Facebook account: deactivated.
It feels good right now. We’ll see how long it takes me to either kick the habit completely or break down and crawl back into Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual arms — because, as I was so insinuatingly reminded, you can never actually leave Facebook: “Your Facebook account has been deactivated. To reactivate your account, log in using your old login email and password. You will be able to use the site like you used to. We hope you come back soon.” Nothing’s actually gone. Like the hotel in The Shining, once you sell your soul, a part of you will be stuck there forever. Everything will be there just the way you left it. Facebook is full of ghosts: that digital identity will always be there, frozen in time, at least until Facebook goes bankrupt and purges their server farm.
Even without the melodrama, it’s discomforting to know that they have all my personal information — digital souvenirs from five years of my life, all out of my control — just sitting there. It’s a good thing I was never planning on running for office. I can’t imagine it being too long before we start seeing “SENATOR [NAME]‘S CAMPAIGN TORPEDOED BY SORDID FACEBOOK PICS” showing up in the news; journalists, private investigators, and blackmailers are going to be taking that stuff to the bank for years to come — not to mention the marketers who are already fondling over our personal data.
All seriousness aside: how weird is it that Facebook stages a virtual intervention, like some kind of cliche cop-drama crisis negotiator, when you try to deactivate?
"Your friends will miss you."
“Don’t do anything crazy. Think of the people who care about you — your friends, your family. Do you really want this to be the end? You don’t have to do this. Come back here with us. We can fix this.”
