PLAY TIME Will Tell You Why I'm a Bear On Facebook

I'm going to assume that if you're reading this, then you got here from my Facebook page. And if you got here from my Facebook page, then you know that I'm a bear there. And if you're that one person from Malaysia and that other person from Germany, or a bot, I'm going to assume that you got here from a Google Image search. If I'm wrong about that, and you guys from the UK and Russia actually do read my stuff (accidents count) then you should know that I'm a bear on Facebook. Not a member of the homosexual Bear Group (I'm definitely not gruff enough) but an animal bear. One of my hobbies is scratching my back on tree bark, and one of my interests is the Berenstain Bears (Sister Bear and I had a brief falling out recently). Most of the time, though, I just tell jokes that only I think are funny, and only sometimes do they actually require me being a bear for them to make sense if they do at all. When people ask why I'm a bear, I usually just say "Because I thought it would be funny," but really there's a more complicated, more (most likely) pretentious reason for it. But I'll get to that later because right now, I have to talk about this film.

It's a film by Jacques Tati (if you read my post on The Illusionist, a film that was adapted from an of unproduced script of Tati's, the magician is pretty much his famous character Monsieur Hulot), and it's called Play Time. I don't normally call things "masterpieces" and stuff like that because I feel like that word is used a lot and has lost some of its meaning, but damn, if it isn't close to a perfect film. For those who don't know, Play Time doesn't really have a narrative, but more of a string of situations that showcase the accidentally confusing, cluttered and complicated, technologically advanced but socially stilted modern Paris. And unlike, The Illusionist, which had a melancholy take on the passing of old customs and technologies, Play Time is a satiric acceptance of modern culture. And, hey look, the film is super relevant in 2012. What d'you know? The city and the people in it are so in line with 2012 technologies, specifically social networking sites (and even more specifically, Facebook), that it's scary. The film can be seen now, impressively without any changes necessary, as a visual representation of Facebook.

So, yeah, this post is going to be about Facebook. I know. But don't worry. Let me get this information out there first so I don't scare anyone away: I don't think Facebook is evil and a step toward the devolution of social interaction or anything like that. I'll save those holier-than-thou arguments for people who think they can think for other people. And anyway, I think people who do believe those things are the ones who use Facebook the most, and just don't deal with real human interaction all that much. They see their failures and put them on others to make themselves feel superior therefore better, but that's just me unfairly speculating. I also have to note here that I'm only speaking of my own experience of Facebook, which is undoubtedly different from, say, Cameron Newton's or Fruit Loops Cereal's. Anyway, I don't necessarily like Facebook, but I have fun with it regardless.

For me, Facebook isn't a hot spot for the degradation of interaction as it is just a silly place that doesn't necessarily contribute to interaction in any meaningful way.

Take the whole privacy thing. It's clear that even if you lock certain information about yourself from certain people, Facebook still can write a book on you and your life (or at least the boring details, but more on that later). They see everything. That's how they get their ads to you. Everyone knows this, but it seems like they don't really care about it either (what with the growth of Facebook users increasing yearly). And (if you so incline) everyone can see everything about you, too. Your interests, hobbies, what you ate for breakfast, what you look like in a bikini, what you look like in a Speedo, what you look like in funeral garb, a link to your film blog, just how hot it is where you're at, and for that matter, where you're at. Some of these bits of information are invitations for some type of dialogue (e.g. "What do you think of my new hair-do?" or "What do you think of my blog?"), but a lot (I'll say most) of them don't have this inherent invitability to them. They are mostly muses, thoughts, quotes, complaints, etc that can be addressed or not. And, frankly, most of the time they're not. But the important thing is they are available. And that's crazy if you think about it.

But luckily, we can just see it. This idea of ambivalence toward privacy by both parties  is shown in a 10-15 minute scene when Monsieur Hulot visits a friend in his apartment. Paris is a world of glass, and just like the buildings Hulot has visited earlier, the walls are made of glass in these apartments, ensuring everyone is open to everyone else at all times. The camera is positioned outside the apartments throughout the entire sequence, and we see and hear exactly what a person outside the apartments would. It's interesting that we are the only ones who are taking a part in any voyeuristic activity though. People walk by and take no notice of the others in the apartments, and the people inside take no notice of the outside environment.

At first it's odd to see so many people totally uninterested in the lives of other people, especially when they are so out in the open, but think about what they would be looking at: people watching TV. People winding down, taking off their coat. People showing off family photos on a projector (oh, gross!). Now take this in the Facebook realm: Photos of food and babies (not necessarily in the same frame), complaints and compliments to the weather, declarations of pay day, middling accomplishments, and mood. Not to mention those opaque, vague musings. (What does "asdfghjkl" or "..." even imply?) It's utterly boring. It's like an unsatisfactory visit at the zoo where all of the animals are sleeping.

What starts to form inside you due this incredible openness of everyone involved followed by a complete lack of interest by anybody in that openness is this immense feeling of isolation. You don't want to be alone (because why else would you be on Facebook), but you don't really want to interact with anyone either, and you're stuck. Now someone might say, "But, Paul! I do interact with people on Facebook. I message them, I comment on their posts, we instant message." And I would make the boring (but true) argument that those people you are interacting with are only a fraction of the people you could be interacting with. Anyway, let's get back to the isolation.


