Preview

Sherman Alexie's Poem, The Facebook Sonnet

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
253 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Sherman Alexie's Poem, The Facebook Sonnet
Sherman Alexie’s poem titled, “The Facebook Sonnet,” captures social media as it is - meaningless and lonely. Users sign up for sites in hopes of sharing life’s excitements and receive other’s support in return. Many are honest in the things they post, while others are not. it is up to the individual to stand with a high chin or let the weight of the words affect them. It easy to get caught up in the extravaganzas of others, thus the real struggle is protecting your own identity and value.
EVALUATE HOW
The author does not sugarcoat the world of social media and it users. She does not judge their decisions to join the virtual world, because she understands how easily accessible and highly used it is among society. Her organization of syntax

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Facebook Sonnet” clearly shows that the smallest thing can become the biggest part of life. The first stanza introduces you to Sherman Alexie's description of Facebook in “The Facebook Sonnet.” It talks about reuniting with old high school friends and how it keeps you connected to them for as long you all shall live in the "endless high-school/Reunion" (lines 1-2). The middle of the first stanza says, "Welcome to past friends / And lovers, however kind or cruel" (lines 2-3), this shows that someone can reconnect with old friends, or even old enemies.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Social Media has become so powerful and influential within modern culture and society, that it has the ability to affect people’s lives in all aspects, including both financial and social status. Quite simply, it can either “build you up or break you down”; and only those that knowingly can utilize its services in a skillful manner are the ones able to succeed.…

    • 2876 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The poem that I choose was “The Facebook Sonnet”, to me the author and poet Sherman Alexie was saying how social media has become so wide spread in to today’s society, which everyone has to post something on Facebook, good, bad, ugly and indifferent. There is many relationship’s that are ruined by those that reach out to past boyfriends, girlfriends and lovers.…

    • 171 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cited: Alexie, Sherman. "The Facebook Sonnet." The New Yorker. N.p., 16 May 2011. Web. 11 Nov.…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Facebook 22222

    • 298 Words
    • 1 Page

    Plot Summary: Facebook turned into a place where people are searching for any sort of attention. It is safe to say that the majority of people only use Facebook to creep on people from their past and compare themselves to others which lowers their self-esteem. A person can log in to Facebook, post whatever they want, belong to any church they want; however, it is really all pretend. The sarcasm in this poem really makes readers wrapped up in social media, take a step back to think about what is more important in life.…

    • 298 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jacob Silverman’s Terms of Service provides a unique perspective on the evolution of social media and the effects it is having on society. Not only are corporations using the information posted on social media to bombard users with advertisements, the demand to be noticed has forced users to falsely portray their life in order to increase popularity among their followers. With more and more of our lives migrating to various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it can be very easy to lose one’s self in someone else’s reality. In Jacob Silverman’s Terms of Service, he implies that social media has completely transformed society to be more narcissistic and dwell on false perceptions of reality.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Data aggregators are collecting personal information from websites. It is not only a name and a basic location, but what a person searches on the internet. Any action online has been tracked by these vultures, always scavenging for scraps of meat to fill their daily quotas. These bits and pieces of information become a second-self; “In essence, a second-self – a virtual interpretation of you – is being created from detritus of your life that exists on the web” (Andrews 710). As if this portrayal of the true self was not enough, social media makes a more psychological argument of the true self. Orenstein explains how the self is “becoming a brand”, something that is being advertised to others hoping for some people to buy into this persona (447). The problem is that this persona is also false. The self should be developed from within not developed by the likes and retweets received when interacting with social media (Orenstein 447). Orenstein even admits she has noticed at times when she has fallen to the need of updating a status, “As I loll in the front yard with Daisy [Orenstein’s daughter] or stand in line at the supermarket or read in bed, part of my consciousness splits off, viewing the scene from the outside and imagining how to distill it into a status update or a tweet” (448). This need to inform everybody online of what is happening at that moment by tweeting and posting pictures that are sure to be judged…

