This lovely quote in my lovely title is from a lovely little movie called Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. You may say, “Psh! or bah humbug Matt! What does this have to do with Jeffery’s wonderful COMM 245 class?” My answer…“Everything.”
This beautiful passage, from a timeless classic, captures the far too ignored Facebook social norm of public disclosure and its direct relationship to wall posting and messaging. I hope, despite my vagueness up until now, that everyone already understands this Facebook norm. If you read this and have no idea what I am talking about and believe I am a raving lunatic, you are about to get a little crash course on Facebook Etiquette 101: The Beauty of the Facebook Message.
If you use Facebook, you know that there is a distinct difference between the wall post and message feature—this is the norm. Wall posts are primarily for little, trivial banter that much of the Facebook community has access to. On the other hand, Facebook messages prove to be much more conducive for private, more serious discussions. This notion of varied levels of privacy is exemplified when concerning or more romantic exchanges via Facebook. When “Facebook Flirting” is in its infancy, wall posts are very common, “Hey Girl! You looked Smoking Last nite : ) !!!” This conforms to Facebook’s social norms and conventions. However, when the relationship continues to develop and more personal information becomes disclosed, it is customary to take the “Facebook Flirting” to the more private, and intimate Facebook messaging stage—or be as daring to actually call one another. Individuals come to know this norm through the everyday trial and error of flirting or relationship development occurring on Facebook. Conforming to the norm provides the most desirable results. If in your efforts of having a back and forth wall post conversation, you cross the line of what is acceptable to post for the general public (of Facebook) to see, you will be punished. This can come in the form of a reprimand from the other party—I can’t believe you wrote that!! ASS—or in a complete termination of the relationship—your once romantic prospect will never talk to you again! If you decide to go sappy or nitty gritty with details in a wall post, you WILL pay the price. Keep onlookers from gagging and save the FDA (Facebook displays of Affection) for the private messages.
This norm concerning wall posting and messaging essential makes us, Facebook users, what Hobbes and Wallace call the Leviathan, moderator which upholds norms and decorum. Additionally, according to Wallace’s description and analysis of the Leviathan, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook employees who monitor the social network site serve as this moderating “mortal god” (pg. 69). It is viewed as disrespectful to post anything too personal on somebody’s wall and Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook users understand that, and continue to help enforce norm of keeping the private, private. This need for Leviathan is increased because no one really initially has any control of what another individual can post on your wall. This vulnerability increases our desire for a moderator in the not so fleeting cyberspace world of Facebook.
The SIDE theory also supports and explains Facebook’s user’s efforts to uphold “netiquette” in the social network site. With increased group identity salience—the Facebook community—and our increased visual anonymity, we are more likely to conform and uphold the social norms, such as proper wall post and message etiquette. The visual anonymity of Facebook is still high because, despite photos, there is still the evident veil that CMC provides in interactions.
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One way to look at it is that a Facebook wall is equivalent to the whiteboard on the door of a room and a Facebook message is a note slipped under that door. What is kind of funny is that there are very strict social norms as to what kind of message goes where. A wall post is often way too informal to be sent in a message and vice versa.
The Leviathan of Facebook is kind of interesting because Facebook is completely user generated content. I would assume that the punishment for breaking social norms is being reported to “the Facebook Team”. Yeah everybody checks the “This ain’t porn” box when you upload a picture but what if you…lie? Maybe they give you a warning message first but if you keep posting risqué photos you will probably be banned. My experiment suggestion is to fight the man (Zuckerberg you are goin down). If we got enough people to change their profile picture to something that breaks social norms as a protest (yes, everybody needs to post a naked profile picture) will Facebook kick everybody out? What number of people would they kick out until they feel a weaker user base?
Overall, great post.
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