Marcel Winatschek

The Morning Facebook Fired Me

Waking up beside a scatter of empty beer bottles and what appeared to be someone else’s prosthetic leg, the first thing I found was a Facebook notification. Stylistically impeccable prose, as always—they really do hire good copywriters—informing me that my account had been terminated for violating their terms of service. For someone who lives and earns online, this lands roughly like a condolence detail at your front door, or the sudden extinction of a species you actually liked.

I hadn’t praised any dictators. No drug tutorials, no violence, nothing involving children. What killed my account was almost certainly a bare tit—some nipple floating free through the algorithm, enough to trigger a politely worded notice, in three languages of gibberish, that the next logical step was throwing myself off a balcony. Well. These things happen, Marcel.

So here I am with my orange juice, peeling social media buttons off my bookmarks, beginning the traumatic search for a network willing to take in a newly stateless internet person. StudiVZ is apparently recruiting. There’s always Jappy, if I’m feeling nostalgic for the absolute floor of human interaction.

No more Farmville. No more obsessively stalking my ex-girlfriends’ profiles—and their new fucks. No more posting sweaty party photos or pictures of my lunch that nobody asked for. I’m free—genuinely, terrifyingly free. The question is what to do with it. I’m leaning toward going outside and punching a nerd. Fuck you, Facebook.