The Sun Burns Cold

So it happened, finally. The veritable straw. But it was after straw after straw really. And I can’t rightly say that it broke the horribly clichéd camels back…because, lets face it-I’m just one of millions of motherfuckers who fucking hatesFacebook,but will continue using it. Simply because, well it aint like anyone really bothers with Google+. And it sure as fuck aint like I’m going to convince all my friends and family to get on Diaspora with a well worded pitch as to the radnitude of all things open source. I mean, I tried that shit six years ago when I first started running Linux. And as any Linux post-proselyte can attest to, basically nobody fucking cares. Plus, Diaspora isn’t exactly feature rich. And most idiots on the internet, myself maybe paramount, require all sorts of new and generally redundant/useless gee gaws to keep us occupied while mindlessly staring at a screen while life passes us by.

But there I was. There was this band I got turned on to who just fucking kill it with the fuzzed out bluesy stomp a la Mudhoney meets The Black Keys…meets a 100 proof shot of John Lee Hooker-esque style knowing how work the two bar minimalist ass kicking. And I was so fucking stoked, right? Good music will do that to a motherfucker. So I go to tell the band how fucking righteous their goddam sound is. Cause I do shit like that. I mean, now that nobody really buys physical document music anymore the least anyone can do is tell a band they fucking tear it up and offer to set them up a gig in your town. Since that’s the only way they’re going to eat anymore is by playing shows. Never mind the coke binges and smashed hotel rooms funded by record company advances that produced such aural travesties as any given 70′s “concept album” or basically the entire collective Foreigner, Boston, REO Speedwagen, Ratt, Poison, Cinderella, Stone Temple Pilots, Candlebox, Limp Bizkit, and Buck Cherry catalog lineage. Nowadays its not “Party hearty rock and Roll” as much as it is having a work ethic and dedication to your craft. It’s kind of like, in the 21st century you have to approach musicianhood with a Greg Ginn mentality or you just get weeded out. So I always make it a point to drop a line to people who knock me the fuck out with their music. And if its some real killer shit I’ll shut down my Bit Torrent client and go buy their music if it’s available for sale. Or a t-shirt. Or like in the case of Lemmy from Motorhead, I’ll go out and buy an antique German officers coffee mug to present to him in person when I get out to Cali and look for him at the Rainbow room. Seriously. One does not just walk up to Lemmy without WWII memorabilia tribute. It’s fucking Lemmy. I’d rather meet him than Jesus.

So anyway, this band I just got blown away by. They don’t have like a regular “fan page”. It’s a personal page, which in so fucking many ways is way cooler anyhow (don’t let that stop you from “liking” my pathetic FB fan page, cause like everyone else here in Cyberia I’m an abject attention whore). But I don’t know them. So I don’t send a friend request. I mean, that whole thing just smacks of spammy faggotry-not having dick all interaction with someone but sending them a friend request. It’s always been a thing with me. I don’t want to have friendly communication with everybody in the internoodle pasta bowl. Fact is, many of you are fuckwits. And most of you would think I’m a fuckwit if you met me in “IRL” meatspace. Thats why I’ve used social networks for years and I still only have like twenty people on my friends list. Cause they’re people I know aren’t fuckwits and they’ve shown capacity for letting my own fuckwittedness slide.

But yeah, so I go to send this band a message. And a notice pops up. Farcebook tells me something like “Oh, btw, you aren’t friends with so and so. So your message will go into their OTHER box. If you fork over a dollar we will put your message in their regular inbox.”

Really? Seriously? You’re being fucking honest? For real, for real? You cocksuckers are trying to squeeze a buck out of me over a goddam  message so it doesn’t get sent to the dreaded OTHER box? Times must be hard Zuckerberg. My heart pumps purple piss for you.

