Facebook is *Social* Media, Twitter Thankfully Isn't
Facebook simply doesn't work for some people.
In facebook *you* are the show. You're supposed to share yourself with Zuckerberg your graph and that somehow is considerate. Also you're supposed to share the most positive parts of your life because that is considerate - "friendship is the mutual exchange of positive energy" somebody said that in a book you read before facebook hit critical mass. Also your posts should have a colorful photo because otherwise you're being inconsiderate of peoples' time asking them to listen to you talk read your text.
I never felt much sexism until facebook.
For on fb the role of the woman in society is to share pictures of yourself or your offspring. "Happy wife, happy life" goes the saying, and on facebook it is your job to bring positive energy to the platform in the form of self-objectifying photos or colorful active photos of your friends. You are now wife to your fb graph, gracefully greeting your male friends with their gin-and-tonic you prepared as you heard them logging in to escape the darkness of their daily grind which they must keep in motion to *provide* for their IRL wife.
Facebook provided an odd view into each other's worlds - worlds of the working women and the stay-at-home moms SAHMs. Specifically the SAHMs who treat camping it up, working out two hours per day followed by mani-pedicures, not making things too complicated for dear husband, being "light and breezy" as Ellen Fein and Sherri Schneider implored us to be, as their job. And most important not talking too much. Put a picture up sweetie, please, can you? Work was brutal today. I promise to listen to you later, now I just want to look at you. The Real Housewives of Facebook.
To many women keeping a hand in the corporate world past age 35, the Real Housewives of Facebook can seem disorienting. That's how they live? It's not too different from your own life - you also spend an hour at the gym three times per week, mixed with pre-work runs to burn off the cortisol to keep your cool with the new boss assigned to you from the parent company that just acquired your startup which was more of a meritocracy. You work out because have to focus - maybe they do too. You wish you had a wife who could greet you at the door with a cocktail when you came home, but step zero to getting a wife is first turning yourself gay and you don't know the algorithm for changing orientation so that's tabled. The last thing in the world a corporate woman wants to do is both put on her wife show for her current IRL partner and do it again on facebook where she serves the men and the not-really-working SAHMs - some more Real than others. But let's face it corporate men love facebook. Corporate women, eh.
Twitter is just media. It is not *social* media. Your social graph is not immutable there, you are allowed to follow and unfollow grow and change. You're not hemmed in by that one friend who plays group sheepdog, nipping at your heels if you haven't shown up to someone's birthday party even though said birthday did not end in zero much less five. The IRL social sheepdog plays an important role in life, the rewards of showing up even when you're not feeling it is people show up for you in surprising ways. But on facebook there is no role for the group sheepdog. The algorithm is the sheepdog.
Sure twitter is soundbytes and bits flying by, not real writing. But it forces condensed thought. It is text dominant.
On twitter you can point to articles and share ideas. It is writers and lawyers or SAHMs and other producers of the cerebral variety blowing off steam to each other. As if at a bar on a mid-day break before going back to the office when that was a thing.
In facebook *you* are the show. You're supposed to share yourself with Zuckerberg your graph and that somehow is considerate. Also you're supposed to share the most positive parts of your life because that is considerate - "friendship is the mutual exchange of positive energy" somebody said that in a book you read before facebook hit critical mass. Also your posts should have a colorful photo because otherwise you're being inconsiderate of peoples' time asking them to listen to you talk read your text.
I never felt much sexism until facebook.
For on fb the role of the woman in society is to share pictures of yourself or your offspring. "Happy wife, happy life" goes the saying, and on facebook it is your job to bring positive energy to the platform in the form of self-objectifying photos or colorful active photos of your friends. You are now wife to your fb graph, gracefully greeting your male friends with their gin-and-tonic you prepared as you heard them logging in to escape the darkness of their daily grind which they must keep in motion to *provide* for their IRL wife.
Facebook provided an odd view into each other's worlds - worlds of the working women and the stay-at-home moms SAHMs. Specifically the SAHMs who treat camping it up, working out two hours per day followed by mani-pedicures, not making things too complicated for dear husband, being "light and breezy" as Ellen Fein and Sherri Schneider implored us to be, as their job. And most important not talking too much. Put a picture up sweetie, please, can you? Work was brutal today. I promise to listen to you later, now I just want to look at you. The Real Housewives of Facebook.
To many women keeping a hand in the corporate world past age 35, the Real Housewives of Facebook can seem disorienting. That's how they live? It's not too different from your own life - you also spend an hour at the gym three times per week, mixed with pre-work runs to burn off the cortisol to keep your cool with the new boss assigned to you from the parent company that just acquired your startup which was more of a meritocracy. You work out because have to focus - maybe they do too. You wish you had a wife who could greet you at the door with a cocktail when you came home, but step zero to getting a wife is first turning yourself gay and you don't know the algorithm for changing orientation so that's tabled. The last thing in the world a corporate woman wants to do is both put on her wife show for her current IRL partner and do it again on facebook where she serves the men and the not-really-working SAHMs - some more Real than others. But let's face it corporate men love facebook. Corporate women, eh.
Twitter is just media. It is not *social* media. Your social graph is not immutable there, you are allowed to follow and unfollow grow and change. You're not hemmed in by that one friend who plays group sheepdog, nipping at your heels if you haven't shown up to someone's birthday party even though said birthday did not end in zero much less five. The IRL social sheepdog plays an important role in life, the rewards of showing up even when you're not feeling it is people show up for you in surprising ways. But on facebook there is no role for the group sheepdog. The algorithm is the sheepdog.
Sure twitter is soundbytes and bits flying by, not real writing. But it forces condensed thought. It is text dominant.
On twitter you can point to articles and share ideas. It is writers and lawyers or SAHMs and other producers of the cerebral variety blowing off steam to each other. As if at a bar on a mid-day break before going back to the office when that was a thing.
