Fakebook Read online

  “Ha! I don’t know…maybe? I haven’t been as proud of a project as that one in a long time.”

  “Speaking of, can you believe I have to start planning our ten-year reunion soon?” Ted interjected.

  “Who cares about high school reunions?” Steve replied. “I have Facebook. I already know how fat and bald everyone got. The only reason I log in is to see how I’m doing. ‘Beating you, beating you, beating you…huh, Johnny from third-grade soccer camp has a really hot wife and a sweet car? You’re blocked!’”

  “Yikes. Guess I better start getting ready,” I said with a laugh. “I mean, Steve raises a good point—I really want to win this reunion.”

  “You better get on the ball. Designing press kits for fabric softeners doesn’t exactly stack up to John McLaughlin practicing international law in Brussels with some hot Belgian chick and a Mercedes SLS.”

  “McLaughlin? He seemed like the kind of guy who’d need a lawyer before being one.”

  “I guess he switched sides of the bench,” Steve joked.

  “Well, I could always cheat,” I said. “I mean, I’ve got Photoshop—I can post just about anything on Facebook. A hotter wife, a better car…It’s like plugging into The Matrix!”

  We all laughed and exchanged glances, suddenly excited by a shared epiphany—this joke on Facebook could possibly work! There was no reason my Facebook friends wouldn’t believe it. After all, what exactly were Facebook friends? I might know lots of minutiae about their day—but what did I really know about them as people? I mean, I knew from Facebook that Debbie from fifth grade had just sold her fake cows on FarmVille. If I then found out that FarmVille Debbie had murdered someone, I’d be shocked…but I’d believe it. For all of Facebook’s transparency, it’s still fairly opaque. We know only what people care to share. So what was to stop me from sharing complete nonsense?

  Without skipping a beat, Ted, Steve, and I began the gleeful work of creating as many premises for my “Fakebook” life as possible.

  I could join Cirque du Soleil. I could become a Tony Robbins–style self-help guru, offering terrible, unsolicited advice to the fringes of my Facebook friend base. I could win the lottery and pull increasingly eccentric stunts with my newfound cash, culminating in a Somali pirate hostage situation. I could be a royal food tester, a professional wrestler, the first male Rockette—I had lived a hundred faux lives by the end of the conversation.

  But as the long weekend ended and real life resumed, not only did the idea stay with me, but it blossomed. Watching a baseball game made me want to fake a life as the guy in the Mr. Met costume. A full moon made me want to pretend to be bitten by a werewolf. And on and on it went as I found myself filling my sketchbook with every funny premise that crossed my mind. I was completely inspired—and ensnared. I was viewing the world through the lens of the countless lives I could pretend to live.

  If only I were still sixteen, I thought, I might actually do this.

  I finished my water and put the glass in the sink of Handler PR’s kitchen. Maybe this notion of creating a Fakebook on Facebook would join the pile of ideas I’d never followed through on. Or maybe I’d do it. I wasn’t sure. But right now, there was a real job to do.

  The tasting event invitation awaited, so I walked back to my desk and spent the next hour digging around stock photography until I found a picture I liked. It was of a woman raising her glass in front of a brick wall, smiling at nothing in particular in that plastic stock-photography way. I added the copy from my previous draft, and with some minor adjustments, it created the appearance of the woman toasting the words. It wasn’t a bad start, but the tone was off.

  The wine we were promoting had an old-fashioned charm, appealing for its ties to a bygone era of Sunday dinners. So I evened out the levels of light and dark and added a sepia wash to give the scene a vintage feel. I added a texture to the entire image to make it look as if age had chipped away at the finish—as if it had spent decades hanging on Grandma’s wall.

  Now it was time for the little details. I masked out the woman’s jewelry, her painted nails, and her lipstick. I adjusted the colors into the burgundy red of our client’s logo. It was subtle, but it made a random photograph into a cohesive, branded image.

  I could have stopped there, but I decided it needed one final touch—the glass of wine.

  Everything I had done to the photo, I now undid with the glass of wine—masking out the dust and scratches, the color adjustments, the yellow sepia tone. I took it further and pushed the colors in the opposite direction, with the blacks running deep and the red a vivid, lush hue.

  The wine now commanded your attention. It was a timeless, immortal glass that deserved a place on your table—just as it had fifty years ago, just as it would fifty years from now. This was a wine to share with friends and family. This was a wine that would never go out of style.

  This was a wine that, above all else, was not being enjoyed by anyone in the photo.

  I was restless that night, lying in my secondhand bed. I clicked on my light—a photographer’s studio lamp clamped to my window grate—and sat up, resting my back against the bare wall that served as my headboard.

  To anyone but New Yorkers, I lived in a criminally expensive 250-square-foot space under a bridge—but finding a one-bedroom in the Lower East Side that I could (just barely) afford was the fruit of a four-month crusade and the accomplishment of my life.

  That was three years ago, though, and by now my IKEA furniture was beginning to fall apart—which, I believe, signals the official end of early adulthood.

