To Vaguebook or to Overshare? That is the Question.

To Vaguebook or to Overshare? That is the Question. June 27, 2017

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I ran into a hashtag in twitter, yesterday, for English words that are pleasurable to say. I spent thirty seconds searching in my mind for the word ‘Bucolic’ but it unhappily evaded me and I wandered away to fold laundry. It’s one of the great tragedies of our time–trying of think of something to tweet and not being able to.

Speaking of twitter–and this is totally not what this post is about–but my big inhibition about tweeting is that I read some urban legend a long time ago that the Library of Congress was keeping copies of all the tweets that have ever been tweeted. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to carry on such a task, and I hope most desperately that it’s not true, but still, the very idea produced Tweet Block. I can’t possibly say anything interesting or clever enough in 140 characters that would deserve to be hung onto by the Library of Congress. The very idea makes me break out in a sweat.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I really love the word Vaguebook. It’s so fantastic. A definition, as far as I can understand, for those who haven’t run into it yet, is to put a vaguely worded status on Facebook, to try to let all your friends know that something is up, or something is wrong, or something is about to happen, but not to say what it is, so that all your friends spend at least one long thread trying to wrest it out of you, and then probably start private messaging you to get more information. It’s a verb, as far as I can tell–To Vaguebook.

First of all, I love the way it sounds. But second of all, it points to the true reality that we all live in this netherworld now, with social media, tiptoeing along the tightroped line between the Overshare (also a great word) and the Curated Self. None of us really knows how to live ‘authentically’ (the worst word ever) between these two.

I think about this a lot because, well, I’m a blogger and I blog every day. I have so many choices to make when I approach my blank screen every morning. I could go all in and blather on about myself (surely, this happens more than I intend for it to), or I might like to veer in the direction of ideas and events, or I can try to obliquely glorify the monotony of my life by making every little thing that I do into some bigger more philosophically crucial ‘thing’ than it is–so many choices.

Really, though, the task every day as I define it for myself is to teeter along between hiding behind words and being known through them. The tightrope is to divulge as much of the essence oneself as possible while shrouding as many of the particulars as one reasonably can. So many things can’t, and shouldn’t be said. So how can one not say them while at the same time telling the full, golden orbed truth as many times as possible?

Vaguebooking, I think, is a nod towards the fact that we all live in the Kingdom of the Overshare. But it’s a beautifully narcissistic nod, because it still gathers all the energy of one’s feed towards oneself. When it doesn’t work and one is left still trying to apply salve to the broken spirit, there is an inevitable pivot towards virtue signaling. It’s a lovely progression.

On the other hand, vaguebooking can be a useful tool for climbing out of the dark caverns of pain and depression. There you are on social media. In spite of all your ‘friends’ you’re still quite lonely. A bad thing happens or is about to happen. You have to let people know but you just can’t face the full revelation yet, so you vaguebook. Or, perhaps, you need to stick it to someone who is injuriously signaling virtue what you know for a fact isn’t that person’s true possession. In that case, vaguebooking is a way of letting lots of people nod to each other about the blind idiocy of the virtue signaler without starting an actual fight.

It’s a fantastic word, and pleasant to say. I hope you’ll come to appreciate it as much as I have.


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