Facebook Gets a Classy Takedown, in Verse

Writer Sherman Alexie has a wry take on Facebook in this week’s New Yorker. In a sonnet that’s not exactly Shakespearean, Alexie comments on the compacted and awkward nature of Facebook interactions.

The poem is behind a paywall, so we’ll just give you the closing couplet, but it’s been screenshotted elsewhere.

Let’s sign up, sign in and confess
Here at the altar of loneliness.

Alexie is best known for his short story collection “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” and the movie based on one of the stories, “Smoke Signals.”

For another less classy–but amusingly so–sendup of Facebook’s awkwardness, see the Australian comedy group Hungry Beast’s recent video, “The Offline Social Network.”

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.