There I am. Wrapped in a polyester neon dress. Posterior sticking out. Non-existent boobs pushed up to chin, like some brain damaged penguin. Lips pursed to the camera. “Life, Luv, Laugh wit dem hoesss xxxx” says the caption of the picture. More Snookie than Lolita.
I was thirteen.
Thirteen.
I believe when faced with milestone moments in our lives, we have a tendency to become nostalgic. Nostalgic for those warm childhood days, ice cream dripping down our faces. Nostalgic for family outings, BBQs, Barbie dolls.
Yet there I am.
No Barbies. No ice cream.
Just me. There. Holding a red Solo cup.
And it's not a rare occurrence- clicking through countless middle school pictures of myself on Facebook prove this- previous classmates eloquently comment “omfg grll u looking sexi”. “LOLZZZ that wus one crazyy nite!!” and my personal favorite “dayumm u badd!”. Bad? That's a joke. It was probably water in that cup. Twenty dollars from babysitting money covered the purchase of that dress. I was most likely watching Nickelodeon before that Bar Mitzvah.
Yet there I am. A half naked pubescent giraffe. More Steve Buscemi than Marilyn Monroe.
Thirteen.
I wasn't alone. Marlene wearing the same dress in pink (“no waisss we could b twinsies!”). Gill wearing blue instead of black eyeliner. Tamara licking her lips (more Bruiser than Elle Woods). What were we trying to accomplish?
What did we understand about sex?
What a foreign concept. There we were, trying desperately to entice our viewer by half exposing ourselves. To gain approval from boys our age. Mimicking MTV heroines and Mean Girl libertines. Yet even kissing was a rarity. Forget tongues. It was slimy and gross and reserved for “those” girls.
Yet there I was, with cotton balls stuffed in my Target training bra.
One of “those” girls.
However, there's a discontinuity. I can't reconcile my life portrayed on the internet and my life as an actual pre-teen girl. Instead, of Us Weekly, I read Agatha Christie. Rather than sipping Jaegermeister, I watched Lizzy Maguire. Then why, in those pictures, did I look like a cheaper version of Paris Hilton?
I can't blame my parents. We weren't especially religious but they tried to encourage us to be morally sound. I got grounded when bad grades came in. I was rewarded for being generous.
All that hoopla.
I lived in a relatively sound community my whole life. My family often participated in fundraisers (if buying girl scout cookies counts as “participating”), had two golden retrievers- we all wore J Crew and Ralph Lauren. The sexiest article of clothing I owned was an orange pair of high-waisted flare jeans
(my orange flares brings all the boys to the yard)
Yet. There. I. Am.
I have to blame someone. The person staring back at my screen isn't “me”. It's not the same girl who wrote in her diary about how dreamy Kyle Kent's golden hair from Homeroom 310 looked. Not the same person who talked about how mean Natalie Williams was for inviting everybody but her to the movies.
There's a discontinuity.
I logged into Facebook for the first time in January 2007, three months shy of my thirteenth birthday, and halfway through my 7th grade. Facebook had officially been public for more than a month, and it spread like nothing short of a virus.
I had no reason to join. I didn't need to stay in contact with long-distance friends. I had one of those grey flip-phones to call my friends. I essentially knew everybody in my school. I had no desire to meet new people.
I joined simply because everybody else did.
At first, a couple friends joined (“It's so much fun! We can talk, like, instantly!”). Then in the blink of an eye, it felt like I was the last person at the party. At lunch, it was about how “beautiful” Jenna Yellman looked in her new dress in her profile picture. Or how Dianna Reinhardt changed her relationship status to “in a relationship”, and who the mystery guy was. Or how funny and witty it was for Juliette Alpers and Francesca Mendez to be “married” on their profile. Expect you're stuck with the violet Barbie airplane and all you want is to play with them and their brand new Action Man jeep.
When first registering for a Facebook account, back in 2007, you had to be fourteen or older, associated with a high school in the database, and have a valid email address. Of course, according to Facebook, I was a 89 year old woman currently attending New Canaan High School who went by puppygrrl24@gmail.com. Then after speed scrolling through pages of “user agreements policies” and agreeing to a bunch of stuff, I was finally on my profile. But you can't just “friend” your friends like that. I needed to look good. So I kindly asked my dad to take a picture of me cuddling my dog in an effort to look cute and nice and approachable (my dog was not amused).