But lets face(book) it. Facebook is shit. Utter shit. And really for multiform reasons, however for me it comes down to the simple fact that it aint even like the motherfuckers need more money, however they’re pumping their users for cash at every new turn. For serious. Like, honest and shit. What, it’s not enough to make billions-thats with a B-off of exploiting user generated content and personal privacy for the advertising industry? Really? You bastards need more money? Filthy rich isn’t enough for you, you need to be swimming in shit style rich? You need my dollar to deliver a message to a regular inbox instead of some OTHER box you motherfuckers made up and implemented in the first place? What is this, three card inbox monte or the shell game?

But here’s the rub with Facebook, and really any social network or online “service.” This includes blogging platforms. However, I will gladly fork over money to WordPress because from using it through multiple blogs over the past seven years (and purchasing extras like my own domain) I can confidently state that they just aren’t out to scam anybody. And honestly, my blog has been a much more valuable service to me than being alerted of stuff like my dear cousin’s latest pet whackaloon “holistic health” theory (Go out and detoxify your Pineal gland from the awful effects of water floridation!!) in my facebook news feed. I can’t even imagine the level of inanity that goes along with Twitter, I flat out refuse to stoop to that level by using it. But, to get back on track-the thing with social networks, as with your friendly neighborhood narcotics dealer and maybe even the dark cabal in charge of floridating water for gods sakes…well the thing is, you get everybody using it, acclimated to it. Then you pump them for more money or information or whatever you want. It gets to the point where the technology, or service, or dope-is so seamlessly integrated into everyday life within the social that as long as you produce some cheap iteration ( The precession of Ipads/Iphones, Post Win Xp versions or even shit like the Millennium edition, endless new featurization of services, the general uptake of lived experience by virtualized technologies and so on) none really notices too much that they’re being fucked over and used like a penitentiary saran wrap condom.

In the famous words of John Lydon,  ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? As it stands I think most of us old enough to remember the days before the absolute hyper commercialization of the internet (I’m thinking back to my first brief exposure to it in 1985 while living in Sunnyvale when my school chum introduced me to Bay Area BBS’s, that, at their most extreme capitalistic ran more off a barter economy of swapping software and most were just wide open for free sharing) either already have that feeling or are rapidly developing it. I didn’t really start putting much time online until 06-I used the internet a good bit before, but I never had a home connection until then. And even thinking back just seven fucking years it was like the goddam wild west comparatively. Even more so in the 90′s when I’d be online, and there really just is no comparison to what, albeit little, I experienced during the 80′s.

I know, I know. Going on about the commercialization of the internet is like finally noticing the things you’ve been wearing on your feet all day are, in fact, shoes. It makes about as much sense as pointing out the militarization and state surveillance of the internet when it was originally implemented as a military project to begin with. Motherfuckers can get as cipherpunk as they want, the State concieved this whole shit to protect their nukes. And those motherfuckers in Navy CYBERFOR are a generally a lot smarter, have vastly more resources, and are a whole fuck of a lot more dedicated and better paid than 3/4ths of the civilian “haxxors” who’ll snitch each other out at the threat of jail time. Oh, and if that be treason I say make the most of it. Anonymous was neutered because people kept telling on each other. All the DDOS toys in the world wont stop a common rat.

But enough of the editorializing. Like I said at the start (and should have just shut the fuck up after), Facebook sucks Humpback oosik. And I know this. Have known it. So have you.
But it has successfully wormed it’s way into my online communication to the point where I’m just going to, like you, wipe the whale splooge off my chin and stay hard at making somebody else richer by continuing to use it.

Cause it’s not like I really have some kind of choice. It’s like when you have five pawn shops in town and only one of them isn’t going to ask you where that blood crusted police issue Glock came from when you try to hock it.

Not to mention, well, like fuck. I need to know shit about my friends cats, the horrors of water floridation, and which of my buddies punk bands are playing what shows I’ll never get to because I have to work.

And I guess…well even Crimethinc. and Crass have Facebook pages, so it can’t be that bad.

Can it?