I read this morning the devastating story of Alicia Istanbul, a young woman who was just trying to stay in touch with her friends through Facebook when she was viciously discriminated against! Facebook unilaterally decided that it would profile the names of its users – ethnically, no doubt – and drop the banhammer on those whose implied nationality they didn’t like. Alicia and her sister were despondent.
When she tried to get reinstated, her emails and letters were ignored. There was “*no question* that [their] actions in this regard constitute clear and unmistakable intolerance and discrimination against [Alicia and her sister] because of [their] name.”
This retelling is of course a bit tongue-in-cheek, at least from my perspective. But this is the kind of language being used to tell the story. Ms. Istanbul posted the emails she sent to FB, from which I pulled the above quote. She lost access late Wednesday (4/23), just before midnight. According to her, by 1:35pm Friday “a lot of people [were] outraged over this.”
There are two things here. The first is that we may have differing concepts of “a lot”. Facebook has a couple hundred million users. That’s a lot. Ms. Istanbul has about 350 FB friends. Comparatively, I don’t think that’s a lot, but that’s just me.
The second thing is that I’m certain that these people were outraged, which raises a whole spectrum of depressing realizations about our culture.
In The End of Education Neil Postman talks about the necessity of “gods”. He isn’t necessarily talking about deities, though they fit the bill. He’s talking about those things that are bigger than us. Big enough to live for. In this society those things seem to be fewer and farther between everyday.
So we tend to fill this void with whatever will take our attention and reward our effort. In some very small ways, FB does this. But in many cases life seems to be so void of those redeeming, value-giving pursuits, that something so trivial as Facebook is all that remains. Which is why “a lot” of people would only need 38 hours to get “outraged” over two accounts being closed by error.
Why is it that such trivial things get elevated to this kind of level? One word: emptiness.
I’m not saying Ms. Istanbul’s life is empty. I’m sure it’s quite full of work, hobbies, family, and friends. But there’s more to fulfillment than a full life. We all feel it. It’s why we become obsessed with things of no importance.
It’s why we work ourselves into a fury to defend and spread the message of our particular parenting style, or diet. It’s why a natural parenting blogger can be assailed by commenters for mentioning that she likes watching TV. And why comic book fans feel the need to raise their noses at the movie versions, because they don’t show what “really happened.”
Ecclesiastes tells us that God put eternity into the hearts of men. Our hearts are searching for something lasting. And until we take hold of it, we’ll latch on to whatever transient thing blows our way.
Some things (like World of Warcraft), last longer than others. A few (like environmentalism, or politics) actually have some significance. But nothing we do is eternal. No job, no hobby, no gadget. If we want lasting fulfillment, there is just one thing we have to look to.
Alison
Rich Mullins wrote a song called “My One Thing.”
“Who have I in heaven but You Jesus?
And what better could I hope to find down here on earth?
I could cross the most distant reaches of this world, but I’d just be wasting my time
‘Cause I’m certain already, I’m sure I’d find
You’re my one thing”
He is still my favorite (earthly) artist after all these years..
Charles
Sounds like a great song. I’m not familiar enough with Mullins, but my wife loves his music. Maybe I ought to listen some.
Alicia Istanbul
This was a really funny post. I appreciate your philosophical insight, and while the joke’s on me, I agree with your entertaining perspective on the situation. In hindsight, it did seem to get blown a little out of proportion, didn’t it
More from authorCharles
Hey, I had a comment war with a friend over something someone else wrote, which he linked to. About video games. We all lose perspective once in a while.
And the joke’s not really on you, so much as on all of us.
Avallonia
Alicia’s situation was not just about losing contact with her social circle or even the business connections she had made through Facebook — the heart of it is that her account was suspended because her last name was Istanbul.
If you check, there are over 500 accounts for persons named Alicia London, as well as several hundred women Alicia Paris with Facebook pages. Interestingly enough, none of them were suspended for suspicion of having a fake name. The bottom line is the name Istanbul is on a list that got it flagged, while Paris and London — equally names of cities — are not. Could the fact that Turkey is a predominantly Islamic country have contributed to the fact that one of its cities is on a flagged list? I think we both know the answer to that — and it is clear that Alicia Istanbul was standing up for more than her right to participate on Facebook.
Your post is both reductionist and judgmental. If, as you posit, Alicia is seeking to fill a void in her life with Facebook, what exactly are you compensating for by writing about it?
Charles
I have a couple of responses -
First, this post is not about Alicia. She just had the unfortunate honor of being an easily adapted parable at my moment of inspiration. This post is about society at large, and the ridiculous amount of value we place on trivial things.
The fact that there are so many people with the last names Paris and London is the reason that name wasn’t flagged. Had there only been 20 or 30 of each, they would probably get more attention. How many people on Facebook have the last names Chicago, Seattle, or Versailles? There are a lot, in fact, but there are also a lot with the last names Kabul, Baghdad, and Mecca. There are also plenty with the name Constantinople, which is, of course, the original name for Istanbul.
The point is, Facebook is not targeting Muslim names, it’s targeting names it has reason to believe are fake.
And I didn’t say that Alicia was trying to fill a void any more than I am or you are. That’s why the post was pointed at everyone. I’ll give you that the post is judgmental, but only in the sense that we all make judgments about hundreds of things every day. To be truly “judgmental” about something I would have to add that she’s going to Hell because of this little social networking scuffle. That’s not likely to happen.
And reductionist it is, if only because it would take a book to fully attend to all the issues here, and no one would buy it.
I feel that you missed the point of my post, which I’ll say again, was not about Alicia, but about everyone. Read it again in that light, and you may see it differently.