“The more you know each other the more alone you are…”

A few weeks ago I went on my facebook account, as I do on a daily basis, browsing through people's thoughts and activities, when I stumbled over someone declaring his best friend’s death. “RIP”, it said accompanied by a bunch of likes (as in thumbs up for telling us? a gesture of sympathy?).
I, having worked with both of them, dead guy and friend, read curiously over the various comments trying to figure out what the guy had died of. My justification? I had a vague connection with this former coworker. Yet, I never exchanged more than the obligatory “hi, how is it going”- phrases with him, and now I found myself researching about his death.

On facebook.

I literally browsed it.

I observed peoples reactions and responses but I felt awkward enough not to comment or like it. Neither did I express my condolences because it felt wrong.

Facebook among sharing “important” daily updates further became a reminder of birthdays, weddings, babies, breakups, stuff…

And Death.

It’s fucked up.

Pretty much as fucked up as Josh Harris saying goodbye to his dying mom on videotape.

“I love her virtually instead of physically” he says at some point in Timoner’s documentary “We Live in Public”. A crushing moment, and very real one considering that this man is a number one public figure, constantly performing his life in front of the camera.

Josh Harris, an on times hardly lovable human being, embodies the alienation of the individual with society. But not only that- he exploits, dissects and finally maybe even escapes said alienation (too bad we didn’t get to know more about his current situation in Ethiopia).

While I felt freaked out by his merciless approach to other humans throughout the film I ended up sympathizing with him because after all he did not spare himself.

The experiment “Quiet- we live in public” was a real- life version of what happens on the internet all day everyday now. Only difference, there was no animosity among the participants. Oddly enough animosity is a major part of modern communication. Paradoxical? Yes.

Why, then are we shaking our heads and can’t close our mouths in astonishment about the “monster” he created? -Probably, because his “Guinea pigs” could not log off the youtube -sex channel or facebook. I felt angry about this seemingly exploitative art project. But I get just as angry at people who complain about facebook and google etc violating their privacy. After all those “Quiet”- underground society members made the choice to participate. So do we and “We” means millions and millions of people.

Maybe I somewhat wanted to hate this character while watching “We live in public” because he seemed to smile at me, putting a mirror in front of my face.

Et voila, here I am, browsing everyday through other people’s lives and stories,“keeping in touch” via all kinds of social network sites- youtubing away...

But most importantly I let other people see me, maybe not to the extent that Harris did but my face is out there. And anybody who has seen Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” knows that not only are we voyeurs, we know that eyes are on us. We like being watched and we like to matter, especially in the vast global network that we are part of.

Harris exploited every little part of it and we got to give him credit for it.

And yes,although my smartphone and laptop try to convince me of the opposite, sometimes I do catch myself walking through the city among thousands of people and feel terribly alone.