Student rant

This rant comes to us from Alex of Chagrin Falls. Alex is one of my top students. Incredible video editor. Great storyteller with pictures. All around good guy. Anyway, this is what he has to say. Enjoy.

I once had a conversation with a friend about something that was quite intriguing to the both of us (a regular occurrence in daily life for most people). This particular subject was the almost supernatural force that propels people to "creep" (as my friend put it) on facebook. Until now your current society may be leading you to believe that this is out of the norm. By "creep" I am describing the act of being on facebook and finding yourself looking at picture after picture of somebody you may not even know all that well. Why do people do this? I asked my friend.

Perhaps you may have thought that you were the only one who partook in this act of what I like to call "Peer Exploration". But in fact this is something that everyone does. Now to put the question at hand here in the simplest of terms I ask, why? There are two types of "creeping" that I have come across in my facebook travels. I don't want to call one a good kind and one a bad kind, but one type is used for different intentions than the other. The first type that I know of is like when you know somebody well, (or maybe your trying to get to know them well enough to start a relationship with them). This is not the type I am currently writing about for no particular reason. The aforementioned type of facebook "creeping" that I am talking about is the type that nobody talks about. The type that people pretend not to take part in. Not for sneaky or deceitful reasons, but just because of how odd this behavior really is. I can not shed much light on the college aspect of this phenomenon, but I am assuming that this happens on that level as well. So is it strictly curiosity, or is it something more?

Could it be that our generation has been given the advantage of an opportunity that has not been given to anyone in the past? Due to technological advances in our society, it has become possible to share a side of our self's that could not be done 10 years ago. The internet and pages such as facebook and myspace have made it possible to share with people our personal life's. For most people we do this on an appropriate and moral level. With the exception of the people who strive for attention and take topless pictures of themselves only to see what good things people will say to boost their own confidence. But that is the beauty of facebook. There will always be those people. People who want everyone to know and love them. And then there's the people who are just there, existing in everyday life, making decisions and going forth into the future with a strong hold on their own identity.

Personal pages such as facebook or myspace create a place for everyone no matter how "odd" or "weird" people classify you. When you go on a first date with a special someone it is like participating in a mutual interview. You learn things about the other person. Some you like, some you don't. By creating a facebook or a myspace page, it is somewhat similar to going on a first date with everyone who sees your page, and the same goes for every page you see. You put all that information that is given on a first date on your page for people to see. It's like creating a resume for compatibility.

Human nature is constantly evolving and making things easier (although some beg to differ). By displaying this information to the public our generation is "eliminating the middle man" so to speak. That middle man being awkward phone calls, and first dates, the usual protocol in the past. Every day more and more relationships are being started via the world wide web. You have a much better chance of meeting a "soul mate" on the internet then on the street, or at work/school. This is just simple probability. There's a much bigger group of people that you reaching by having a personal page. And again due to technological advances the group of people isn't just anyone. It is someone that already knows a little bit about you. and a group of people that choose to know you and be your friend, hence "friending" someone on Facebook. People are always searching for something more, something that is out there but seemingly unreachable. This is what I think propels "creeping" on facebook. When going through all 194 pictures of the prom queen you may be looking at the usual; to see how good she looked in her dress or how cute her and her date looked. But if you're like other people your looking for something more. You don't exactly know what that is but it is the force that makes you go through all 194 pictures.

This force goes all the way back to the concept of Manifest-Destiny. It's just something you need to do, and you will crave it until it it is done. My friend told me once that "when I start creeping, I really get into it" this is what I mean when I say "force". So to kind of sum things up here, we creep because we have to. It's just human nature. But this does not justify by any means you creeping on one particular person all the time and then becoming obsessed. Try to mix it up a bit and get a variety of different outlooks on life. live love laugh and be happy now.

Just a thought by Alex Starinsky