Straight People, Listen! The Pervasiveness of Cruelty In Mass Culture

Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him.


"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

                                          Shirley Jackson, The Lottery (1948)

Last weekend the Radical household went to see The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010), otherwise known as "The Facebook movie."  Starring the eerily enigmatic Jessie Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, it is a must-see, a fast-paced drama about the birth of the social networking site that any fool can use, and any fool does.  I left the theater feeling slightly soiled, in part because scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin leaves enough of the story line unresolved that at the end of the movie I was unsure about exactly how treacherous Zuckerberg was and why.  That he is brilliant is clear; that he is on the Asberger's spectrum is certainly implied; but whether he betrayed everyone he knew (including his soul-mate, Napster founder Sean Parker, played brilliantly by Justin Timberlake) and everyone who was ever kind to him, is a question the film also never answers.  One of the most highly interpretable lines in the film is when Eduardo, Zuckerberg's partner and CFO, says accusingly in response to being forced out of Facebook just prior to it becoming a Big Deal:  "I was your only friend."  Which is true -- and yet we, the audience, have seen breathtakingly cruel moments in which Zuckerberg has expressed a bitterness towards Eduardo that no normal person would express to a friend, moments that Eduardo himself has overlooked.

Needless to say, the urge to run home and open your Facebook is overwhelming, in part to see if it feels like Switzerland.  You know what I mean:  kind and pretty on the surface, and relying on a lot of confiscated wealth from depositors (who "mysteriously" never returned to get their money) to maintain its lovely appearance.  I've always thought that Facebook features like Farmville were creepy, but now it's hard to rid myself of the feeling that the whole thing is creepy.  I'm staying on it, but it's creepy.

Facebook also feels creepy because recently, at Zenith and at Rutgers, it has been the preferred method for a young person to leave a suicide note.  The Rutgers tragedy has underlined the capacity the internet creates to enhance everyday cruelties that people visit on each other.  As multiple reports describe it, fellow students Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei taped freshman Tyler Clementi making out with a new boyfriend and posted it to the internet.  Clementi, overcome with shame, jumped off the George Washington bridge.  Hence, the internet itself is both the beginning of the Clementi story and the end, the medium and the message

Coincidentally, "The Social Network" also begins with bullying.  The narcissistic Zuckerberg unrolls his plans for fame and fortune at Harvard to a girlfriend, who (sensibly) breaks up with him.  Zuckerberg's response is to go home and, shall we say, "unfriend," the woman through a vitriolic post on his blog.  Hence, a movie that shows the historical process by which "friend" will become a verb begins by demonstrating the power of the internet to destroy and to give virtual life to the most vicious of human emotions.  The movie that follows is punctuated by lightly coded moments of everyday brutality  in which Zuckerberg sees his status as an outsider graphically demonstrated by others who casually take their own superiority for granted. What you don't know until much later is that behind his enigmatic, expressionless face, this code-writing genius is also hatching elaborate plots for revenge.

And yet, is it really technology that has created new possibilities for social cruelty?  As our friends at Roxie's World noted last Sunday, in their post mourning Tyler Clementi, "Technology hasn't made humans less kind than they were in some non-existent machine-free past. It has only amplified the sound and accelerated the speed at which our unkindnesses circulate. We shouldn't disparage any act of kindness or any effort to foster greater kindness in the world. Instead, we should commit ourselves to creating a world in which kindness travels as quickly and gets as much attention as its opposite."

I agree.  I also think that, when older generations criticize the young for how horrible they are to each other, it is worth remembering that teenagers didn't invent homophobia, and they didn't invent the cultural fascination for shaming that traditional media are currently using to keep their tottering financial ships afloat.  From the magazines that inform us about every detail of Ashton Kutcher's betrayal of his (older) wife, to the endless commentary about why Shiloh Jolie-Pitt insists on wearing boy's clothes (and why Brad and Angelina permit it, thus driving a two by four into the gender system with their awesome social power), to Jerry Springer's endless "transsexual surprises" (in which apparently "heterosexual" couples are brought out on stage for a "confession" that is invariably followed by a transphobic brawl), to prime-time reality shows in which people agree to be shamed on public television for having bad pets, being fat, depressed, unclean, hoarders and/or single, we are a nation of criticism and wagging fingers.   In fact, much like our forebears, who thought that a day in the public stocks would set things back on track, we seem compelled to separate the few sheep from the mass of unlovely goats.  Shaming is the first step in setting our national house in order.

