Book Report 52 Project: The Future of Us

Let’s pretend you can go 20 years a back in time, and you try to describe Facebook to them. “So, there’s this website, right? And we all log onto it, and we can see how anyone we ever met was doing. Even if we met them in passing!” It might be hard to explain to them just how it works. If you talk about looking at it on your phone they’ll look at you funny, because even if they have a cell phone, they don’t have internet on it. Myspace and Friendstr are still a few years off. Even logging on tot the internet in a way that doesn’t sound like a cartoon is a pipe dream, or it means you have sound turned down.

And watch out if someone wants to use the phone. That just won’t happen.

That’s the concept of the Future of Us, a young adult novel by Jay Asher (who also did the excellent 13 Reasons Why… and you should probably read that) and Carolyn Macker. Josh and Emma are typical teenagers in 1996, when Jost gets one of those free AOL CD-Roms that promised the internet. If you didn’t live back then, they started out seeming exclusive, but they were EVERYWHERE. We eventually used them as frisbees and to thatch roofs. Anyway, because it’s a Young Adult Novel, Josh has feelings for Emma, and they’re close friends. He’s already admitted this to her, and they’ve started to grow apart because of it. But, of course, his mom makes him bring over the CD-ROM so she can start using the internet. She boots it up and sees… Facebook. Of course, it doesn’t exist yet, so what they see is a glimpse into the future. Now, each decision will lead to a new and different life for them, including one where they’re no longer friends. 

I actually really enjoyed the concept of this book, even if it did hit a lot of the cliche marks about love  and time travel. I really enjoyed it more for the role of Emma, and I felt she should have been more the central character rather than focusing dually on her and Josh. The whole “he’s her friend, he has a crush on her!” thing was a little cliche, and it took away from the core of the story, which was Emma learning her destiny, looking into the future, and finding out… she wasn’t really happy.

We don’t think about that a lot abut whether we’ll be happy in the future. Back when I was studying how to be a teacher, I would sometimes fantasize about zipping ahead magically 2 years into the future and becoming a teacher. I can even look back at my own facebook statuses, which include in 2010 being happy when I got the acceptance letter telling me I made it into the program. I didn’t know what the next five years held for me, that it would take me down this interestingly rocky path.

Emma is like that. She keeps logging onto Facebook each time finding a new and different future in front of her, some of them kind of dark and full of loneliness. She keeps hitting that button, hoping to find something different, but doesn’t even as she works to make things happen. Josh, on the other hand, is working to make things happen, but his story kind of skips over his own revelations.

But it is this uncertainty towards happiness that sort of strengthens her as a character. I wish the focus wasn’t so much on how she was going to (spoilers) eventually end up with Josh. Sort of like a reverse “don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”. She would see different futures where he ended up with someone else, and her own life growing more and more miserable. I feel the whole “Josh” thing was a bit of a letdown in the long run, because she didn’t really “learn” from it so much as just “didn’t want to see him with someone else.” And it’s unfortunate, because that weakened her a little bit, and took away from a brilliant character who wasn’t just a one note character at the start. The whole “Josh likes me” thing weighing with her heavily, and she was dealing with it.

I put this in the category of a “sorta wasted potential book” but at least executed really well. I liked the reminders of 1996, and the sheer insanity as they dealt with the things around them not knowing words like “Netflix” or the complexities of losing one’s phone. (The former is unlivable without, the latter is… well, absurd in its own way.) I just wish the focus had shifted more to Emma as a character, who was dealing with her own problems and seeing the result in real time, and not leading directly to a romantic payoff as the “reward.” 

I sound so jaded when I say it like that. Of course, though, I’m happy the two characters ultimately found love, I just wish it was through a different way. (Like maybe a flash forward to how she reacted when the REAL Facebook came into play.)

Overall, I think this is the first book I’ve read in this project that I don’t have extremely strong opinions about. Its worth a read, even if to get some more Jay Asher in your life (and you should) and it’s an interesting concept to explore. 

Be Excellent To Each Other

                Let’s take a few minutes to talk about Facebook.

                Way back in the 2000’s it was a dark, desolate time. When people wanted to talk to each other, they had to “call” each other on phones. Texting was not readily used, and required mashing numbers on a phone until eventually, you got the letter you wanted. Social Media Networks consisted of people hanging out with each other, in person. It was dark.

                Then, some guy no one remembers invented Friendster. I’m not sure if this is how it’s spelled, or if it’s even the first social media network, but it was at least the first one that I was widely aware of. Following Friendster it was Myspace which, in addition to letting you all be friends with Tom, letting everyone know which song you wanted to play for five seconds at top volume before it was turned down, it also let you know who the top eight people you loved more than anyone else in the world were. It was a glorious, glorious age.

