I think you guys are missing the forest through the trees, maybe Joy Division was a bad example but what Reznor is pointing our is how much of a performance Facebook is, every profile is what/how you want to be perceived now so much how you actually are. It's an idealization. How many of your friends Facebook profiles represent someone significantly different than the person you actually know? A lot.
Can't you say the same thing about Twitter? Or your Linkedln? I mean for heaven's sake it's the reality of the internet and life and general. This is not a substitute, it's an addendum. Facebook connects us. Yes it's hyperreal. Yes it's diluted.
But it's never going to be the perfect image of ourselves, just as how we project ourselves to two people becomes different than when we project ourselves to one. Just as how we project ourselves to three people becomes different from how we project ourselves to two. And scale up to your 400+ friends on the 'book.
>every profile is what/how you want to be perceived now so much how you actually are.
So is every social interaction. We're all obsessed with the matter of authenticity, but every personality is extensively contrived in every social environment. The main difference between online and personal signaling is that our online performances are more scripted and our live performances are more impromptu.
Human beings represent themselves differently in different situations; this is not something that started with the internet.
Look at yourself, I bet the version of you that you present to your parents is different to the one you present to your friends, which is different to the one you present to your partner, which is different to the one you present at work, etc.
every profile is what/how you want to be perceived now so much how you actually are
But what can they do about it? It's not like they have access to your youtube play logs or winamp stats or anything like more like that from which to derive "you".