This isolated feeling is a huge part of Play Time, and it is emphasized  in the apartment scene by the limitations set by the sound design, which forbids you to hear anything that's going on in the apartments. You can see, but you can't, and won't, interact. To top that off, the man that Hulot has been searching for in the previous scenes of the film is in the adjacent apartment, but is unable to see him, and we are unable to communicate to either of them to bring this information to light. Philip Kemp, a film historian who did a commentary on select-scenes on the film, puts it best when he says, "The ambivalent quality of glass, at once present and invisible, destroy[s] privacy but cut[s] people off from each other." Facebook, just like Play Time's Paris, is a world of glass (or more, screens).

Now I know that it probably sounds like I'm saying that Facebook is ruining social interaction, what with the somber note I just ended that last paragraph, but in reality, I just think it's a bit silly. It's like watching someone get really pumped up for a party, only to see them just sitting there people-watching, and then leave exhausted like they just partied their ass off. They think they are socializing, but really (and trust me, a Professional Party People Watcher, or PPPW) they aren't.

And to be honest, it's really hard to socialize if you wanted to because there's just so much going on. With tons and tons and tons of things connected to and on Faceook (Rotten Tomatoes scores, posts that someone has read reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, Instagram photos, Youtube videos, Associated Press articles, Yahoo articles, Washington Post articles, (regrettably) TMZ articles, Twitter posts for God's sake, links to Blog posts, a friend's comment to someone that you don't know, invites to events, birthday reminders, ads, People You Might Know, Recommended  Pages, Group Posts, Berenstain Bear News (okay, that might just be applicable to me and  five year olds), Spotify playlists, cover photo updates, Farmville requests, Mafia requests, and hell, regular status updates, reminders that your mom and six other friends are playing games, updates that tell you that your friend Johnny likes Target, Note posts, and remember pokes?), it's so hard to actually look at one thing for long without moving on to something else. Now I don't want to drive this into a "We're living in the ADHD generation!!" halt, but I just wanted to bring attention to all of these different things that are presented to you on Facebook. And because there are just so many things on the screen, it's hard to be engaged in just one thing, to look at it and really think about it. Instead of producing real interaction, it only produces glazed faces.

Since we're already this far into the post, you can probably assume that Play Time also has loads of situational and photographic goings-on. In the last half of the film, there's a very long sequence (I think it lasts about 45 minutes) of the opening night of a restaurant which clearly should not be opening. The floor tiles are popping up with the shoes that walk on them, the architect is still taking measurements, the "watch-your-step" lights on the ground aren't working, and the back is completely unfinished. Still, people come in one by one, and soon the whole restaurant is filled with lively activity. Throughout the entire film, Tati uses a deep focus so you can see everything from the foreground to way further off in the background, but it's only here where it's almost impossible to see everything. There's just so much going on that it's hard to focus even with the clarity and sharpness of the picture. You might be focused on one person dancing in the foreground that you'll miss a visual gag in the background. Or you'll miss one of the waiters seasoning and peppering a fish (that never gets eaten) for the third or fourth time because you're too busy looking at the backs of men's suits (which have been marked by the backs of the metal chairs they've been sitting in). Some drunk man might fall, drawing your eye away from the increasingly stressed head waiter.

When this chaotic (and, for Tati, undoubtedly logistical) nightmare starts to bear down on you, right when you feel like you have been staring at too much for too long, it takes a turn. Monsieur Hulot, trying to help an American grab something off the wall, brings part of the ceiling and wall down. Pieces of wood, still nailed together hang from the ceiling like a vine-wall, and the American is able to swing bits of it like a door. So he uses the area behind the destruction as a VIP lounge, swinging the wood to let people in. From there on out, it's Play Time.

Before this, the film took the role of quiet judgement, never coming out directly to say what it thinks, but clearly telegraphing it's message: this modern culture is an absolute mess. Now, though, the film takes the role of acceptance, and fun comes in confusion's stead. Everyone is having fun, the music is loud and in high hopes, the people are dancing even more, and no one seems to care about the shoddy service and surroundings of the restaurant. It's in this way that they are embracing modern culture. One of the most important shots in the film is the famous "carousel" shot: the cars in the street going around in circles. The cars are moving and everyone is happy (it seems like the people don't even recognize they are going around in circles). Ultimately, the cars are going nowhere, but it doesn't matter. These people are having fun anyway. I'm not saying Play Time is engaging in these fun activities blindly (it's observant and cautious as ever). It's just going for the ride.

Which brings me back to the whole Bear thing. I really found Facebook to be confusing and unsatisfying, and, at the time, I didn't really know why. I did know that I couldn't quit it. I still don't know why I couldn't either (that's a whole other topic of discussion re: addiction and what not). I went through the whole I'm-Lonely-Now-Let's-Facebook-Oh-No-Now-I'm-Lonelier thing. I tried to play those games that need friends to really progress, thinking that would make me enjoy it more. But it wasn't working. Finally I just decided that Facebook wasn't a real place for interaction. Nothing there really contributes to it. So I decided to make fun with what I could do and make an unsatisfactory experience tolerable and enjoyable (for me at least--I know a few people (including close friends) who can't stand my constant updates).

I've used this approach in many aspects of my life. Whenever anxiety starts to rule me (which happens a lot) I start to joke around. Whenever I have to do a task at work that requires scraping really crappy, old, hard, smelly grease from the sides of the fryer, I pretend I'm one of my old middle school classmates and say, "Ewwwyyaahhhh" throughout the entire process. And I feel a little better every time. The approach works. Now I'm going to end this before this post becomes a plea to run your life a certain way (the tone of which I hope I have avoided), and I'm just going to go back to posting nonsensical jokes (I'm going to call them jokes) and hopefully do Jacques Tati proud. After all, he's the one who thinks that it's all a bit silly and stupid, but hell, go have fun anyway.

This came up under the search "I love facebook"