Facebook devised a system known internally as “X-Check” that exempted certain high-profile users from its rules. Included among those “whitelisted” were soccer star “Neymar,” former President Donald Trump, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and a dog named “Doug the Pug.”
The Wall Street Journal
I don’t know if it’s really true, as I’ve heard, that the more time you spend on social media the more depressed you get, but it’s certainly accurate in my case. Every morning when I check the World Wide Web to see if Hilary Clinton is still covering up pedophile rings operated out of pizza parlors, I find myself low in spirits. Despite getting–on average–46 “friend” requests per day, I feel as if the 1.9 billion or so Facebook users . . . just don’t understand me.
There are, for example, all the people trying to get me to invest in bitcoin. Sorry, I had a coin collection when I was growing up, and that little venture into numismatics earned me exactly one cent per penny–I’m not getting fooled again. Then there are the people who take me literally when I was posting figuratively, and the reverse.
And the women! As protean blues songwriter Willie Dixon once said, “Great Googly Moogly!” They are, without exception, young, nubile and attractive. They are also, again uniformly, not the brightest bulbs on the scoreboard. Their every message to me starts out the same: “Hi! Do you like sex?” I don’t think a woman who asks the sort of question the answer to which is self-evident is going to win a Rhodes Scholarship, if you know what I mean.
Willie Dixon
But today I found out that, as usual, I’ve been going about things all wrong. Facebook has been running a secret society for the elite, sort of like the Skull & Bones club at Yale. While ordinary schlubs like me and probably you get the dregs of the on-line experience, internationally-known figures in the arts, sports and politics go to the head of the line, like those people who buy first-class plane tickets and are doted on by curvaceous stewardesses who pour them champagne while denying you your constitutional right to drink the quart bottle of malt liquor you thoughtfully brought on board.
As I read down the bi-partisan list of Davos-level celebrities who benefit from this platinum service–Donald Trump on the crazy right, Elizabeth Warren on the dingbat left–my blood began to simmer, but it hit a rolling boil, as the cookbooks say, when my eyes landed on a name that belonged not to a human, but to a dog, and an ugly one at that: Doug the Pug.
I don’t have anything personally against pugs, even though–or perhaps because–one relative of mine by marriage has owned a succession of them. My father-in-law proposed to get one, but as he was in his mid-80s the question arose: who would care for the dog when grandpa died? My mother-in-law said “Well, you would, of course.” To which I said ix-nay on the ug-pay.
My curiosity was piqued, however, so I had to look up this Doug the Pug. Who was he, what had he done to deserve special treatment, while humans like me toil for our allotted time on earth and end up obscure, a subject for Thomas Gray’s “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard.” Getting in touch with Doug was accomplished in a matter of seconds: He had (when I checked) 5,852,349 Facebook followers, and I quickly became the 5,852,350th.
Doug, as it turns out, while he is the self-proclaimed “King of Pop Culture,” was happy to engage with a Commoner of Pop Culture like myself. Here is our back-and-forth using Facebook’s annoying Messenger app:
Me: Doug, if you have a moment, I have a few questions about how I can attain your exalted X-Check status.
Awww!
Doug: Sure, but it’s a lot harder than getting TSA Precheck.
Me: What exactly did you do to qualify?
Doug: I made people . . . happy.
Me: Ah, I see. That’s going to be a problem for me.
Doug: Why?
Me: I’m not a, how you say, “people person.”
Doug: Well, that’s not something I can fix.
Me: I know. Still, there are divisive X-Checkers like Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren. Can’t they make room for one more abrasive, irritating personality–like me?
Doug: Those two went out there and earned it. They shook hands, ate whatever foodstuffs were offered to them during their campaigns, told obvious lies and otherwise ingratiated themselves to millions of Americans. You stayed home, took naps, noodled around on the guitar, and wrote whimsical little “posts” on social media.
Me: Sorry, I’ve had no desire to run for public office since my single-term as 5th grade class president came to an ignominious end.
Doug: Were you impeached?
Me: No, I was promoted to sixth grade.
Doug: Okay. Well, even an allegation of criminal conduct won’t keep you off the X-Check Xpress if you’re popular enough.
Me: Really?
Neymar
Doug: Yeah. Consider Neymar, full name Neymar da Silva Santos, Jr.
Me: Who’s he?
Doug: HUGE soccer star, 150 million followers. How many do you have?
Me: Uh, five hundred and thirty-six.
Doug: That’s not going to cut it.
Me: What did “Neymar” do.
Doug: Posted nude photos of a woman who he said was trying to extort money from him.
Me: And he’s still got an account?
Doug: Yep.
Me: But if I post nude photos . . .
Doug: Any woman who tries to extort money from you is barking up the wrong pant leg.
Me: (. . .) How do you know my net worth?
Doug: This is Facebook, we’re in the data business.
Me: Okay, but hypothetically . . .
Doug: If you post nude pix without consent your account is closed. One strike and you’re out.
Me: Seems unfair to me.
Doug: You know what John F. Kennedy’s father said to him?
Me: What?
Doug: Life is unfair.
Me: But people don’t have to be.
Doug: Says Mr. Unpopular.