Keeping Up with The Facebookers: The New Social Caste Benchmark

“Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”  That’s the home page pitch that has convinced so many of us to sign-up for a personalized virtual neighborhood.

After agreeing to the homeowners’ contract, or the Terms and Conditions, we are welcomed with a newsletter, an event planning tool, a message board, and a neighborhood chat room. We even have the power to add new neighbors to our territory, and to delete neighbors at will.

When we first move-in, we feel as though we reside in a back-country home. There is no one in sight, except for the friends who convinced us to join the community. We wonder what the Facebook fuss is about.

Soon thereafter, word gets around about our vacant lot. Overnight, our mailbox becomes flooded with building requests, as friends seek to gain acceptance into our space. We gladly approve requests from close friends and family, and reluctantly accept those from enemies.

A few months later, corporations apply for approval to build. Companies such as Coca-Cola and Nike wonder whether we “like” their products. Before we know it, our quiet country home becomes a noisy city apartment.

It’s then when we start to wonder what our fellow tenants are up to.

We begin to pry open their photo albums and inspect notes written on their front door. We examine fellow occupants’ friends that we do not know, and also the friends of these unknown friends.

During these investigations, we pass judgments about inhabitant lifestyles. Conjuring up feelings from jealously to arrogance, we compare Facebook resident activity to activity of our own. And based on these comparisons, we filter our own profile to reflect, what we believe as, the “proper” way to live.

To neighbors, our profile image becomes an identity. To employers, this image epitomizes self-competence. To ourselves, this image embodies our social reputation, and even our social standing.

We remove tags, crop pictures, and censor content to promote our good name. When continually edited millions of times by millions of users, this filtered facade becomes the new social caste benchmark for the hundreds or thousands of residents in our personalized neighborhoods.

And as we strive to keep up with our neighbors’ standard of living, and edit our own standard to maintain our social standing, we generate a new, far more extensive method to “keep up with the Joneses.”