It’s not easy being green, that’s what Kermit the Frog used to tell us. I wouldn’t know, having never been green or a frog, but I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I did watch him for close to ten years of my life and I don’t think he ever lied to me. But wait, what am I saying? Giving the benefit of the doubt in times like these? That’s lunacy, Kermit should be background checked and his phone calls tapped. We can’t trust that harlot Mrs. Piggy either, and forget about Beeker, who knows what kind of Anthrax he might be cooking up in his underground lab. Nope, we can’t trust Kermit, at least not without wiretaps and extensive surveillance procedures. Who knows, he could be a terrorist, or worse a communist. Stay vigilant, that’s how we’ll survive. Always vigilant, that’s the motto and God help us all if we aren’t. Indeed, vigilance is necessary, especially for us college students. Who knows what types of slander and gossip we might miss if we aren’t. That’s why these changes on Facebook are so important. Now we can see what everyone has done, even if we don’t really know them that well. No privacy anymore, at least not for the common people; it’s the American way. And it seems Facebook has embraced it as well. Imagine, the addictive online site we all know and love, falling into the same pattern as our government. It’s a shame, to be truthful, but are we really surprised?
Privacy has been a joke for the last couple years, what with the pentagon and the NSA examining our personal affairs. So why do we act so surprised when our favorite little blue man starts watching us too? Granted, his reasons for watching us have nothing to do with the War on Terror, being a Good American or any other noble cause pertaining to National Security. No, the little blue man’s reasons aren’t quite so dignified, but shouldn’t they be more acceptable to us?
After all, without our mutual friend Mark Zuckerberg, where would we be? You’d be wandering the corridors of cyberspace without any idea of where to turn for boredom, that’s where. Picture the frantic student, desperately wasting time double checking the New York Times or god forbid the Stock Exchange websites for good news. Oh, we don’t want a return to those days, especially not for all of those poor high school freshmen who already need their daily fix. Get ’em while they’re young. Facebook sure followed the successful model of the tobacco industry with this one. These poor high schoolers can’t go back to a Facebookless world, it’d be too cruel. But is it so bad? What are we afraid of?
Well, it can be summed up in one word, and I’ll give you a hint, it’s not Communists, escaped bears or deadly bees. It is consequences. Consequences and repercussions, possibly the two most dangerous things in anyone’s life, can be positively lethal in society. They’ll ruin your life and drag your name through the mud. But let’s be honest, isn’t that what you want?
When you logged on this morning and saw that let’s say Stacy and Brett went from an open relationship to “its complicated,” you were interested. But wait, we are at Wesleyan, so let’s be honest, it was probably more likely Brett and James. Or how about when you looked down the list and saw that two friends of yours whom you haven’t seen in over a year are now dating? Let’s admit our faults, you may not care enough to look it up, but once it is presented you do find it interesting. Privacy’s a thing of the past, to be looked back on wistfully like the typewriter, conscription, the Soviet Union and football before the forward pass.
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