Cyberbullying is an old phenomenon with a new set of tools available, tools that are only sometimes employed by the young.  And of course, as Shirley Jackson pointed out in 1948, when somebody else is chosen, the rest of us are often impatient to "finish quickly" and move on, shaking our heads sorrowfully about the unpleasant excesses expressed by a few deviant souls who made the mistake of hitting "post" when other, more civilized folk, were just sniggering behind the victim's back.

Straight people, listen!  Why it is that otherwise "normal" teenagers are so profoundly insecure as to look for ways to lord it over their peers, and what kind of behavior has been modeled to them that makes them think it is ok? Why do they choose gay kids? Are they expressing the homophobia that you have come to take for granted?

Straight people, listen.

Sharing the Weirdness: Facebook, Meetings and The Beginning of School

Yesterday, as at least some of my Facebook "friends" know, I had to attend a meeting and realized too late that I probably should not have done so. It was a meeting for faculty advisers, one that exists in order to remind us that advising (particularly for first years and transfers) is an important job; to thank us for doing it; to remind us of the resources available to our students; and to instruct us in the ways of the on-line registration system. I tried to remember the last year I had attended this meeting and couldn't, so I went.

Mistake. There was nothing I didn't know already or that wasn't in a handout, even though all kinds of worthy people spoke, spoke well, and spoke rather succinctly. When they weren't succinct, it wasn't their fault, as periodically someone in the audience became hopelessly confused. If I can say I learned anything it was that faculty really ought not to complain about their students not listening properly and asking questions that have already been answered, because we are, as a genus, just as flawed in this respect as they are. Probably more so because we are more likely to ask questions at......great.......length.

Which leads me to the part that takes me aback: my own behavior. As it turned out, I was unable to sit through a meeting that bored me without fidgeting, texting, whispering to my neighbor, and going on Facebook repeatedly to update all my "friends" (many of whom were in the room) about my status. Status as what? Status as a middle-aged person who has utterly lost patience with meetings? Status as someone who has utterly lost hir manners?

If it were not for the mileage I get for this blog from being on Facebook, I would definitely punish myself by canceling my account, since my behavior yesterday seems like de facto proof of cerebral and personality changes that have been wrought by this particular form of new media. I wasn't even able to sit there quietly reading The Atlantic on my iPhone, which is the kind of non-disruptive behavior that many fifth graders with ADD have mastered.

The other reason I am turning on Facebook is that it is starting to weird me out. I have noticed that, in the right hand bar where suggestions of people you might want to be "friends" with appear, I am beginning to get hints that there are celebrities who I share so many "friends" with that Facebook feels that I must be friends with them too and have simply forgotten. These potential "friends" include:

Armistead Maupin (6 friends)

Amy Tan (6 friends -- and not the same ones!)

John Sayles (10 friends)

Kimberly Pierce (5 friends)

James Ellroy (3 friends)

Who could forget being friends with the director of Boys Don't Cry and Stop Loss? I am one of about a dozen people in Amerika who actually think Stop Loss is one of the finest films made about the Iraq War, so perhaps I ought to be friends with Kimberly Peirce (plus she looks really gay.) So I "friended" her just to see what would happen and got a bounce-back message that she has so many friend requests pending that she can't have any more until she deals with them.

This has never happened to me. Her Gmail account must be a hell-hole, that's all I can say.

But what accounts for these invitations to "friend" famous authors and film makers? Different things, as it turns out. I do have one "friend," who I met at a party and actually would be real friends with if I didn't live in the Styx, who is a documentary film maker;another who is a queer cultural critic in southern California; and a third who is a freelance journalist in L.A. Well over 2/3 of my "friends" are gay, which accounts for at least three, and perhaps all these connections. But the other "friends" I share with these people are utterly random, as far as I can tell -- except, of course, that it is exactly the fact that Facebook has rendered the random not random at all that is weirding me out.

