25 Things

originally published in the Gonzaga Bulletin, 2009

It seems every day lately, as I sign onto my Facebook for my daily allotment of time wasting, I am greeted by countless stories in my Mini-Feed about so-and-so’s TOP 25 THINGS. At first, intrigued, I clicked on these notes, only to descend into lists of banal, uninteresting or simply uncomfortable facts. Soon after the 25 Things explosion, people began to complain about the transformation of Facebook into Myspace, a transformation that compromised a former refuge of the bulletin-weary masses into more of the same.

Each note becomes painfully more formulaic, as people attempt to distinguish themselves as individuals with statements like, “I love strawberries. I always have,” or, “I love singing along with the radio!” Truly fascinating notions towards understanding human condition…

For years, users turned to Facebook because it provided a different, simpler online space. Until recently, Facebook stood, glittering on the horizon, a Myspace without the training wheels. However, with the advent of trends like 25 Things notes, the question rises; is Facebook becoming Myspace?

Simply put, yes.

But the problem isn’t that it is becoming Myspace, but rather that the change represented by 25 Things notes is much larger.

25 Things lists are the symptoms of a larger epidemic evident on other websites — not just Myspace. Websites like Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, LiveJournal and the variety of other networking and communication sites perpetuate a certain level of cultural narcissism especially prevalent today in our highly internet-dependent society. The problem is not what our 25 Things are, but rather what the list itself says about us.

The true problem with 25 Things (and the fusion of Myspace and Facebook) is that it perpetuates the idea that our personal lives are so interesting people should want to know about them. Both Facebook and Myspace are oozing with information no one cares to know about. Nonetheless, we continue to believe that what we put up matters.

The assumption within the Facebook “status” is that people care about what we do. Everyday, we update our statuses, assuming that people care that “Hanna Laney is watching TV”. It is this obsession with our own actions and lives that becomes uncomfortably obvious when trends like 25 Things emerge.

Another confusing layer of the 25 Things phenomena is the simultaneous acknowledgement of its stupidity and the unyielding acquiescence to its social influence. Many times, people begin their notes with the utterly befuddling, “I-didn’t-want-to-do this-but-I-guess-I-will!” sentiment, as if our being tagged in an online note is enough to make us abandon our sense of online propriety. It is this preamble that suggests we ought to know better. We understand the ridiculousness of the trend but we continue to perpetuate it. Are we merely bugs hurdling towards the entrancing bright light of the 25 Things with reckless abandon?

I fully assume a spot among the narcissistic masses, as quick review of my own Facebook exhibits enough pointless pictures, trite updates on my everyday actions and sections of useless information regarding my interests to bore even the most dedicated of viewers.

I suppose what it comes down to is the fact that we have become obsessed with our own lives. 25 Things notes do not signal the shift from Facebook to Myspace, but rather a reality about who we are and how the internet makes us that way. It is not the morphing of Facebook into Myspace that should alarm us; it is the constant stream of updates, pictures and statuses that should send us running for the hills.

Where do we go from here? Do we give up on trying to separate Facebook from Myspace, Twitter from Photobucket, and LiveJournal from Blogspot? I am not sure that’s entirely possible. Perhaps we simply accept the reality of what these websites say about us, we accept a certain level of obsession with our lives. Maybe these issues are anything but clear. However, the truth about 25 Things is clear.

You can skip the extra 24, it really comes down to one thing.

1.) Nobody cares.