Then you have to define everything about your personality and who you are as a human being in a couple paragraphs. Favorite music. Well I liked Evanescence, Avril Lavigne, Fall Out Boy etc. But what if Kyle Kent from homeroom 310 doesn't like Fall Out Boy? Doesn't he always listen to Eminem? Ok. Favorite music. Eminem, Evanescence, Avril Lavigne, Fall Out Boy, etc. Favorite TV Shows. You can't actually admit to watching the Jeff Corwin Experience on Animal Planet in middle school, so instead you casually mention your absolute undying love for Laguna Beach (Natalie Williams would be proud).
After a week you're hooked. Did super-cool Elliot Smith accept my friend request? How many notifications did I get? Did people comment on my pictures? At first, people flood in, telling you how “amazing” you are for coming on Facebook, about how “beautiful” you are in your profile picture. You are finally part of the “in”.
Then another couple weeks go by. Notifications trickle in less and less until you wonder what changed. Why your friends are no longer rewarding you with praise. What changed that you are no longer “amazing” and “beautiful”. Natalie Williams has 27 likes on her profile picture, how come you only have 14? what makes Natalie Williams more deserving?
Its like when you are five, and you get this amazing shiny Barbie airplane, the kind you've wanted for weeks because the Barbie in the TV commercial looked so freaking happy in the pilot seat. The entirety of your dreams focused on that one single cardboard box, wrapped in Santa Claus paper, desperately waiting for you to go berserk and rip it open. You think to yourself how ignorant and jealous your brother must be, sitting there next to you, because he can't understand the value of that Barbie aircraft. And then you see. He got the Action Man super pimped out all-terrain Jeep. And you start thinking about how nice and how freaking happy Barbie would look like at the wheel of that Jeep. And then the plane is no longer than shiny bright pink color, but rather a dull violet.
It’s the exact same thing.
So I took another profile picture. This time, I wore a tight tank top, let my hair down, pouted my lips, and cuddled my dog. The next day, six people liked my picture. The day after, another ten likes, and five comments. By the end of the week, I had 28.
This became a foolproof formula for instant gratification.
By the time I entered 8th grade, my whole social life was online. Nothing went on without a post on it in Facebook, a Facebook Group dedicated to spreading the news- yet the news never left my 13'' screen; nothing went on in the real world unless its existence was validated in this virtual conglomerate of “users”. Calling people was a quasi-prehistoric concept at this point. It's like watching Pretty in Pink with your parents, and you point out that Molly Ringwald looks rather stupid talking into an immobile large beige box- then they try to convince you it's a “cell-phone”. Communication was instant. No need to dial. No need to deal with all the intimate and emotional crap that comes with speaking to someone. Why bother when all interaction now sufficed with a simple “LOL” or “<3 u” ? The genius of it- the entirety of human emotions expressed in two to three characters, applicable in any situation:
Gill: “OMFG did u c Jenna's hair today???? ”
Me: “LOL <3 it!”
Gill: “:) Ikkkkk btw hows ur brother???”
Me: “OMFG dont remind me he has the flu!”
Gill: “ew lol srryyy :(:(:(”
Me: “lol no worries <3”
Gill: “lol c yaaaa love yaaaa <3”
Me: “<3<3<3<3”
By 9th Grade, Facebook had encompassed not merely my social life, but the majority of life itself. Why bother watching the news or reading a newspaper when the first thing I'll read June 25th, 2009 is “R.I.P. Michael Jackson, <3 ur an inspiration to us allll <3<3” (you know, disregarding the drug use and possible charges) from a 14 year old girl? By now, Facebook was such an integral part of teenage life that even community service could be done in an efficient, worry-proof manner. No need to even leave the comfort of the house and be exposed to the real world. By simply “liking” a picture of cancerous morphine-doped six year old in Arkansas, we could show the whole world how much of a generous and amazing person we were with little threat to our personal comforts. So we comment, “like”, add a couple hearts to ensure our viewer understood the extent of our dedication to the cause.
By August 2010 I was off Facebook. I was caught up in watching countless John Hughes movies and hearing my parents talk about the glory days of the 80s where friendships were formed through phone calls, not statuses-where reading books was an actual pastime and days were long and rich- where time wasn't wasted staring at a screen- where the world was actually a promise to youthful adventures.
By August 2011, I was back on Facebook.
It became so intertwined in our daily lives that even being off Facebook felt like living on another planet where people are forced to watch CNN and actually go to soup kitchens. It's a cold turkey you can't wait to heat up, to gobble back up- to be back in this hyper-stream of information with all its savory gravy and fat-dripping coulee.
So to my thirteen year old self I comment; “lolz, honey, ur lookin a lil ano <3- eat some turkey”