South Park has always been wry and chock-full of social commentary, but last night’s episode — “You Have 0 New Friends” — took it to a whole new level with its depiction of Facebook’s hold on society.
Kyle is obsessed with accumulating friends on Facebook and taking care of his farm on Farmville. Cartman, ever the savvy businessman, figures out a way to earn a modicum of Facebook fame by starting a podcast called Mad Friend that parodies Jim Cramer’s Mad Money — only friends are the hot commodity, not stocks and bonds. Stan, ever the moral, grounded center of the group, tries to resist joining the site, recognizing it as the time-suck it can be.
Holding out proves impossible, though, when Stan’s friends make a profile for him. His dad is offended that he hasn’t “friended” him, his girlfriend Wendy is mad that his relationship status says “single” and his uncle wants Stan to poke him (ew). In his attempt to appease everyone in his life, Stan soon has over 845,000 friends and is one of the central cruxes of the social networking site.
Kyle, on the other hand, becomes a sad, friendless “loser” when he takes pity on a third grader, Kip Drordy, with no Facebook (or real life) friends. Kip tells his parents he finally has a friend, and doing all sorts of friend activities, like taking his “friend” Kyle to the movies (cut to him sitting in the theater with his laptop open to Kyle’s Facebook page). Cartman advises everyone at South Park Elementary to unfriend Kyle on Mad Friend because of his association with such a loser, and Kyle plummets into a deep depression that forces him (gasp) to leave his computer and seek out his real-life friend Stan. (But not without a quick, wayward venture onto Chatroulette with Cartman).
Stan, of course, has stumbled into a Tron-like world from which he cannot escape. We, the viewers, are left wondering: in the world of Facebook, are friends just commodities we collect and dispose of with little to no emotional attachment? Let’s all take this time to sign off Facebook and heed Stan’s advice to go outside and play a game in the “real world” — but please friend Kip Drordy first.
Screengrab via SouthParkStudios.com.