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Why I Quit Facebook,
And Why You Should Find Better Things To Do
I
scribbled the screed below after
wasting another weekday morn-
ing poring over my Facebook feed,
wondering who’d up-thumbed me or
commented on my habitual Trump-
Thumping.
My wakeup routine was
something like this: Scan
the indispensable New York
Times and Washington Post
for the latest calumnies out
of the White House; pop
in on the New York Post for
the more salacious stuff;
then head over to Facebook David Weiss
to see who was chattering
about what and whom. But
why?
Because misery likes com-
pany? Out of a sense of community?
Or just to be another semi-informed
smartass anxious to prove I was on
the right side of the political spectrum
— which is no great achievement
when the object of your infection is
one Donald J. Trump and his merry
band of oligarchs and plutocrats.
Mnuchin, Kushner and Pruitt — just
saying their names all in a row should
only set into motion the magical
Rumpelstiltskin effect. Poof ! They all
vanish in a cloud of swamp gas!
But I digress, and yet again I grand-
stand. The whole point of bidding
farewell to Facebook with the extend-
ed paragraph below was to avoid the
daily temptation to achieve soapbox
glory with a few well-placed barbs, the
result of which was hurrahs and huz-
zahs from fellow choristers or acidu-
lous retorts from people I have never
even met, nor ever intend to.
The net result: The world kept spin-
ning, the echo chamber was for-
ever chock-full of self-admiring
narcissists (yes, like myself ) and
hope remained the elusive thing
with feathers (and who looks a
lot like Robert Mueller).
But I think what griped me
most of all was that a prepon-
derance of faceless Facebookers
seemed to have reduced their
information intake and output to
simplistic GIFs and memes — a
kind of shorthand code for fel-
low travelers, no matter one’s
ideological persuasion. This kind of
stick-figure, primary-color rendering
of a complex political landscape is an
insult to the dogged editorial labors of
the NYT and WaPo, which ought to be
required reading for anyone with time
enough to waste posting cute cartoons
about serious subjects — from gun
control to nepotism to money laun-
dering. It’s called the Fourth Estate,
and without it we’d be no better than
Putin & Co. It is our last bulwark
against tyranny and privilege.
A final word before I forever hold
my peace: I immediately suspended
my Facebook account after disgorging
the polemic below, then drove over to
the Jewish Family Service office some
20 minutes away — to see if I could
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offer my newly liberated time to some
needy cause or another as I’d self-righ-
teously urged others to do. They told
me thanks for the effort and supplied
me with a website address where I
could better explain my need for pen-
ance and self-sacrifice.
Oh, well — back to the dreaded
Internet, the last refuge of scoundrels
and La-Z-Boy Revolutionaries.
MY FACEBOOK POST:
If one added up the cumulative hours
Facebook junkies spent posting sim-
plistic memes and slogans, and if that
time were instead spent contribut-
ing to the community in any manner
whatsoever, small but palpable chang-
es would ensue that would benefit the
world at large. But the nano-endor-
phin rush that social media dabblers
get from “likes” and such far outweigh
any visceral need to participate in the
civic world itself.
What’s even sadder is that 90 per-
cent of the puerile, armchair activists
wasting their lives in self-aggrandizing
posturing are usually being read by
ABSOLUTELY NOBODY at all, or by an
“audience” you could count with half
the fingers of one hand.
My humble suggestion: Get off your
do-nothing posteriors and donate
two hours a week to the cause of your
choice; turn off the bleeping idiot-box
(computers have replaced television
as the opium of the masses); and hit
the pavement instead of posing as
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prophets and pundits from the com-
fort of your den. You know who you
are: conservatives and liberals alike,
hiding behind your keyboards and
screens and pretending to give a whit
about anything except who’s paying
attention to your recycled aphorisms
and pithy inanities.
As my main man Freddy Goethe
wrote: “Let everyone sweep in front
of his own door and the whole world
will be clean.” Guess what, folks?
Nobody cares what you think. Rome
is burning and y’all are playing a tiny,
out-of-tune fiddle that nobody can
even hear. Or as my other goombody,
Friedrich Nietzsche, said: “In individu-
als, insanity is rare; but in groups,
parties, nations and epochs, it is the
rule.” Facebook proves that point
and then some: We are the Irrational,
Unthinking Mob we have all come to
fear. And now we all have a voice. As a
great statesman once said: “Sad.” •
David Weiss of Los Angeles (aka David Was) grew
up in Oak Park and attended the University of
Michigan. He formed a band in the 1980s with
fellow Oak Parker Don Fagenson (aka Don Was)
called Was (Not Was). He posted about this deci-
sion last week on Facebook and expanded it for
Deadline Detroit. Reprinted with permission.
CORRECTION
UMatter’s “One Thing I Wish You Knew”
program (March 8, page 20) takes place
on Wednesday, March 21. R egister at
friendshipcircle.org/umatter-event.
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March 15 • 2018
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