Facebook and consumerism

Being in Interpersonal Media class has made me a bit self-conscious of what I do online. While this doesn't help the constant state of stress that I seem to be enveloped in, I think certain level of self-awareness is necessary in order to develop your "online self." Over the summer, many of the editors from The Portland Mercury began following me on Twitter. I found myself editing my tweets and thinking about them much more before I posted because of this. At first, it was a drag--I mean my Twitter is supposed to be an expression of ME! But as time wore on and I continued to amass "professional" followers, I found that my Twitter profile had become something that I could take pride in--something that I have now included on my résumé.

My Twitter profile

Facebook is a bit different. While it is still an extension of myself, I find it to be much more personal. I'm friends with people from elementary school, summer camp, college, etc. and find that the things I post are mostly to keep people in touch with what I'm interested in. And while I prefer having serious personal or professional conversations face-to-face, I do appreciate Facebook's quick way of sending a message in black-and-white. This week, however, I ran into a problem.

My friend Anna and I had been talking about Sasquatch Music Festival that happens every May in the Gorge. I've been wanting to go for a long time and the festival just happens to start on my 21st birthday this year. The lineup is great, and it seems like it will be really fun, but I just can't swing spending $400 on a single weekend (before food, beer, gas, etc). So, when one of my favorite artists announced a show in Portland that same weekend, I bought the $15 ticket and told myself that Sasquatch would have to wait.

I knew Anna would be upset that I was flaking on our plan, and as I completed my purchase, I thought about ways to tell her. Before I knew it, technology had taken away my ability to control my message--in order to buy the ticket, I had to publish my purchase on Facebook! A few minutes later, Anna commented, "this is the same weekend as Sasquatch."

I felt bad. Why did Facebook get to tell the world something that was mine to tell? Usually I LOVE using technology to send messages or boast about cool stuff I'm doing, but this irked me. I apologized (via text message) to Anna, and the whole thing blew over pretty easily. Still, the control that was taken from me by this transaction struck was off-putting. Usually I'm the one creating the image of what I do online--it isn't up to the things I buy.

This, along with a comment by someone in class last Friday, got me thinking about consumerism on Facebook. We are encouraged to "like" pages of corporations we like, stores we shop at, restaurants we like, etc. These pages are to be consumed. They offer deals for people who "like" them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. And subsequently, our friends are able to see that we support these places. We "check in" to restaurants and everyone knows we are there. What is the benefit of this display of consumption? Of wealth? In my case, I didn't want people to know I was going to see Father John Misty in May (not via Facebook), and yet there it was, "Zibby Pillote has bought tickets to see..."

As class progresses, I look forward to thinking more about the ways in which the things we buy reflect on us personally. What is the effect of broadcasting our purchases on Facebook? Have you ever experienced this, or been embarrassed about something that was automatically posted for you?