                But not wanting to stop at that, eventually a guy named Mark Zuckerberg (known as that rich D-Bag to the people he may or may not have stolen Facebook from) created Facebook. It was a social media network unlike any other. A shining city where all those people in High School you moved 5000 miles to be away from can find you, and your grandmother can totally see those pictures of you hitting up the beer bong.

                Actually, joking aside, I don’t have a problem with Facebook. It actually is something that the internet should be good at – keeping people in touch – and boils it down to it’s purest, hey look at what I had for dinner last night, form. I like the people I knew in High School, some of them. I’m sad we lost touch. Now, rather than losing touch, I can still say “hi.” We aren’t close, we won’t be the godparents of each other’s kids, but I get to stay in touch with some people from a time in my life that may have been awkward, but at least I didn’t have to spend most of my hard earned money on fixing woodrot.

                I digress.

                The real problem with Facebook, and what I’d like to talk about today, has to do with last Saturday Night. Something controversial happened last Saturday night. While normally I love controversy and would like to pick apart the arguments of people, I just couldn’t. Because a lot of the stuff I saw was all over Facebook, and it’s the people I’m supposed to like. Some of them were saying pretty horrifying things, I have to say.

                There are two problems wrapped up in this, actually. One is a minor one: We disagree all the time. Hey, you liked Spider-Man 3… no sweat, I’m sorry your taste in movies suck. We disagree on music… I don’t know what a Mackelmore is,  but I know that Hot 99.5 playing “Thrift Shop” for the 700^th time that hour while the fake sounding morning DJ (I have to do a Bad Shakespeare Post on my hatred for The Kane Show…). But for some reason, I find that you voted for the dishonest politician that was opposite of the dishonest politician that I voted for, and we’re mortal enemies, all the smiling photos of us celebrating in the sun be damned.

                The other problem wrapped up in this is that magical word you know I love: Research. I commented earlier that this was not going to be a post about what happened on Saturday, because I didn’t do enough research into it. I didn’t care to. The whole situation made me sick, I formed my own opinions before looking into it, and while I have them, I’m not going to foist my opinions on you when I know they’re based mostly on emotions. But it seems like everyone finds that one random wonderful picture from a TV show that someone helpfully put white text on the bottom and suddenly… YOU’RE AN EXPERT! It’s not even your words, or your funny (unless you invented them… then kudos, especially whoever did the Futurama Not sure if… one. That’s my favorite.) But some of them get mean spirited, and it’s not what friends are supposed to do. That’s not what civilized society was meant to do.

                Now I’m obviously not calling for an end of debate. Debate’s good. Rational debate and argument is a good thing. It’s what our country was founded on. (Originally Ben Franklin wanted to call it “Americaland” and every Tuesday was topless. Damn Jefferson talked him out of it.) But reposting a mean-spirited meme because you can’t be bothered to go out and do your own research, particularly on a website designed for everyone to stay in touch isn’t exciting or fascinating. It’s lazy. And mean.

                We’ve gotten to a sad point where rational research isn’t done anymore. We’ve gotten to the point where it’s easier to regurgitate a made up fact because thinking about something is hard. We’ve gotten to the point that because one person we don’t like does something, then suddenly that something is not ok.  This isn’t the way people are supposed to act. This is the way that third graders act. Yeah, Facebook, Myspace, and whatever comes next (MyBookStergramwer. Designed by me and four other people I’m going to screw out of a billion dollars. Aaron Sorkin, you may use this blog to make your movie.) are GREAT to help us reconnect, but what compels you to share so much of your life that you NEED to post some ill researched picture of a kitten pointing a gun with statistics on it that would make some statistics using guy laugh? (I really searched for a famous mathematician.) Would you walk into a party with your friends, shout Archduke Ferdinand was a tool who deserved it (too soon?) and kill the party?

                There’s a story my mother likes to tell about my Grandfather. He was with a group of friends and somehow, they got to talking about Politics. They were shouting at each other, yelling, calling each other names. I think someone bit another person. Finally my grandfather stood up, held up a hand and looked around. He said, “That’s nice. Enough about politics. Let’s start talking about religion.” Everyone sort of laughed, shook hands, and that was that.

                I’m not saying avoid the debate. I’m not saying don’t express your opinions. I’m saying that maybe, just maybe before you post something, ask yourself it 1) it’s something you’d say to everyone or 2) did you research it, (ACTUALLY RESEARCH) or are you parroting something that reinforces what you want to believe.

               It's like those two great ones once said... "Be Excellent to each other..."