Which means that even if I left Facebook, I would still be living in a Thomas Pynchon novel where meetings, no matter how meaningless, nevertheless have a meaning that has yet to be divined. I now realize that it was not that I did not know what would be revealed in the advisers' meeting that drew me to it. It was that I did not know what had yet to be revealed, perhaps even to those running the meeting, in the guise of what I already knew that may have drawn me there to begin with. To wit:

The men inside the auction room wore black mohair and had pale, cruel faces. They watched her come in, trying each to conceal his thoughts. Loren Passerine, on his podium, hovered like a puppet-master, his eyes bright, his smile practiced and relentless. He stared at her, smiling, as if saying, I'm surprised you actually came. Oedipa sat alone, toward the back of the room, looking at the napes of necks, trying to guess which one was her target, her enemy, perhaps her proof. An assistant closed the heavy door on the lobby windows and the sun. She heard a lock snap shut; the sound echoed a moment. Passerine spread his arms in a gesture that seemed to belong to the priesthood of some remote culture; perhaps to a descending angel. The auctioneer cleared his throat. Oedipa settled back, to await the crying of lot 49.

And of course, by Facebooking the whole time, I probably missed it.

OK, just kidding. Happy beginning of the semester, dear Reader.

Speaking Of Gender, Facebook Is Concerned About Mine

I read somewhere recently (and I thought it was the New York Times but now I can't find the story) that a great many women are removing their date of birth from Facebook because they are sick of getting gross and insulting ads about their bodies. It is simply true that nothing is free, even on the internet: everything one signs up for has some kind of questionnaire aimed at creating a marketing profile for you -- oh, excuse me, "opportunities" for you -- that can be squeezed in everywhere. You can always check the box that prevents them from selling your identity to every spammer alive, but what you can't prevent is advertising tailored crudely to those of your gender and age.

Yahoo! is terrible, although I realize that were I to agree to pay for email I could get rid of their ads in a heartbeat. Endless acai berry products are the best ones. I'm not sure whether my least favorite ads are the ones that promise weight loss, complete with pulsing, saggy body parts poking out of ill-fitting garments and dripping with puckered cellulite; the sponge that de-wrinkles a craggy woman as if by magic; or the mortgage ads with manic, dancing figures that command me to get a second mortgage now because President Obama wants me to.

To quote Britney Spears, "Lollypop, do you take me for a sucker?"

The Facebook ads are less gross, mostly because they are smaller, but it's the same theme: you grow old, you grow old, you shall wear the bottoms of your trousers rolled. Hot flashes, wrinkles, flab. This is your future. get used to it.

No! No! No!

Now I happen to be in pretty good shape, am quite athletic, and would never color the gray hair that I have. But middle age causes anxiety all the same. Add to that the specifically female afflictions that I am being hammered with, and the female shame that I am supposed to feel about aging, and it has been a constant irritation to this butch lesbian feminist.

What to do? I didn't want to remove my birthday, because I like the idea that people will wish me happy birthday (even though you will notice that I never look for or acknowledge yours; sorry, it isn't one of my strengths.) But I thought: how about if I remove my gender? Is it required information?

Why no, it isn't, and I did just that. Hooray! Suddenly the ads changed. Games! Continuing education! On-line accountants! Psychics! Horoscopes! Problem solved.

"Not so fast, Mister. Or Miss. Or whoever you are," some Facebook administrator muttered. Now I get a little message every time I click on my profile page that says:

"Which example applies to you? Right now your profile may be confusing. Please choose how we should refer to you. Click one:

Tenured Radical edited her profile.
Tenured Radical edited his profile."

Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me?

What a hoot. And I have to hand it to them, the tone is perfect: friendly, non-antagonistic, encouraging. I imagine it's how people might talk to me if I were on a four-day crying jag, or had had a terrible nervous breakdown, or were crashing after a methamphetamine binge. I imagine myself wrapped in lovely warm towels, on soothing drugs and in a pink room with soft music playing in the background. Nurse Ratched is smiling encouragingly with a big, whacking hypodermic in one hand, trying to encourage me in the least threatening possible way to remember what my gender is or to commit to a gender at least, even if it's not one we can agree on. "Because you see, dear," Nursie is saying in my imagination; "People may be confused...other people are, well, upset about this, and if you could just answer the question it would be so much better for them."

I am going to see how long I can tolerate the pop-up instead.