  I looked at the stack of books next to my bed. There were four different titles on four different topics, all half read. I shuffled through them and put them down one by one. Then I looked straight ahead at the large, unfinished, and flawed charcoal figure drawing on the wall, and my drawing supplies scattered on the surface of the particleboard dresser with the drawer that didn’t quite close.

  I stumbled out of bed and logged on to Facebook, looking for that subdued thrill of seeing a notification—of being virtually acknowledged.

  I’d been tagged in a photo from a party I’d gone to. I saw a version of myself. A guy who was doing it, making the most of being young and living in New York. He was dressed well, holding out a full drink, arms around the shoulders of a bunch of other New Yorkers who were also living exciting lives. We were partying like we were extras in a rap video.

  It was a good photo. It told a good story.

  But that’s all it was doing, telling a story. And by just showing those posed moments where everyone was smiling—omitting the dresser drawer that didn’t quite close or the frustrating notes from Legal—Facebook struck me as just another form of marketing, essentially selling a shiny version of our lives to ourselves and to others. We courted people’s attention and then tried to control how we’re seen. Voyeurism and narcissism—in that moment, that’s all Facebook was to me.

  Suddenly, my Fakebook idea felt urgent. Everybody’s profile was already a little bit fiction. I could make mine completely false. Facebook seemed ripe for something like this. It felt inevitable. But I had to do it now, before this moment passed.

  I grabbed my sketchbook, thumbed through it, and found a premise I’d written down a week earlier. It was perfect—believable enough to be accepted, sensational enough to be noticed, and open ended enough to accommodate whatever whims I might come up with. It was the perfect template for a social media soap opera—a premise that could court people’s voyeurism.

  And when they looked at the new me, who would they see? If I made myself a hero, I’d just be another person using Facebook to flatter himself. No…this had to be the opposite of all other pages. This had to be a parody of Facebook. I couldn’t be heroic. Instead, I’d play the fool—the butt of the joke. Someone spiteful, arrogant, and deserving of his own unraveling.

  The idea made even more sense to me
as I scrolled down my news feed, looking at each new party pic, each new self-aggrandizing statement, each new humblebrag…it added to the sense that this was something I needed to do.

  This scheme couldn’t wait, or else I’d start thinking of all the reasons why I shouldn’t do it. And there were plenty. It was lying, for one. It would be incredibly time consuming, for another. It would be also a pretty fucking weird thing to do. If I had a legal department, they’d certainly forbid it.

  But for once, I didn’t need anyone’s approval. It was just me, sitting alone in my apartment, staring at the status box’s open-ended question:

  Update Status

  “What’s on your mind?”

  So I opened the Note feature in Facebook and began to write.

  Important Announcement

  I’m going to start with the shocking stuff just so you read the rest.

  I’m quitting my job and walking across America. Maybe the world. And I’m going to post updates, here, on Facebook. Why am I doing this? I’ve been in a rut.

  Life is nothing, if not time. None of us know how much we have, but we know there’s a limit. For the past several years, I’ve been wasting my time on “repeat,” playing the same song on loop over and over again. That’s fine for some, but not for me. I want to switch to “shuffle,” not knowing what the next day will hold.

  The times I feel most alive are when I’m struck by some bizarre, impossible-to-predict possibility. But these experiences are rarely born out of routine. I need to engage life again by uprooting myself from everything that’s made me comfortable and complacent.

  I’ve been feeling this way for a while, but I’m making this decision rather abruptly. I don’t want time to be talked out of it. These types of decisions are best made by your gut, not your head.

  So I’m attempting a grand experiment. I don’t have a real plan or a real destination, I’m just moving west and letting destiny guide me. Well, I do know my first destination. Lancaster County. I’m heading to Amish country. It’s a nod to my first adventure from way back in high school. From there…who knows.

  I’m traveling light, but I’m bringing my laptop and my iPhone. I’ve set my phone bill to autopay, and I’m leaving my credit cards at home. It’s just the supplies on my back, and the cash in my pockets. I’ll be chronicling my travels via Facebook, so you’ll all be in the loop.

  And away we go…

  But I didn’t go…not yet. I sat there with my cursor hovering over the Submit button and my index finger over the Enter key.

  It was a feeling I’d soon be familiar with, but would never get used to. The event I’d just scripted was floating in limbo—it both had already happened and was still to come. There was something unsettling about that.

  I had no idea what would happen if I hit Enter, if I gave those words life and allowed Fakebook to broadcast to the news feeds of an unsuspecting audience. I had no notion of the consequences. I didn’t think about the people I’d have to avoid or the feelings I’d hurt. I didn’t consider the places I could no longer go to, the events I couldn’t take part in. I didn’t consider the many hours a week I might have to devote to my second life, or how I’d have to be ever vigilant of exposure.

  I was completely ignorant about how intertwined my real life and my online persona could become—how much of what was on that screen was actually a part of me. I didn’t realize how doing this might complicate old relationships or prevent new ones.

  And I certainly never imagined it could change anyone’s life.

  Instead, I felt excitement swelling. A sort of wry anticipation. It’s true that I wanted to explore an interesting, complicated idea, to take a step out of my routine. But there was also a part of me that still liked to push boundaries. That liked mischief. That liked pretending. A part of me that liked crafting something unusual and seeing how far I could take it.

