Social Media and the Real

Forewarned: The following is a fairly pessimistic critique of what might be and a deeply introspective look at what unfortunately is for me all too often. This foreword serves to make it sound much worse than it is.

Just about everybody has a Facebook. Lots of people have Twitter. A growing number of my friends (myself included) use foursquare to let each other know exactly where we are nearly every minute of the day. Hell, I even use this blog to keep random people informed of my every self-important thought. But why? What is it about social media that so fascinates us? Why tell people where we are or what we’re doing? Why post voyeuristic pictures from our everyday experiences on Facebook for God and everybody to look at? What is my obsession with all of this digital socialization?

Obviously the answers to such questions are complicated. At its most noble, its about extending community beyond the bounds of geographic or temporal limitations. For example, I have a friend in Japan who, at last check, was waiting to eat some Italian food. (That was two hours ago, so hopefully she’s eaten by now, but the point remains: to know what goes on in her life from around the world with only a two hour delay is pretty incredible.) I’m currently playing Words with Friends with people from the good ol’ SGF, with a friend in South Carolina, and with a guy I only know through social media in San Fran. I have a penpal in Africa. I have maintained relationships with people from high school and even my childhood, all through the wonders of the internet. I can check out pictures of my cousin’s baby in St. Louis. The other day, I literally saw (via Skype) a friend of mine who currently lives in Chile.

But even to call this noble is a bit self-contradictory. See, not only do I have these incredible experiences, I feel the need to use social media to tell you, the third-party voyeur, all about them. In my own estimation, while I do have some incredible relational experiences because of social media, its primary purpose for me is to make sure that random onlookers–the so-called “third Other,” if you will–will be aware of just how meaningful my life is. In large part, this is rooted in my desire to experience “real life.” In his overview of the Real, Lacanian psychoanalyst, Slavoj Žižek cites Alain Badiou‘s estimation of such an obsession:

Alain Badiou identified as the key feature of the twentieth century the “passion of the Real [la passion du réel]“: in contrast to the nineteenth century of utopian or “scientific” projects and ideals, plans for the future, the twentieth century aimed at delivering the thing itself, at directly realizing the longed-for New Order–or, as Fernando Pessoa puts it: ” . . . do not crave to construct in space / which appears to live in the future, / and to promise you some kind of tomorrow. Realize yourself today, do not wait. / You alone are your life.” The ultimate and defining experience of the twentieth century was the direct experience of the Real as opposed to everyday social reality–the Real in its extreme violence as the price to be paid for peeling off the deceptive layers of reality.

Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003), 63.

In other words, it seems to me that my desire to experience the Real often translates into a violent abuse of social media to validate such attempted experiences. So, I go out; I get together with friends; we talk and laugh; we drink coffee or beer; we go to shows; we go this place and that place, all around, living. And then I violently (read: somewhat against your will, though you do indeed choose to “follow” or “friend” me, which may say something about masochism) force the description of those experiences on you. I do this not for your benefit but for mine. By informing you of what I’m doing, it seems that I am, at least in part (and it is a part that I greatly resent) trying to make you jealous. If you envy my life, then I must be really living. Rather than simply recognizing what is Real about my life (if such things do exist in my life) and enjoying them, I can prove their authenticity to myself by telling you and assuming that you have deemed them worthy of an enviable life.

So, if Badiou was right, and the twentieth century was obsessed with the Real as something to be realized, I might suggest that the twenty-first century is preoccupied with the perception of the real. Late twentieth century philosophers (such as Badiou) began to question metaphysics, suggesting that there are innumerable narratives that people live in and interact with. In other words, there is no Real (or any other such Capitalized metaphysical Thing). Instead, what took the place of the Real was the contextual, community-defined “reals” that we strive after as our very own Reals. Perhaps the twenty-first century and its dependence on the shared experiences of social media allows us to experience such authentic reals relative to the judgments of our communities, which are no longer geographically determined. Therefore, my obsessive attempts to achieve the Real are really only desperate pleas for affirmation from a community whose approval is much more real to me than the elusive Real.

The only questions then remaining are the questions of value and ethics. If it is this way (feel free to argue that point), should it be? What does it mean to live ethically in a community when so much of my own attempts at living are a sort of selfish plea for approval? To be honest, I’m not really sure. But if I figure it out, I’ll tweet it and let you know. Then you will be so impressed.