The Facebook Sonnet

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2011

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Loneliness

The speaker’s dislike of Facebook, or the way people use Facebook, is immediately apparent in his relentlessly ironic tone: He assumes the role of a certain kind of Facebook user but denigrates them at the same time. His own stance becomes crystal clear in the final couplet: “Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess / Here at the altar of loneliness” (Lines 13-14). During the course of the sonnet, he has in effect disguised this theme; it exists out of range of the constant chatter and sharing and commenting on posts that characterize the social media site, in which everyone pretends they are always having a great time. They find support for this frame of mind from the people they “friend,” who are all too ready to relive, electronically, the good times of the past, while ignoring their present realities, which may have quite a different color. While some may find this harsh or not universally true, this is the speaker’s unequivocal perspective.

The word “loneliness” (Line 14), as the last word of the sonnet, has much force. It is what resonates in the reader’s mind immediately after reading the sonnet. It shows directly the speaker’s skepticism about the value of social media connections, which are not what people claim or believe they are. The people described in the sonnet may have convinced themselves that they are engaging in an enjoyable social activity, cementing old friendships and perhaps making new ones, but the speaker ultimately points out what he sees as the reality: that the Facebook enthusiasts are all isolated, sitting alone at their computers or smartphones (which had become popular in the few years before the publication of the sonnet) and reading short messages or watching short videos. They do this, implies the speaker, to assuage their own loneliness. Perhaps also, the interaction itself, with its illusion of intimacy and its likely false impression that everyone has a wonderful life, engenders feelings of loneliness or emptiness. The reality of many people’s lives may be very different from the sunny optimism so often presented online.

For the speaker, then, the “virtual” activity that characterizes social media has none of the warmth or intimacy of personal interactions. When friends gather at someone’s home or in a café or restaurant, they can see and hear and touch one another. The companionship is real. Facebook activity, on the other hand, makes a more superficial and fleeting impression. The result is isolation and loneliness—the very opposite of the meaningful connection that people so desire.

Self-Deception

Self-deception is the core object of the sonnet. The speaker tries to undermine this undesirable state of mind by giving an ironical commentary on it. He begins with a welcome, presenting himself as a Facebook enthusiast. However, his words quickly turn into a withering critique as he exposes what he sees as the shallow and inauthentic activity on the social media site. He regards it all as a pretense, unrelated to reality—but in spite of this, people are more than ready to jump in and participate. Needing no second bidding, these users, as the poem portrays them, are ignorant of their own self-deception. The speaker is the one who, with his ironic tone, tries to puncture their illusions.

From the speaker’s point of view, people are invested in self-deception; they are pretending and then forgetting that they are pretending, since the game appears to be fun: “Let’s all play the games / That occupy the young” (Lines 8-9) is the speaker’s formulation of their attitude, which seems to amount almost to a regression to childhood. If this is immature behavior, the Facebook users do not care: “Why can’t we pretend / Every stage of life is the same?” the speaker asks (Line 5-6), as if he is one of those users who has been challenged and is defending himself. This defense cuts no ice with the speaker, who is convinced that these users are neglecting their actual lives. Those lives continue to be unrepaired or “unmend[ed]” (Line 4), according to him, because the people concerned would sooner spend their time immersed in a comfortable virtual world than participate in the messiness of the real world. It is hard to tell them so, however, because self-deception can exert a powerful grip, especially when each person interacts with many others who confirm their distorted narrative. Individual self-deception thus acquires a formidable collective dimension, which might account for some of the speaker’s obvious exasperation with the existing state of affairs.

The New Religion

he theme of Facebook as presiding over a new religion or church occurs in the third quatrain, after the speaker has described (and critiqued) the immense popularity of the social media site. In the first line of the poem, Facebook is presented as an “endless high school / Reunion” (Lines 1-2), but by Lines 10-12 it has become, in the speaker’s mocking view, a substitute church. People use it as “a search / For God” (Line 10-11) and do not mind if that search is viewable to others in the “public domain” (Line 11). The speaker suggests that Facebook might just as well be known as “church.com” (Line 12). Perhaps he is exaggerating what people use Facebook for, or speaking metaphorically, to make his point. People sign into Facebook, in this view, for similar reasons that others go to church—for hope and comfort, to join with others in fellowship, to have a communal experience, to interact with people who share the same beliefs and values.

When the theme of Facebook as a new church continues, the speaker invites everyone not only to sign in but also to “confess” (Line 13), which recalls the Roman Catholic practice in which a person makes a confession of their sins to a priest. These confessions take place in private, though, whereas so much on Facebook is open to public view, which is also partly why people use it. Moreover, all the confessions on Facebook (that is, posts made by users about their thoughts or actions) take place in a secular rather than a religious context. The implication is that the secular has replaced the religious as people’s preferred mode of discourse and interaction when it comes to dealing with life’s issues.

The final line, however, undercuts the notion of Facebook as church to reveal what the speaker has been thinking all along. If this is a new church, it is hardly an admirable one, since people are invited to “confess / Here at the altar of loneliness” (Lines 13-14). An altar is a table used during a religious service for a ceremonial ritual. It would seem like a poor religion that, underneath its surface, good cheer has nothing to offer but isolation and loneliness.