  That night, the thought of whether I should do it lost out to the realization that I could. Facebook, a community of nearly a billion users, is run entirely on the honor system. To a guy like me, an insight like that is just a giant red button marked “Do Not Push.”

  So I pushed it.

  1The original quote is: “If the client changes the copy, I get angry—because I took a lot of trouble writing it, and what I wrote I wrote on purpose.” I recognize the irony that I did, in fact, change his copy.

  That morning, I woke up with a stranger in my bed, and it was me.

  Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I did feel peculiar. It was almost like that disorienting feeling of momentarily forgetting where you are as you wake up in a hotel—only more personal. But I didn’t have time to dwell on philosophical questions of self. My practical considerations were far more pressing. All the details I hadn’t considered the night before, when Fakebook was still hypothetical, suddenly came rushing back in a rapid series of “oh shit” moments.

  Oh shit. I needed to tell my parents.

  Oh shit. I didn’t have any photos planned.

  Oh shit. I didn’t know how long it takes to get to Lancaster County on foot.

  Oh shit. I had way too much work to do before work.

  It was only 6:00 a.m., but I jumped out of bed in a mild panic. My laptop was still on, the note I’d written last night still front and center. It was just as I had left it. Except that by now, people had seen it.

  Pete Garra please tell me you’re going to amish country for blood.

  about an hour ago via mobile · Like

  Elizabeth Lee Good luck! P.S. Saw your Aunt at a wedding on Saturday!

  55 minutes ago · Like

  Brian Eckhoff Right on. Say hi to my fam when you’re in Amish country.

  48 minutes ago · Like

  Michael Raisch Wow, Here’s to your cause…

  32 minutes ago via mobile · Like

  Honey Valentine Hey! I guess this means you won’t be watching “Pauly Shore is Dead” with me this week?

  29 minutes ago via mobile · Like

  Catharine Moore Dave you are truly awesome and I wish you luck and safe travels. Can’t wait for the updates! If you should need anything of course don’t hesitate…

  17 minutes ago via mobile · Like

  Mary Carroll I love that you’re starting your trip in Amish country…revenge!

  less than a minute ago · Like

  Matt Riggio Sounds great. Stop by Buffalo, if you’re on your way west!

  less than a minute ago via mobile · Like

  Brendan McDermott Tell the Amish to pay their stupid taxes Dave!

  just now via mobile · Like

  Oh shit! I went straight onto Google Maps and plotted a course to Lancaster County. A pace of about twenty miles a day would put me in Amish country in ten days. I could stop off in Philly first in just under a week. I hit Print and began running around my apartment, filling my hiking pack full of whatever crap I haphazardly decided my other self would theoretically need. I strapped it on, complete with my sleeping bag and tent tied on top, set my camera on a timer, and posed.

  I paused for a moment to plot out my new self’s next steps. Crossing the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey felt like a moment worth documenting.

  I uploaded my camera and dug up pictures online. I frantically found images of the bridge. Over the next couple of hours, I stitched together an image with none of the finesse and care I’d used on the “Wine & Cheese Fries” invitation the night before.

  It was almost nine. I couldn’t work on this photo anymore, so I uploaded it onto my iPhone, tossed my hiking gear into my closet, threw my laptop in my work bag, and headed out the door.

  If part of the joke was how ill-prepared I was for a cross-country trek, then I was off to a great start.

  On the walk to the F train, I found myself refreshing Facebook at every street corner, constantly reloading to see new comments. Each new “like” was a b
urst of excitement—confirmation that this was really happening.

  On the train, my Internet mercifully cut out and I began to settle down—but I still had enough nervous energy to tear the edges of my Google Map printout to shreds.

  I started staring at the routes, plotting out again and again where I should go, when I should get there, what could happen along the way. Should I stick to highways, or would that encourage someone to try to find me? How long before I hitchhiked? Should I find ways to reach out to truck drivers so I could tag us together in photos?

  I just kept staring at the map, feeling nervous. Over and over I looked at the same path and the same city names, as if the next time they’d reveal something new.

  I felt like a tourist. Or like my teenage self from the suburbs of New Jersey.

  As a high schooler growing up in commuter town, casual familiarity with “The City” was a point of pride—it distinguished you from your more comfortably suburban classmates. It was important to neither be intimidated nor impressed by the ins and outs of New York, and lunch-table stories about the weekend were incomplete without casually including how you “took the 6 train down to Bleecker.” You’d never admit to triple-checking your foldout subway map after every stop, or the sense or relief you got when you did, in fact, successfully get off at Bleecker.

  It was, of course, all bluster. Every trip was laced with the quiet but unshakable suspicion that we were about to take the wrong turn and fall off the island of Manhattan. We didn’t belong. We were suburban posers—glorified tourists.

  Throughout my teenage years, even as I got more comfortable with mass transit, New York remained an intimidating place. I was still aware that I was never more than just a suburban poser. Every place I’d been to was public—a shop with an open door, a stadium where anyone with a ticket could walk right in.