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“The Facebook Sonnet” by Sherman Alexie, is a poem that mocks the way society acts on Facebook. Social media causes people to think and act differently. We become more concerned with how people see us. We want to impress our “friends”. How real are these lives that we are portraying? Social media has allowed us to portray our lives to be so different than what they truly are. We want to come across as perfect even though we know we are not so that we can gain more likes.
People are now changed in a way that causes several problems due to Facebook. In Sherman Alexie’s poem, “The Facebook Sonnet”, Facebook is used to symbolize several things such as; people becoming hypocrites and people dwelling in the past leading them to not truly being here in the present.
One thing Facebook represents in this poem is the fact that people are stuck in the past. Alexie shows this in the first line where he says, “Welcome to the endless high-school Reunion.
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Welcome to past friends And lovers, however kind or cruel” (1114). Alexie uses this line to show how even if someone wronged a person or they were nice to them, they still want to become “friends” with them on Facebook, so they can dwell in this past life where they knew this person. They are stuck in High School. We are constantly looking at the statuses of people we used to go to school with. Alexie also emphasizes how we tend to friend everyone we used to know even if they are not a part of our lives anymore.
It does not matter if they were ncie to us or extremely mean we still want to keep up to date with their lives. Facebook causes people to dwell in the past which leads to people not being present in their current lives. People are concerned with their “friends” on Facebook, people they used to know, and it can lead them to forgetting about their true friends in real life. The author shows this in lines four and five. He says, “Let’s undervalue and unmend the present” (1114). By saying this he is portraying to the reader that because of Facebook people do not value their present lives like they should. Instead they live in a virtual world that does not really matter. He also shows this symbolism in lines seven and eight. He says, “Let’s exhume, resume, and extend Childhood” (1114). By saying this Alexie means that Facebook causes us to dig up the past. We become so concerned with our past lives. We want to relive what we have lost. Facebook allows us to do this by staying in touch with people we have not talked to in so long. We are trying so hard to relive what we used to have even though in reality we know it is gone. All of this causes us to forget about what is going on in our lives right now. We miss so many important opportunities because we are too stuck in what used to be rather than what we have now.
Alexie also allows the reader to understand that Facebook can symbolize the hypocrites in people. For example, he shows this in lines ten, eleven, and twelve where he says, “Let one’s search For God become public domain. Let church.com become our church” (1114). Alexie uses this to emphasize how people can be deceitful through their posts on Facebook. This line symbolizes how people constantly post Bible verses on their Facebook. The problem is when we think about why these people are posting these things? Are they doing this because they truly are Christians and believe in what they are posting or are they rather doing it for the likes? If people are really only posting these Bible verses because they think it will get them more likes than they are being hypocrites. People should believe in what they are posting they should not do it just for likes but people do not always understand this. Alexie wants the reader to understand how big of a problem this truly is.
Alexie used his poem, “The Facebook Sonnet” to emphasize the problems that Facebook symbolizes like how it causes people to live in the past and not be present in today’s world and how it makes people become hypocrites. This poem mocks what people have become because of Facebook. People have created so many problems through Facebook. We should not be constantly living in our past like we sometimes tend to do on Facebook. We should be making sure that we are present in today because the past is gone we can’t get that back, but we can embrace what we have now. We should also not be drawn to living a hypocrite’s life just to gain more likes. Why does the amount of likes we receive change the way we want to act? We should be ourselves but instead we can become hypocrites, so we look better on social media. Facebook symbolizes many things. Alexie focuses on the negative symbols Facebook has created. We need to move away from these problems and have a life worth living rather than living through a screen.
Problems Facebook has Created. (2021, Mar 19). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/problems-facebook-has-created-essay
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