Sophisticating the Rudimentary

So you’re on Facebook, right? At the very least, you have Facebook open somewhere in that pile of programs you’re forcing your computer to run. You sat down at your desk over an hour ago, calm and collected, your mind clear. Minutes later, you’ve involuntarily become Alice, skirts plumed out like an umbrella, floating in that rabbit hole which is the Internet time-suck.

A YouTube video induces laughter that quite literally has the power to have you pee yourself, as you haven’t granted yourself a potty break in over an hour and you’ve been hitting the coffee harder than usual this morning. Before you shuffle to the lavatory, you share the video on your timeline. You hit the head, flush, wash, swing an arm out on the way past your desk to swipe the empty coffee mug and make it full once more. As you settle back in to your chair you hear that wee little “ping” and your face lights up. You see the teeny world icon with that teeny red number and you try to tell your heart not to get too excited, but yes, you, your tastes, your humor, they are liked by someone on this planet. That icon is your world, is it not?

You click to see who liked the share, hoping it’s not the same bug from grade school who likes everything you ever post like an overeager grandmother who praises even the most demonic of grandchildren. You click and see the link has been liked by the guy who sat in front of you in study hall back in the day when eBaum’s World was Internet mecca and before the administration had added the domain to the blacklisted sites blocked by the district firewall. It is a worthy like.

By now you’ve clicked to see their recent posts and you’ve watched a funny video they’ve shared. Maybe it’s not funny enough for you to have liked it without prior prompting, but they liked the video you shared and feel like liking it would be the friendly thing to do. You’re not sure if anyone else thinks this way when they’re scrolling through their feeds, but you click the like button on their post.

Five minutes later you’re in a full-on inbox chat that he’s initiated.

When you regain your composure and sit back up at your desk, you raise your coffee mug and drink to another victory for the Facebook bump in.