The New Oxford American Dictionary garnered plenty of press attention when it chose “unfriend” as its Word of the Year for 2009. With one computer click, someone is no longer in your Facebook network − and possibly no longer in your life at all.
Don’t worry, this post will not be a diatribe about what Facebook may or may not be doing to civility in our culture. Rather, I’d like to take a cue from James Hillman, the brilliant Jungian psychologist, and point to the primal, mythic implications of “unfriending.”
What is unfriending, after all, but a form of betrayal? Maybe the breach of trust (either real or imagined) was on the part of the person being unfriended, maybe it was by the person doing the unfriending. Or it could have been on both sides. In any case, the act of unfriending in Facebook may be ratifying a betrayal that has already occurred.
As Hillman suggests in “Betrayal,” an essay included in the collection Loose Ends (1975), the central myth of Western culture is the betrayal of Jesus. The kiss Judas gave Jesus in the Garden, as the soldiers closed in, was the ultimate in “unfriending.” A close second was Simon Peter, disavowing Jesus for the third time as the cock crowed.
Judas and Peter were not just Jesus’ disciples; they were his friends, for that is what Jesus offers to those who follow Him. We are no longer strangers, but friends (John 15:15; Ephesians 2:19). And you don’t need to know the words of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” by heart to know that He will never unfriend you.
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
A Fugitive's Facebook Friending Folly
In Italy, it was the Facebook burglar - caught after accessing his profile from the computer of the house he was burglarizing.
In Cancun, it was the Facebook absconder - who met a similar fate: arrest.
Maxi Sopo is a 26-year-old man who came to the United States in 2003 from Cameroon. Settling in the Seattle area, he supported himself by selling roses in nightclubs.
Think about that occupation for a moment. Selling roses in nighclubs, presumably to couples immersed in romance. It was as if the Greek god Hermes were his patron saint.
The American dream, however, tends to want more and more. Mr. Sopo apparently moved on to bank fraud. According to federal prosecutors, he and an acquaintance falsely procured over $200,000 in loans from Seattle-area banks and credit unions. The AP account I read did not state exactly what the pitch was, but clearly Sopo was, as they say, "living the dream."
Unfortunately for Sopo, there's no free lunch, even in America. The U.S. attorney's office began investigating him, and he decided to head for Mexico in a rental car.
Did he choose to lie low, as any pragmatic, old-style fugitive would have done? No, he put up Facebook posts about his high life partying in Cancun - then "friended" a former Justice Department official.
The Secret Service contacted the "friend," pinpointed Sopo's whereabouts, and arrested him. When the AP picked up his story, he was in a Mexican jail, awaiting extradition to the U.S.
What was he thinking, when he logged in to Facebook?
In Cancun, it was the Facebook absconder - who met a similar fate: arrest.
Maxi Sopo is a 26-year-old man who came to the United States in 2003 from Cameroon. Settling in the Seattle area, he supported himself by selling roses in nightclubs.
Think about that occupation for a moment. Selling roses in nighclubs, presumably to couples immersed in romance. It was as if the Greek god Hermes were his patron saint.
The American dream, however, tends to want more and more. Mr. Sopo apparently moved on to bank fraud. According to federal prosecutors, he and an acquaintance falsely procured over $200,000 in loans from Seattle-area banks and credit unions. The AP account I read did not state exactly what the pitch was, but clearly Sopo was, as they say, "living the dream."
Unfortunately for Sopo, there's no free lunch, even in America. The U.S. attorney's office began investigating him, and he decided to head for Mexico in a rental car.
Did he choose to lie low, as any pragmatic, old-style fugitive would have done? No, he put up Facebook posts about his high life partying in Cancun - then "friended" a former Justice Department official.
The Secret Service contacted the "friend," pinpointed Sopo's whereabouts, and arrested him. When the AP picked up his story, he was in a Mexican jail, awaiting extradition to the U.S.
What was he thinking, when he logged in to Facebook?
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Facebook Burglar
National Public Radio treated it as one of their humorous snippets, leading into the hourly news headlines. Someone burglarizing a house outside Rome used the victim’s computer to post Facebook messages before stealing cash and jewelry. He left the computer open to his Facebook page, however, and was quickly apprehended by Italian police.
After hearing about this episode from a friend, I went to the Web looking for more details. Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported that the burglar is 26 and the victim, who is not on Facebook, is 52. Though the burglar did not actually post anything about the crime he was committing, he did post several messages on his wall.
One wonders why the burglar didn’t also steal the computer. NPR joked that maybe his next post will be from jail, but that is not likely. Even in the age of seemingly ubiquitous Internet usage, online access for the incarcerated is severely limited.
After hearing about this episode from a friend, I went to the Web looking for more details. Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported that the burglar is 26 and the victim, who is not on Facebook, is 52. Though the burglar did not actually post anything about the crime he was committing, he did post several messages on his wall.
One wonders why the burglar didn’t also steal the computer. NPR joked that maybe his next post will be from jail, but that is not likely. Even in the age of seemingly ubiquitous Internet usage, online access for the incarcerated is severely limited.
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