South Park Is Right About Facebook

I just finished watching the newest South Park episode "You Have 0 Friends" a great Facebook parody that gets to the heart whats wrong with online media in general. Yes I know its hypocritical to talk about online media when I myself am using an online blog but I gotta rant somewhere and the city council have banned me from ranting in front of local community center.

The episode shows how we feel about our friends, there are some people that before Facebook came into being thought of their friends as commodities to be used an exploited for their own selfish needs. Now instead of that two-faced-bitch-blond-cheerleader-two-face-got-knocked-up Jessica being the only person its become epidemic with everyone on Facebook trying to get more friends and getting sucked into a meaningless facade of friendship that never get face time.

And that's what this episode is really about, kids don't meet friends playing outside they meet them online and half the time their swearing at the noob who just killed them with a rocket. I'm not sure if kids are getting the same type of friendship like it was in the old days. Sure I was born in the late 80's but when I was growing up their wasn't a computer or even a gaming console to occupy my time. It was playing outside with friends or running around the school yard trying to avoid being captured by the enemy.

The real question has got to be is why we treat our friends like commodities, is it something that has just happened because of new media and new ideas about friendship or is it something much deeper is it our own human sense of greed and selfishness that drives us. I don't know all I know is that I have a Facebook account and I don't have a virtual farm.

South Park has given us a mirror for society to look at, and we may laugh at its generalizations but as always they have a lot of truth and knowledge to pass on to many people.