here’s a line in Almost Famous that’s been stuck in my head all day: “Here’s a theory for you to completely disregard.”
I’ve been disregarding theories my whole life. Ask any teacher I ever had. So it feels good to finally be on the giving end.
Here’s mine: Facebook is the modern-day National Enquirer, minus the alien stuff.
You may now disregard it. Or don’t. I’m not your dad.
Exhibit A: The Trap Disguised as a Magazine Rack
The Enquirer was an ambush. You walked into the grocery store for milk and bread and came out knowing that Oprah was secretly dating Bigfoot, Elvis was flipping Whoppers in Kalamazoo, and a woman in Ohio had given birth to a 40-pound baby who could already parallel park.
You didn’t buy it. You didn’t have to. You read the whole cover while the lady ahead of you wrote a check, slowly, in cursive, to a grocery store.
Facebook is that same checkout aisle, except the line never moves and the cashier has read your diary. You open the app to see if a guy on Marketplace still has a recliner. Ninety minutes later you’ve learned that your old shop teacher believes birds are government drones, your second cousin is “done with the drama” for the fourth time this month, and a guy you met once at a wedding has a podcast now.
The recliner sold. Hold that thought.
Exhibit B: Sources Close to Debbie
The Enquirer at least did us the courtesy of lying professionally. It had “sources close to the star,” “a palace insider,” and “a friend who asked not to be named,” because the friend was, technically, a ficus.
Facebook got rid of the sources. Now the source is Debbie.
Debbie heard it from her cousin’s coworker’s sister, who saw it on a page called Patriot Eagle Freedom Bald Eagle Truth News. That’s two eagles, because one eagle can’t carry that much truth. The page was created eleven days ago by a man in a country Debbie thinks is a kind of cheese.
Debbie has never been more sure of anything in her life. Debbie was also sure about Y2K. Debbie still has 400 cans of creamed corn in the basement.
Debbie also got the recliner.
Exhibit C: Lose 30 Pounds With This One Weird Hun
The Enquirer sold miracle diets: the grapefruit diet, the cabbage soup cleanse, the one where you only eat foods that start with the letter P. Pie counts.
Facebook cut out the middleman and turned the miracle diet into your high school lab partner. It starts out innocent: “Hey hun!! Long time no talk!! Loved your vacation pics!!”
You have not talked since 2003. She dissected a frog with you and then disappeared for two decades. You know what’s coming like a deer knows headlights: shakes, oils, leggings that cost more than your first car, and an opportunity.
It is not an opportunity. It’s a pyramid wearing yoga pants.
Exhibit D: The Psychic Hotline Moved Into Your Feed
Every January the Enquirer ran its psychic predictions for the year: a volcano under Disneyland, Prince Charles turning into a werewolf, Cher elected pope. They were wrong every single year, and every single year they came back, because the one thing psychics never see coming is accountability.
Facebook made everybody a psychic and dropped the part where you have to predict anything.
“Some people are about to find out who their real friends are.”
That’s the whole post. Who? Find out how? By when? It doesn’t matter. It gets forty-seven comments in eleven minutes. “u ok hun?” “PM me.” “Praying.” “Who is it, I’ll fight them.” That last one is from a 71-year-old man with a bad hip.
Nobody ever finds out anything. Three weeks later she posts a picture of a sandwich, and the prophecy has been fulfilled.
Exhibit E: Nobody Has Ever Seen Page 34
No human being has ever turned to page 34 of the National Enquirer. Page 34 may not exist. Scientists are still looking.
The headline was the story. BAT BOY ESCAPES, FLEES TO MEXICO. What else did you need? He’s a bat, he’s a boy, and he’s in Mexico.
Facebook runs the same play. You read the headline, slam the angry face, share it with “WOW” and “this is why I don’t trust anybody anymore,” and never once click the link. If you had, it would have told you the story is from 2014 and the guy was found alive and pleasantly surprised in a Walmart.
Exhibit F: “I Only Get It for the Crossword”
The Enquirer sold millions of copies a week, and somehow nobody ever bought one. Every copy was for somebody’s mother, or for the crossword, or it was “just lying around at the laundromat.”
Facebook users have the same alibi. “I’m only on there for the groups.” “I just use it for Marketplace.” “I only keep it to see my nephew’s pictures.”
Your nephew is 34. He has a mortgage and has never once posted. Meanwhile you’re in a group called Spotted: Chippewa Valley Gas Station Drama, and you have notifications turned on.
Okay, Here’s Where I Stop Disregarding
There’s one real difference between the two, and it’s a big one.
Enquirer readers were in on the joke. Nobody walked into a voting booth thinking about Bat Boy. Well, not nobody, but fewer people.
The Enquirer also had a building full of editors and lawyers whose whole job was figuring out how close you could get to the line without a celebrity ending up owning your house. Facebook’s newsroom is Uncle Gary at 2:47 a.m., phone at 4%, typing “DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH” with one thumb and holding a Busch Light with the other. Uncle Gary has never been edited. Uncle Gary has never been sued. Nothing has ever fact-checked Uncle Gary except Aunt Linda.
The Enquirer also paid for its gossip: cash for blurry photos, cash for the ex-girlfriend’s side of the story, cash for the landscaper who saw something. Facebook looked at that business model and asked, “What if we just didn’t pay anybody?”
And it worked. We write it, we spread it, and we fight about it in the comments until two in the morning like it’s Gettysburg with worse spelling. Then Facebook sells all that attention to whoever’s buying, and we get nothing. We don’t even get a crossword.
You used to pay a buck ninety-nine for the tabloid. Now you’re the one being sold in the checkout line. That’s some next-level bullshit, and I say that as a man who once paid real money to read about Bat Boy.
I Owe the Aliens an Apology
Up top I said “minus the alien stuff.” I was wrong.
Scroll for five minutes and you’ll find Jesus made entirely out of shrimp. You’ll find a 122-year-old grandmother who baked her own birthday cake, and the cake is shaped like the grandmother. You’ll find a soldier who carved a life-size bald eagle out of a single log with nothing but a pocketknife and, judging by the picture, eight fingers on his left hand.
Nobody made these. A computer coughed them up at 3 a.m. Under every one there are thousands of comments: “Amen.” “Beautiful work.” “Happy birthday Grandma, God bless.”
Debbie typed “Amen” under the shrimp. Twice.
The Enquirer at least needed a guy with an airbrush and a deadline. Now the aliens make themselves. Bat Boy is back. He has six fingers, he’s made of shrimp, and your aunt shared him with the caption “Gods creation is amazing.”
So, Anyway, Disregard All of That
That’s my theory. Facebook is the National Enquirer, aliens and all, with no editors, no lawyers, no crossword, and a checkout line that runs all the way to the heat death of the universe.
But like the movie says, it’s a theory for you to completely disregard. Go ahead and disregard it.
Then go check your feed. Debbie posted. It’s the shrimp again.