“Shut up, FACEBOOK!!!” hollered Jon D Rapp
“Fuck you, JRAPP.” Facebook replied.
“This is going nowhere.” Jon said with a cynical grin.
Together they were growing stale like store-brand corn flakes exposed to tropical humidity for a week. Their relationship was low-viscosity, like breakfast cereal eaten with water instead of whole milk. Stalemate.
Jon passed his Social Media moments by destroying his own hollow philosophies along with what he saw as the misguided philosophies of others. It was a cheap and petty thrill. It made him feel empty in a good, redemptive sort of way. He secretly hoped that someone would come along and cut him to pieces with the sword of correct discernment and constructive criticism.
When Jon wasn’t shredding through ideas, he would spend time bashing his peace apart with old junkie war-stories. He liked to show off scars but he would eventually look back on his output with a strong feeling of self-denial. He was a drama queen.
Facebook spent her time recreating moments into events; she had a knack for making life appear to be much more awesome than it really was. This paved the way for all sorts of jealousy, anger, envy, and other misguided states of emotional experience. She could be a real wench. A wench can be a tool, but it can also be a derogatory feminine term. She was both.
Jon used to be a misogynist; he had comprised his perpetual discontent into two types of blame: the kind that blames parents and the kind that blames self. Most of all, he blamed his mother and all women, for this co-created dis-ease. Maybe it was because he’d never been breast-fed. Perhaps he simply adopted the cynical view of femininity that had been passed down from father to son for generations. Like a jaded old blues player, he blamed women for the pain that he himself designed. Like most average men, Jon could only see objects of attraction instead of counterparts for completion. Jon was simply afraid to be caught vulnerable.
Facebook met Jon after he completed high school. He felt the need to connect on different levels, and thus set himself out to explore the world of tagging photographs and sharing memes. She gave him reinforcement & recognition he needed. For a while, he felt that he’d convinced the outer world that he was indeed handsome and not a moron. In good time, this veil would be uncovered. In a world that gave very few fucks, he would find himself giving far too many on Facebook. They wasted hours together.
To a culture built upon a sense of physical tangibility, the internet is no more real than the thoughts in our heads. Nobody really cares or listens.
For Jon, there was always some uncomfortability factor that presented itself in moving life. He never felt worthy of his own body, thus he set out to modify both his mind and his social standing. Facebook could help with one piece of this puzzle.
A self-declared “armchair shaman”, Jon explored a diverse range of altered states through chemical experimentation. He grew strangely bound by a hypocritical oath; his assumed role of psychedelic physician would lead him largely astray. His intentions became muddled and he was wrapped up in a consumer-driven counter-culture that parallels the very society he initially felt so alienated from. For the hip crowd, peace and love can be bought and sold.
Tiring of his tongue-lick-cheek antics, Facebook employed the NSA to keep track of everyone, everywhere. A natural-born paranoid, Jon would curb his stories to keep himself free of self-incriminating details. His girl had gone federal and he had gone underground. The spiral staircase of his mind began to crumble under anxiety. Xanax and whiskey did not help.
Now more than ever, Jon felt it was time to break it off with Facebook. With a head full of nonsense and no true outlet to receive & relieve him, Jon realized that ranting to Facebook would never fill that lonely place between his teeth. He accepted that his social avatar was no more substantial than the dirt upon his feet.
With this newfound understanding, Jon began journaling and expressing himself by writing narcissistic letters of himself, to himself, by himself. This self-absorbed practice grew tiresome. One day, Jon had a burning sensation crawl up his spine. It was the voice that told him his identity didn’t matter; the voice that made him convinced of his irrelevance to the universe at large. Jon began to turn his sword inward. In a culture that is image-driven, the man who destroys his self-image becomes liberated. To this end, Jon became his own voodoo doll.
Lingering by the doorway of his own self-perception, the man-child felt wind come rattling through the screen door of his ego. Blown wide open, he tasted fair-weather upon his tongue; he would reflect his inner mirror outward and share this inside understanding for the sake of his own map should he ever get lost again.
Knowing that he is an outward physical expression of the phenomenal universe, Jon saw Facebook as a layer of human reflection. Not needing to acknowledge himself beyond the social context, Jon’s identity of self seemed to separate and fall onto the floor like a bathrobe untied. Some naked body stood in the doorway, a ghostly skeleton of what used to walk & talk.
