My world is cold and without hope. I woke up this morning, ate some Raisin Bran, played with my cats, lit up a cigarette and logged on to Facebook.com – my daily routine, if you must know – and what I saw shocked me. Someone was screwing around with my lil Lohan. Do you know what it feels like to log on to Facebook and learn that your lil Lohan reluctantly agreed to phone her parents, but before a minute elapses, she’s curled up in the fetal position on the floor of your lil rehab center, weeping and shaking? I’ll tell you what it feels like. It feels like my heart is raped. Raped to death by an uncaring world. Is nothing sacred anymore? Have they no shame? Hasn’t Lindsay Lohan been through enough lately without my friend Luke offering her a line of blow and a cell phone? That’s a recipe for disaster. Now, I’m sure some of you don’t know what I’m talking about. Some people are always behind the curve. Part of my job on the opinion page is to change lives, so here’s your after school special moment. Listen up. The Facebook application “My Lil Lohan” is taking the “social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them” by storm. Everyone who’s anyone has added the application, dear readers, because everyone who’s anyone understands the immediate, visceral joy that comes with making your friends’ Internet Lindsay Lohan avatar descend into substance abuse and the inevitable shame of public rehab. There’s a certain pleasure that’s inseparable from ruining the lives of your friends’ lil Lohans. Every time I send a poison pill, I realize that “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Ruining Lindsay’s life isn’t the only thing you can do, though. Life’s not always bad for her when she has “the best week ever.” That’s why you can be nice to your friends’ lil Lohans – feed them, go shopping with them, help them dye their hair black or pay for them to wax their “lady parts.” If all else fails and nothing else is going to stop your friends’ lil Lohan from becoming just another casualty in the war on Celebreality, stage an intervention – the more friends who attend, the more effective it is. You know, just like in real life. With all of this comes risk, of course. The Bible may tell us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, but that isn’t the initial appeal of “My Lil Lohan.” Linz is looking for love in all the wrong places, and all of us know she’s doomed to fail. Like Jessica Rabbit, she’s not bad – she’s just drawn that way. Or, to be more precise, my lil Lohan isn’t bad – she’s just drawn to coke orgies and public relations nightmares. But I digress. Having your own Facebook lil Lohan is a lot like having a pet. You love it just like a real person, but you’re also responsible for it. While ruining the lives of your friends’ lil Lohans is the application’s initial appeal, eventually the Golden Rule kicks in: your lil Lohan reaps what your lil Lohan sows. The lesson is simple as Greek Tragedy: while partying and drugs are fun when they make you a tabloid star, at some point there’s a moment of clarity. When you try to make your friends’ lil Lohans’ lives crumble around them, your own lil Lohan becomes a target. We live in a celebrity-obsessed culture, and our silver screen saints bring meaning to our little lives. VH1 creates our gods, exposes their flaws and fills us with the desire to cast them down; Tila Tequila overthrows Lindsay Lohan just as the Olympians brought down the Titans. The pattern is established, and it’s as old as Oedipus. Hubris must be punished. Payback’s a bigger you-know-what than Linz ever was, and Facebook revenge burns brighter than the sun. Drugs will start flying across the Internet. Everyone’s lil Lohan will be higher than a zeppelin dying to crash and burn. Before you know it, “My Lil Lohan” goes nuclear. Then all that’s left is “My Lil Lohan” mutually assured destruction. A true Facebook armageddon terrifies me. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones,” quipped Albert Einstein. Einstein knew no one would win after Facebook’s nuclear winter. All we can do is band together in nomadic tribes and hope for enough ammo to fight off the mutants together.
—-Contact Neal Hebert at [email protected]