Facebook is a (hopefully benign) stalker’s tool, a networking miracle, a professional asset, and an advertising medium all rolled into one. But like any social experiment, Facebook was destined to have hilarious consequences for those involved. Some were obvious–making a romantic relationship public suddenly made it far more embarrassing for the lovebirds involved to call it quits. But some weren’t as obvious. You were exactly as you said you were; and as I found out, your online persona could be quite a departure from the person you were in the real world.
Somehow, I got the idea that using Facebook to make a rock band would be the easiest way to get my jam on in college. The realities of my situation, pre-Freshman year, seemed to leave Facebook as my only option: I’d be hard-pressed a guitarist, a drummer, and someone to tickle the ivories if I left it up to chance. So I waded through dozens of pre-college freakout threads on the “Northwestern University Class of 2011″ Facebook group until I found one that said: “Band seeking, drummer, bassist, vocalist…” and clicked my way through it.
A guitarist made the thread looking for people to rock with when we all finally got to campus. The thread soon splintered–pieces of the band puzzle fell into place, but each new post complicated the initial lineup and ultimately turned the thread into a marketplace for musicians. One that caught my eye was a guitarist who posted videos of his impressive ability to shred. I wasn’t nearly as well-practiced, but I’d dabbled in my share of pyrotechnics on the Bass guitar–so I cast my line and we agreed that we’d figure out a place to play once school got started.
It turned out we played pretty well together, expanding on each other’s riffs while keeping things musical. Soon, I found myself back online searching for drummers and keys players. We originally settled on a laid-back, bearded dude as a drummer, and a wiry classic rock enthusiast as the keyboardist. I was basing this on my impressions of their character as well as the musical influences they listed, and thought we had a pretty good mix. I found out that the drummer was a solid player; the keyboardist, though was a different story.
We went ahead and covered “Sympathy for the Devil” like he suggested, but I’ve since learned to be wary of people that feel pefectly comfortable filling Mick Jagger’s shoes. In the few gigs we’d played, he’d do those crowd-engaging things (How you feelin’ tonight? I said how you feelin’ tonight? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!) to crowds of maybe ten people, and not surprisingly didn’t get the energy he wanted. And the “oh’s” and “ah’s” that singers usually do for effect ended up sounding like epileptic fits when they were coming from him. The “musical differences” that split us up was his eventual refusal to play keys. He had a frontman complex, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to have the spotlight on him, playing guitar front and center. And only Bruce Springsteen tunes. Bruce has got his place in music history, but the guitarist and I were headed in another direction, and the wildman singer was headed out.
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My Facebook stalking has been a pretty effective method of showing me I’m not a great talent scout. I thought I’d piece together a band from the multitalented people that Northwestern attracts. It turned out that I pieced together a band from the eclectic, atypical individuals that the university prides itselves on.
I’d learned my lesson. Facebook is great for showing people just enough about yourself to keep them interested, and it’s a great way to link interesting-seeming people together. But until you add face-to-face contact into the equation, you can’t be sure if the pictures from last Saturday are from a party animal or an A-student blowing off some steam. The Mick Jaggers of the world tend to show their colors pretty early when they’ve got a live audience.
