FriendFeed is a brilliant social media service. Perhaps you’ve not heard of it: With only about half a million unique visitors a month, FriendFeed is dwarfed by its publicity-savvy competitors. But you’ve seen FriendFeed, even if you’ve never visited the site. Part Twitter, part content aggregator, FriendFeed’s realtime technology and features have deeply influenced other services. Facebook found FriendFeed so compelling that it acquired the company and its technology in a $50 million transaction last August.
I was involved with Friendfeed for a long time. To be honest, it was probably my favorite social media tool. But this weekend, I deleted my account. When you do this, all your posts disappear into the ether, so I thought I’d write a few words of explanation in case someone should someone notice my absence and wonder what happened.
Living without a car
I’m a fulltime bicycle commuter. I love being on my bike, and have been effectively carfree since last June. Cycling is a healthy, fun, and environmentally friendly way of getting around. Though I live in a small city with few amenities for non-motorized transportation, it’s quite possible to get by without the burdens of a car note, auto insurance, and all the costs associated with fueling and maintaining a vehicle.
That’s not to say there isn’t some risk in being a cyclist. Don’t get me wrong: I feel pretty confident on the road. I’m an experienced rider, understand the risk factors which lead to most bicycle-car incidents, obey traffic laws, and my bikes are properly lit and maintained. But one thing cyclists don’t have any control over is impaired or aggressive drivers. The same can be said for motorists, though any time a bicycle and a car try to occupy the same space, the automobile always wins.
What happened
Which is why I was horrified to see someone post a photo of a particularly terrifying crash on FriendFeed this Saturday. I’m familiar with the image: a tragic incident which happened just after the start of a cross-border bike race near Matamoros, Mexico, two years ago. A photographer captured the instant a drunk driver plowed head-on into the peloton, killing 38-year-old Alejandro Alvarez and seriously injuring ten others. It’s a frightening picture, with broken bicycles and broken bodies flying through the air.
Someone had grafted the photo to one of those motivational-style posters with what they considered a witty caption. I am absolutely humorless when it comes to violence against cyclists or those who find death amusing, so I added an angry comment. By this time, several prominent FriendFeeders had “liked” the post, signifying their approval.
To the credit of the original poster, the image was removed shortly after my complaint. But the damage was done, and I was as concerned about the community’s endorsement of the post as its appearance. I started a new conversation voicing my displeasure.
Incredibly, someone attempted to equivocate the death and maiming of cyclists with the annoyance motorists suffer in large cities when they come across the occasional Critical Mass demonstration. I don’t support Critical Mass, and only a tiny minority of cyclists are even aware of the organization’s existence. Most of the miles cycled in this country are ridden by folks who are just trying to get to work, run errands, or get some exercise. They’re business people, moms, children — regular people, not activists. Even if this had been an illegal Critical Mass rolling roadblock, the riders would have deserved traffic citations, not headstones. So after stewing about things for a while, I found the FriendFeed account deletion link and erased all trace that I’d ever been a part of the service.
Could I have handled this differently?
Of course. Social media — like the rest of the world — is filled with cretins. That’s why there are tools to ignore such people. I could have blocked the barbarians and continued as if nothing had happened.
But I think there are times appropriate for making a statement. The picture at the top of this article is of a Ghost Bike: roadside memorials to cyclists killed by automobiles. I’m dedicating my ghost account to Alejandro Alvarez. I’ll miss FriendFeed, but not as much as Alejando’s family must miss him.
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