Why Were We So Eager to Take Those Facebook Quizzes? A monologue by Blanche DuBois
Once again the whole world is laughing at us Americans — if only that were new! At any rate, there’s a new reason: The Guardian, that estimable British newspaper, revealed on the weekend that all our innocent “Likes” and “Frowny faces” have been extracted, if you please, and plunged straight into “data analysis” systems to expose the very insides of our characters for these people’s evil calculations. Yes! All those quizzes we took about “Which Jane Austen Character Are You?” have been harvested by some freakishly devilish digital program that not even Poe, not even Edgar Allen Poe,could have dreamed up in his worst nightmares!
Why were we so open? Is it because we feel a deep-down need to check in with the technology we pour our hearts and souls into day and night and ask it who we really are? Is it because some things are too painful to face? And it’s easier to answer a few questions about what color square appeals to you or which you’d rather eat, a piece of fried chicken or a clump of grapes, than to face — face what’s inside! Your inner world that this horrible data mining experiment is trying to figure out, trying to pin on you — wait, what’s that music? That lovely, rocking … No! No, I didn’t say I liked the square with stripes! I liked the more muted green one, the piney green, it was so sweet, so gentle. It didn’t hurt your eyes or blast light at you. It didn’t ask “What is the name of your deep down cavern, your abyss, the place of your biggest sadness?” But Cambridge Analytica have worked out a way to figure that out by asking us our favorite chocolate bars. They just have to snap their fingers and we simple, simple Americans with our innocent belief in some order and goodness in the world stand naked, exposed by that very eagerness to share our innocent feelings!
Oh how we’ve always been laughed at by these sophisticates with their dastardly — that’s a theatrical word, an old-fashioned word, but what other word can come close? We are almost — yes, I’ll say it — almost to the mustache-twirling stage of villainy with this latest breach of our innocence! For our crime was only to participate, in the way Americans always have — to click “Like” on a photo of a beach at sunset posted by our brother-in-law’s sister or “Love” on an acquaintance’s freshly born baby. How could we know that from these acts of light conviviality the data analysts were able to deduce we were unable to understand the issue of term limits and therefore would believe any trashy lie they put out about the Federal Reserve? But they did know. One “Sad face with teardrop” emoticon on a photo of a homeless family tells them you’re a dead cert for believing some outrageous lie about nuclear warheads. In this way we’ve walked into their trap like innocent lambs.
The problem is we’re too eager! Always eager, always ready to believe a stranger’s smile and a hearty handshake. We don’t have centuries of skullduggery in our backgrounds like Europeans. Why, we have Archie comics, telling us the world is made of primary colors, and there’s no place in our lives for the dark, disturbing undercurrents that Europeans accept like new grass in springtime. Even if it’s there we’re going to face in another direction! Mr. Mark Zuckerberg led 200 million lambs to the slaughter and I don’t think even he knew what was happening! Like any American, he thought foreigners were simply incomprehensible, so whatever they wanted, he said yes. That’s the American way. We’ve all lived that way and some of us have paid for it, paid very dearly for saying yes all the time. Oh! Do you hear that music? So lovely and gentle, like a rocking-horse. It makes me — no! No, I never took the “What Does Your Favorite Motown Group Say About You?” quiz! Or — did I? I don’t remember now. What if I admitted it’s the Chi-Lites? Great Christ in Heaven, what does that say about me? The mind reels — where can we hide our darkest secrets now that we’ve admitted them by playing “Which Era of Danny Bonaduce Are You?” It seemed like such innocent fun! But that’s how Americans go down, with our bloodless need for entertainment and our complete absence of guile!
If only more of us had read Mr. Henry James, with his complex portrayals of European con men. But I’m not sure if school curriculums even include Mr. James anymore — he’s judged to be unwholesome, I believe. Oh, those kinds of beliefs have led us into some desperately tight spots, including this one! If only we could acknowledge the darker side! We’d paradoxically live more in the light instead of being led into the darkness by evil, evil data miners.
In a stronger period of our history we could give two snaps for all this but at the moment we’re as weak as drowned kittens, due to the complete absence of sanity in our highest office. Yes, we’re mewling like kittens because someone has taken our parents away! And yet people try to pin things on me, I who am only trying to keep a little grace and glamour alive in our culture! And there were delights I pursued in healthier times — oh, I pursued them and they pursued me! We were in search of magic, true magic, not the kind from a computer. But that’s the kind that gets you in trouble! If you love, truly love, a human being you can be snared into a terrifying swamp of need and desire and — oh — do you hear that music? I seem to hear the most enchanting sound — like an old jewelry box, the kind I had when I was —
What — what’s that light? Who is that woman? No, no, leave me alone, it’s not fair! I only wanted the same innocent pleasure as anyone else — don’t make me go! Leave me to type innocently on my keyboard — I’ll never take a quiz again, only google things like “When was Woodrow Wilson president?” You mean … it’s too late?
