Tim Barrus: The New York Times

Different versions of one’s second selves remains a successful strategy. Greed is not a second self. It is a spectrum. We are not what we pretend to be on Facebook.

My actual friends plead with me not to lift the veil. My friends are nothing like your friends. My friends have always lived in the margins, they are not mainstream, they are not average, they are not typical, they are not contributing members to society.

They’re nocturnal. It’s about the optics.

They’re thieves. Hackers. Criminals. Junkies. Artists. Poets. They’re drivers of the getaway car. They’re prostitutes. They’re young boys with HIV who do sex work. They’re not consuming content. They’re making it. They know that surrounding themselves with colorful junk insinuates a suburban mirage of stuff, constructing a shell they can retreat into that deflects cultural radar.

Man has worn disguise since the day he started walking the Savanna upright. Fat Homo sapiens projected wealth. Emaciated humans projected compliance to a hierarchy whose greed only allowed for other members of the species to own a superficial version of net worth.

Who you mated with was not a game of throwing dice. GNP was no longer limited to the branches of a tree. The hides of other animals could be worn blatantly as a message not to mess around with anyone who could wear someone else’s skin. Power arrives in images.

Facebook is about images.

No one wants to be left behind in the branches of the tree.

Facebook is…

No one really know what Facebook is.