So now, the time has come to reveal some truth. Truth about myself. Truth about anyone reading this. Truth about the material realm; Earth, the world, the matrix. Truth about the digital realm; the interweb, social media, smartphones. Perhaps even some truth about the spirit realm; the Dreamtime, Akashic Records, the Great Beyond (if you believe in such).

This is going to be hypocritical, but you need to understand that as a rap emcee I reserve the right to contradict myself. This will be facetious, again; rap emcee. This will not be as comical as I intend it to be because as a rap emcee I barely qualify as a musician and all comedians think they are musical and all musicians think they’re funny. So let’s get to the crux of it all…

I’ll be blunt. I absolutely despise Facebook. I despise virtually all users of Facebook. I despise the smartphones many use to access Facebook. However before you become defensive over my inflammatory remarks, I will attempt to explain my disdain, for it is a love of life and (wretch) “humanity” that breeds such animosity toward social networking within me. I love you guys. Really.

Facebook has served a function for me, I can not deny it. It has allowed me to re-connect with a few people who are important to me, some folk I have a casual interest in and several others who I don’t particularly care for (you know what category you fall into). As a muso I have a relatively active social life for a 34 year old man, a social life I am currently distancing myself from. My involvement with social networking is largely an experiment that most of my actual friends are unaware I am conducting. I make an account with my government name, befriend a few highschool chums and observe the things about them that have changed and the things that haven’t. I observe the percentage of those who have become married, become parents, become successful in their careers and those who have become BORING! However, please don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that me writing 1000 word essays about it all is probably boring to you too. Also, please don’t take this all as patronising either – that is certainly not my intent.

So here’s a sweeping generalisation of the people who use social networking; it’s the partner, the children, the job and their favourite sporting team or player that they choose most to share information about. I can’t find as many childless, single and/or unemployed peeps on ol’ Facey! And I got a news flash for ya… while you offer endless status updates and photos about your nuclear families… YOU ARE ORDINARY! (and really, you are more extraordinary than you could imagine if you could just get off the merry-go round for a while) Your desperation is exasperated by your insistence that you are happy with your existence. Negativity is a big no-no in Facebook land. Believe me, I’ve had my share of depression and mental illness, that’s where the soul searching happens and that is where true beauty can be observed, not through rose-coloured glasses… Your kids are hideous and your partner is superficial and your job pays well but makes little contribution to the plight of (wretch)humanity… if anything, it probably re-enforces it. Because we’re all slaves to something. If not a slave to our own desires; a slave to someone else’s. But that’s ok. None of this makes you a bad person. I do know, however, in my face to face encounters with the small group of people I have connected with on the Book, folk rarely discuss the aforementioned topics.

Facebook… it’s an outlet for so many. Another way for people to repress their inner cry for freedom. It’s also an addiction, and believe me I know a thing or two about addiction. But here’s a really odd observation I’ve made about my generation who use Facebook: Cast your mind back to 1995 for a moment… That’s when my household first got an internet connection. And I know that few of you even had a computer at that time. In fact, back then anyone who spent as much time on a computer as you do today on your tablet or smartphone, was considered a NERD! To you I say: You used to be cool. So don’t think of me as some anti-technology, doom-saying, shake my fist at the youth type of bloke. I just recall a world before the internet, social networking, Tinder, Youtube and Candy Crush absorbed the attention of almost everyone. If you think about it too, you might see how people have become increasingly introverted and less open to face to face encounters. The real danger is that we are raising children who will not know that world we enjoyed. Sadly, many of you who display your children on social media are teaching them a poor lesson about their right to privacy. Did you ever stop and ask your two year old if they would like the world to see a plethora of pictures of them? And is it fair to even assume that they can make a decision based on a developed concept of their right to privacy. Again, I’m not trying to attack anyone, I simply want to share my observations which I hold to be true. The truth often hurts, but I will not apologise.

So I think that about covers the truth about me and about you, but let’s talk about planet Earth and how we’re fucking her over and how Facebook plays it’s part in said fucking over… Some might argue that human life is intrinsic to the survival or demise of the planet. At any rate, us apes have an effect on our environment, of which we pay less attention to when we become as self-centred as Facebook encourages us to be. People argue that social networking increases human interaction and is a great way to raise awareness of the problems the planet faces but I maintain it’s superficial… Put a filter over your picture, express your outrage, but don’t actually DO anything about the problem. Post a status to give the appearance that you care and release some endorphins to make yourself feel good… The bankers still enslave us and rape the planet of its resources, and the whole while the marketers of garbage and the intelligence agencies have their dreams come true as the trusty slaves renounce their privacy, giving away what they think to be trivial information about themselves that turns out to be more vital than most could imagine. So yeah, Facebook is the enemy of planet Earth, or at the very least a tool of the enemy.

The spiritual truth… I’m not going to say much to convince you that Facebook is a blight on your soul. Soul searching should be left for the individual and I believe the more I say on the topic, the less I can convey. So, instead, I will leave you with a quote from Psychologist, Carl Jung –

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.”