FBolution

One day I will get bored with Facebook.  Although it seems that THAT day is not yet today.

Some get bored with my posts, the way I also get bored with some posts.  Some unfriend me and I rarely unfriend some.  But these cannot be reasons for me not to enjoy Facebook all together.

Seven-eight years into FB'ing, this type of communication has evolved into many facets; and so far I still appreciate FB for what it is:

1.  FB is for everybody.  Especially for those who want to see their own pictures that earlier were called vanity shots.  Now more popular as selfie, this love of self is so determined to be exposed so that it could easily be confused with self-determination.  After all, a selfie is a mirror frozen in time.  Could one be really determined enough to be bored with looking at oneself in the mirror?

2.  FB is for everybody.  Very much like real life, FB groups start out with one topic and then becomes so garbled with everyone talking in different frequencies (aka splatter) masked as freedoms of expression. Soon they quarrel with each other or somebody posts something for sale then everyone else starts leaving.

3.  FB is for everybody.  Those who are very outspoken on FB sometimes can be demure in real life. Is it not rare to see FBzens who can be profound on spirituality one moment and still be candid about nudity and raunchiness tomorrow?   Then there are those who smother pity on emaciated children today and parties with one politician tomorrow or some celebrity the next in the name of some kind of fancy advocacy.

4.  FB is for everybody.  Initially there was this scare that exposing your whereabouts in real time could put you in a grave security risk.  But through time there was just millions telling each other where they were that nobody really bothered whether you're slurping goop or skinny-dipping in a war zone.

5.  FB is for everybody.  For ones who did not undergo rigid training on research and documentation, FB Photo Albums can actually be a virtual stack of index cards, arranged systematically to contain exchanges that express people's thoughts in their most unguarded, thus spontaneous and natural, moments.  Which somehow makes them more human and real, don't it?

6.  FB is for everybody.  Veterans spot newbies easily.  They are the ones who thinks that all posts and comments are directed at him/her.  Or that each and every single post by others have a direct concern on him/her.  S/he feels compelled to greet every celebrant Happy Birthday or post what everybody else are posting.  If one still does any of these even with years of FB'ing s/he remains a newbie.

7.  FB is for everybody.  One's villain is another one's hero.  Nuff sed.


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Puerto Princesa
27 March 2015

Aveen Acuña-Gulo posts herself on Facebook as a Monumental Operations Manager (MOM) who is now vacationing in Palawan not as a tourist.  She is a Bukidnon-born Cebuano mother of three (3) Maguindanao-Ilonggo-Cotabateño children; who will always be a child at heart even if she is a hundred years old.

She wrote a column “The Voice” for the Mindanao Cross from 1991-2006. 

She likes to challenge stereotypes.  “Don’t worry about my opinions,” she says.  “It won’t make a dent to the conventional.”