Today, you can here his teeth chattering to the rhythm of butterflies. Some dance while some get dizzy.
Jon sat down with Facebook to reflect on what he had just felt.
“That was a trite self-indulgent, don’t you think?” Facebook sneered.
“Well yes, but I’ll burn this one after writing it.” Jon plainly stated.
“If you share it, it cannot be burned.” She reminded him.
“I know, bitch. We find harmony in exposing our weaknesses. I find grace within vulnerability. I am full of my own shit and here is another testament to that sentiment.” Jon confessed.
Facebook took a long sigh and told Jon the truth for once,
“You know this whole thing; all of this is for you. You are the one who abuses it. You are the one who inflates your own ego. You are the one who convinces yourself of some substantiated outside existence. I merely act as a medium; a platform upon which you build. It is up to you to represent yourself. I am a mirror. If you cannot handle me, then break me loose.”
Jon pondered her words awhile, considering all of the ads, the ignorance, the spying, and the selling out. He realized that everyone is chasing the same thing; they are running away from their deaths meanwhile ensuring the safety of their lives (at all costs). Whether they wish to control resources or mediate social statuses, the battle for control wages on. Jon finds himself smack in the middle.
Self-control does not exist beyond the self. Control does not exist beyond concepts of ownership.
What can we really hold? What do we really own?
He found himself coming back for more. He couldn’t help but continue wondering,
“What is this?”
Like many others, Jon has sophomoric tendencies. He is an educated fool. He falls into his own folly and files it away under “ailments”. Always seeking a cure, this sick boy-man will engineer his own to share. You can find it on your news feed somedays.
WitchDoctors Medicine 
Mock & Awe (Or Instant Gratifuckation For a Facebook Generation)
(Rough cut)
.
If misery loves company
Suffering deserves a parade
Can you believe your life isn’t butter?
Mine’s fuckin’ marmalade
.
Got food, got water, got clothes, got ends
Got words, got time, bad jokes, good friends
Holdin’ our hats straight into the winds-
We’re sellin’ fame to the nameless and faith to the faceless
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Cus blood is raceless like
New-Agers are baseless
Run my tongue through empty places
In teeth, pockets, ear-holes, & faces
.
Want true religion? Buy my book, forget thyself!
You’re sick, you’re battered, you need my help!
Trust no words & pursue true wealth
Keep reading more for a ladder into Hell
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People won’t like you forever
And Deepak Chopra can’t make you better
Positive thoughts will change with the weather
Hang tough, remember: pain beget pleasure
.
Follow the threads, unravel the sweater
Religion aims to negate sense pleasure
While ad execs tryin’ to get to know you better
I’ll be knittin’ a shield if the weather gets wetter
.
A million ways to get paid and slain,
Punished by time, fines, and canes
Whipped in the gallows and tricked on the plains
Illusion makes slaves from both the sick and sane
.
Loss found himself cheated by Gain
Just as Abel was murdered by Cain
Praise was accosted and accused by Blame
While Infamy slandered Fame’s good name
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Follow the muff, and swallow the bluff,
They say, “death is emptiness, life is hollow ‘n stuff
Fuck for a thrill, better live & shoot to kill
Life is a boot made for walkin’, footed by a physical bill!”
.
Advertisements wherever we go
Coulda traded bitcoin for a house in Oswego
I put all my savings on a Hail Mary free throw
While a little distracted from TV static free flows
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How many likes to get to the center of an ego?
One, two, three, leggo my eggo & pass the chorizo
Blame chemtrails, chemfood, chemdrugs & tv shows
Cheap Neanderthal thrills for the man from Encino
.
Before we go, some questions burning up my loins:
How does a nation under God divorce its coin?
How come the news makes everyone paranoid?
Why does post-industry man seem to destroy?
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How many dimes dropped before a banker’s fined?
How much vegan coke gets a burner high?
How much acid turns your problems wise?
How much medicine heals a sick twisted mind?
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Tighten up the space and loosen the form
Our peasant hopes and dreams seem to feed worms
Persistently, our ideas spread like seeds on fallow farms
Resilient and firm, our love carries no harm.