodest? What does it mean to present ourselves on this public forum in a physically appealing, and often seductive, way?

And penetrating even deeper, I wonder how the publicity of our conversations on Facebook "walls" fits with these themes of Islam, modesty, performance, and conformity. Why do people choose to advertise their conversations, especially those of a clearly private type, on their wall? The voyeurism inherent in the pictures and the words has a frightening aspect to it, threatening to obliterate – or substantially lessen – the sacredness of our private realms. All is available for viewing, and perhaps the manufacturing of the personalities is a way of laying it all out without having to expose any of our vulnerability. We can now socialize using a "self" that may not actually exist, but that we've created for this very purpose. In the limited arena of the Facebook World, we can be who we always wanted to be.