Fakebook by Dave Cicirelli Read Free Book Online

the car’s cassette deck, blasting a newly purchased Chocolate Starfish at top volume as I repeatedly yelled, “I LOVE LIMP BIZKIT. FRED DURST IS THE GREATEST POET OF OUR TIME.”
    I stayed up all night and crammed—making probably the world’s first Limp Bizkit flash cards. I hopped on every message board and every fan page I could find. I read through hundreds of pages of horrendous grammar until I started to absorb the conversation, until I began to believe those opinions were mine. Until I believed in Limp Bizkit.
    The email to MTV had started as a goof, just like my email to the Amish webmaster a couple years earlier. All of a sudden the goof became a challenge. And I almost made it happen. I got all the way to the final round of casting before I lost out to some dude with a very new-looking Fred Durst tattoo.
    Now Fakebook was a challenge just like those, and I didn’t want to come up short again. But it was different than the close call with MTV. It was much bigger, much more complex, and it had the potential to be…well, I wasn’t exactly sure what yet. I just knew that I was on to something. Something that might have been right and might have been wrong, but no matter what, it wasn’t something small.
    To do this right, I needed to understand it. I had to dive in and understand what exactly it was that I’d stumbled into. I looked at my personal messages, finally ready to confront them.

    Matt Campbell was a Facebook friend. In other words, he wasn’t really a friend at all.
    Sure, we were classmates once upon a time. But years later? He was just another piece of my news feed—part of that abstract mass of real-time minutiae.
    Facebook friends didn’t count. That’s what I kept telling myself. The people I cared about, I kept in touch with, right? So those I didn’t keep in touch with didn’t really mean anything. Which meant it didn’t matter what I pretended to do. To them I wasn’t even real anymore; I was just a particular arrangement of pixels on a screen. It was all entertainment, and I was providing it.
    At least that’s what I’d assumed when I started this—and it was an assumption that gave me permission to do Fakebook with a clear conscience. But now I was ready to have that assumption challenged. I logged on to Facebook and read Matt’s message to me.
    Matt Campbell → Dave Cicirelli
    Subject: Godspeed, Friend.
    I just suggested a bunch of friends that I know would love to follow your travels. Many of them are out around the country and may be valuable assets in your journey. I’m sure many of them will watch, and offer any help (tips or otherwise…lots of campers and outdoorsmen) or just support.
    I must say, I really admire what you’re doing. It is very “John Galt” and a huge life experience that some people never get to have. I am envious of your fortitude and newfound freedom…a word that many will never get to fully experience, so thank you.
    Also, if Ohio comes across your path, my wife knows TONS of really good, down to earth people much like yourself that would love, if nothing else, to just sit down for a couple beers one night and hear the tales of your trip so far.
    I will conclude with saying that it is a weird feeling to be almost emotionally attached to your venture. Like a “Truman Show” only with someone I knew while growing up (dating back to teasing Kelly in 7th grade). Your travels, in a small way, amount to my freedom as well.
    Godspeed friend.
    He was taking this so seriously. He seemed almost startled by how important my page was to him. To him, my Facebook page wasn’t a frivolous thing, but an inspiring and powerful experience that he felt like he was a part of.
    He was wrong. Facebook was stupid.
    I switched windows to Photoshop and looked at Party Ben Franklin. The photos were funny, and I wanted to make people laugh, dammit. The absurdity of all this