    • 1630 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    She claims that although social media provides endless potential for connection and allows for self-expression, it has also altered how people spend their time as well as how they display and construct their own identity. Reflecting on her the impact of her usage of Twitter, Orenstein questions, “when every thought is externalized, what becomes of insight? When we reflexively post each feeling, what becomes of reflection? When friends become fans, what happens to intimacy? The risk of the performance culture, of the packaged self, is that it erodes the very relationships it purports to create, and alienates us from our own humanity” (Orenstein, par. 7). Orenstein uses rhetorical questioning to allow her audience to take into account the irony that comes with the purpose of social media. The author claims that as one focuses on displaying oneself and getting more friends or likes online, social media often leads to losing “insight...reflection...intimacy” as the “performance culture erodes the very relationships it purports to create.” She uses oxymorons in her questioning to prove that with the use of social media, the true intention of promoting oneself becomes obsolete as she asserts that when “every thought is externalized,” insight is diminished, and when users “reflexively post each feeling” there is no reflection of oneself. When the goal of social media sites and apps is to be social and make “friends,” it often transform into an intent associated with the quantity instead of the quality of the relationship. As social creatures who develop relationships, building social media relationships sometimes “alienates us from our own humanity” because we tend to focus on displaying an image of…

    • 1036 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Stephen Marche’s “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”, published in The Atlantic in May 2012, he brings up the topic of the growing loneliness in America and its possible connection with Facebook. Marche shows us the “accelerating contradiction” (62), where the system that was designed to connect us, is actually causing us to become more lonely.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Evergreen Social Media

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The world today is obsessed with social media and internet sites such as: Twitter, Facebook, and Snap Chat. Many more social media websites are being created on a continuous basis. There are good aspects with these social media websites, but bad ones as well. Jessica Bennett’s article in Newsweek, writes about the flip side of internet fame. I believe we should all think about what we post, write or state on social media, as it can affect others dramatically.…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Generation Why Analysis

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Rather than enhancing well-being…it may undermine it” (729). We constantly refreshing the Facebook feed to see the latest status and events of our friends. When we see there is an event that our friends hanging out with each other, we felt left out and lonely. When we post a picture, we want more like to perceive popularity. As we see friends’ pictures of “the vision of good life” (648), we compared ourselves and felt bad. Although Facebook helps everyone to connect with people and share information (650), the quality of social connection that we needed is undermined. We should have more direct social interaction to fill our life with truly jolly and true-friendly, instead of with “falsely jolly, fake-friendly…” (652) online. The emotions associated with Facebook may be the only way distinguish a “person” and the “database”…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    McKenna Scott

    • 1664 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest. People can watch funny videos, post about their days, like or comment, and share photos about events we have attended or things we have done. The internet has provided infinite ways we can connect with others and share what is on our minds. How often, though, do we stop and think of the consequences that our actions online could bring? Many people have adopted the concept of “click first, think later”. Youth today rely heavily on their online presence to create their identity. At times, the older generation wonders if they have the capacity to have a face-to-face conversation or if they would rather remain at an arm’s length or even anonymous. While the advantage of social media is found in the very name: social; the disadvantage is the substitute of the online presence for deep abiding relationships that grow through conversation, common experiences, and at some times, suffering.…

    • 1664 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this piece of coursework I will be analysing how language is used in three different texts, to represent Facebook. The three texts which I will be analysing will each be representing Facebook differently. Text A is an article from the Sun’s website which represents Facebook negatively published on the 18th January 2008. Text B is an article from the Daily Mail Online and represents Facebook very positively and was published on the 17th September 2012. And finally, text C is an article from the Guardian website which was published on the 4th October 2012.…

    • 1383 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The piece “With Friends Like These…” was written by Tom Hodgkinson, a British writer for The Guardian, in 2008. Considering this was the year in which Facebook surfaced onto public attention, the author, like many other journalists, evaluated the site personally and did background research to further his claim. The author’s intended audience ranges from an individual who is seeking advice regarding joining Facebook or anyone who is looking for guidance as to whether or not to remain on this social networking website. The main purpose of the author is to convince the reader that he/she needs to reject Facebook. He does so by emphasizing the fact that it hinders people from truly connecting and that it is a social experiment put forth by a group of venture capitalists that has its own agenda to profit (Hodgkinson 326, 327).…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A significant social trend in our generation’s youth was the explosion of the social networking sites. From the first social networking site started back in 1995 social networking was introduced by AOL (America Online). Shortly after it was followed by Classmates.com in 1997; moreover, social networking had began it 's peak with Blackplanet.com bring in 3 million users then Friendster was born in 2002, not long after Linkedin was created in 2003 bring in 30 million members. Meanwhile MySpace.com hit the networking in 2003 tripling Linkedin 's users. Finally Facebook.com was created in 2004 but only for Harvard college students then two years later Facebook was launched to the public and today Facebook has 150 million members. Facebooks model is to promote honesty and openness. Christopher Nickson inaaccurately states in his article that “It seems people really enjoy beings themselves, and throwing that openness out there for all to see” (Nickson1). Nickson does not see that online people are allowed to put whatever they want other to see and think about their life. Such sites allow people to be…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays