Things People Said To Me When I Quit Facebook
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a guest post by Lane Moore, a writer and comedian who lives in New York City. She does standup routines and sketch comedy, and writes for the Onion and Ms. Magazine. Fast Horse worked with Lane on a client account — and decided to put her to work for a day on the Idea Peepshow.
Things People Said To Me When I Left Facebook
By Lane Moore
I, like 99% of the world, never liked Facebook very much. But unlike the other 99% of the world, who pretty much consistently claim they hate Facebook, I decided to… stop using Facebook. Much in the same way you’d stop hitting yourself in the face with a hammer, I figured, “I keep saying I hate this website. No one is making me use this website. I am going to stop using this website.” And so I did. And nothing really changed.
I messaged the people I genuinely liked in some measurable way and told them I was leaving and left a forwarding email address, and that was that. And after I was done, I just felt like an idiot. What kind of adult person can’t stop using a website that’s essentially a glorified address book for stalkers?
Numerous studies have reported that all Facebook really does is make everyone feel like shit. “Hey, here’s a party you didn’t go to!” “Hey, here’s a status update you wrote that no one responded to!” “Hey, the guy you’ve been in love with for years is in a relationship with someone who isn’t you!” Yet everyone’s still on it.
Apart from calculating the troubling amount of time I maintained a profile on this ridiculous website despite my distaste for it, the only other thing about my Facebook departure that truly surprised me were the number of people who responded to my direct messages like this:
“I AM SO JEALOUS.”
“Omg CONGRATS, dude!!!”
“Ugh, lucky!”
Congrats? You’re JEALOUS? I’m LUCKY? According to these responses, quitting Facebook is akin to getting a dream job where you make $60 billion for drawing on your own wrists when you feel like it, instead of what it actually is, which is hitting a button that says “I want to deactivate my account” and continuing to have a pulse.