Unfriending Everyone

I quit Facebook and no one noticed. 

To be fair, I wasn’t a very good friend, throwing a few likes here and there and then spouting gibberish. It’s not surprising no one noticed, I hadn’t posted in a couple of months, maybe more, so it was quite easy to slip through the back door. 

It’s been four weeks.

The prelude was the neighbour keeping me up. And worse, waking me up. Suffering from existing in a social experiment within a social experiment, where capitalism is truly alive (I’m up at 5:31am and working at 5:31am), something had to give beyond an exhausted email to the building manager at 1am. I could’ve approached the neighbour but it would’ve included a meat cleaver and a body bag. It was Facebook that was punished.

I went nuclear. Permanent deletion. 

The reasons are messy and complex. The ills of the company stemming from Zuckerberg at the top their hierarchy are well documented, as is the emotional hold to stay connected, and in that respect Facebook is a cult, even if self-designed.  Facebook knows we need it more than it needs us, we’ll return just like those major advertisers. 

The irony isn’t lost on me – tossing digital connection aside at the moment it takes its place in history as our in-person interactions are curtailed, and of course for anyone to read this other than the odd strange cat, I’d need to post on Facebook.

I had met all but three of my Facebook connections, it was a rule, a conversation, a physical memory required. But Facebook made me lazy, lazy in maintaining friendships, lazy in cultivating new ones. The connections were important, either creative, family, and in a few cases old friends, which is why it has taken me since October of last year when I first thought seriously about quitting. It took that long to accept, they are not permanently lost, just on Facebook. 

Admittedly that last glance was nice, people out in nature, finding success in film. I intended to do one last post, to ask friends to post their website or another medium they use (but not announce I was leaving).

It was too late, I was gone and held my resolve, and now the 30th day since deletion is almost complete. According to the company, my 12.5 year records will be wiped. Tomorrow I’ll wake up a free man, or at least one free from Facebook.