“The Facebook Sonnet” by Sherman Alexie brings up ideas and controversies about social media because it decreases face-to-face communication. While Facebook allows people to contact old and new friends, it moves away from traditional social interaction. Online, people easily connect with a simple click. From liking your status to posting more photos, Facebook demands so much attention that it's easy for users to become attached. They get caught up in all online aspects of their lives and fail to appreciate real-life relationships and experiences. With Alexie's diction and tone, “The Facebook Sonnet” belittles the social media site by showing how society is focused on its own image or stuck in the past in order to live in the present. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Alexie's use of words and tone throughout the poem shows his feelings towards Facebook in a negative way. First, Alexie grabs the readers' attention by opening the poem with the word "welcome." His sarcastic tone is already shown at the beginning of lines 1-3, “Welcome to the endless high school/Reunion. Welcome past friends/lovers, no matter how kind or cruel." His take on Facebook friends is that most users don't consider most of their Facebook friends to be their real friends in real life. On Facebook or any other social media site, users can have hundreds of people they consider their friends. However, in real life, most of the time that number consists of a single digit serious while talking about more severe ideas like religion Although no specific form of religion is ever stated, the presumption that God is present is mentioned in the poem. Lines 9-13 read “... Let fame / and shame intertwine in the public domain./ Let church.com become our church.” Social media plays different roles for different users online. From opinionated posts to flattering images, Facebook can be a personal version of heaven or hell. For example, a teenager might commit suicide due to bullying on Facebook. While on the other hand, a child might be born due to Facebook romance. Facebook can have the biggest impact on someone without even knowing it. Alexie uses great diction in the poem to demonstrate his disapproval of Facebook by using words that have much more effect such as "present" and "fame". Facebook portrays life as it is, but most of the time it portrays it as people think it should be or wish it could be. This goes back to Alexie's use of "present." Today, due to the high use of social media, people in our society do not live in the present. Hidden behind computer screens, users have made Facebook their escape from reality. It's easier to hide behind a screen than deal with real problems in the real world. People either imagine their future unrealistic or are stuck in the past trying to relive their glory days. Facebook allows people to see other users' lives and wish their lives become fascinating. For many users of older generations, Facebook allows them to reminisce about old times with old friends. Therefore, many times people forget to live in the present. It's human nature to always want what we can't have or ask the "what if" question. On the other hand, with the word "fame" in thepoetry, refers to the increased attention people want on Facebook. You may also be interestedEssay FixerIf it's not the number of friends a user has on Facebook, then it's the number of comments one will enter on a post. Users are so concerned about their image that they post boastful posts online to seek approval from others. Often, this leads to shame or embarrassment about their future. However, these users should not worry about their online image because most of their friends are not even their close friends in real life. Even if for unnecessary reasons, most people on Facebook are constantly trying to get noticed. The point Alexie wants to make is that the ego boost people get from Facebook shouldn't override the compliments they get from their real friends. This ego boost that users receive only distances them from the real relationships they have with friends and family. It's the bigger things in life that should get people's attention rather than a small online comment. “The Facebook Sonnet” is considered a sonnet but differs from most traditional Shakespearean sonnets in its rhymes. For example, "high school" and "cruel" are slant rhymes in which the words come close to rhyming but don't exactly rhyme. Oblique rhymes are consistently shown throughout the poem such as “friends” and “unmend,” “fame” and “domain,” “pretend” and “extend,” and “same” and “games.” These slant rhymes that Alexie uses show that he doesn't respect Facebook enough to rhyme words. Alexie ends the poem with the lines that say "Let us sign up, log in and confess / Here at the altar of solitude." Through his degraded words in the poem he has consistently shown that this social media site harms our society as a whole. Alexie believes that Facebook is a superficial way of communicating with friends because it allows them to hide behind a computer screen. The author tries to intensify the point that you can be as popular as you want on a social network, but it is the face-to-face communication that really matters in life. For real relationships to work, people need to appreciate what they have and live in the present. Sherman Alexie's poem “The Facebook Sonnet” can be described as a simple poem with a powerful message. We can reasonably say that the speaker of the poem begins the poem by establishing that the topic of the poem is about Facebook by welcoming the reader to the “endless high school reunion.” The constant repetition of the word “Let's do” suggests that this poem is aimed at all those people who use Facebook including the poet himself. The poem is structured strategically. It is a traditional sonnet composed of three quatrains followed by a couplet at the end. “Let the search for God become public knowledge.” the search for God shouldn't be something that needs to be broadcast to the public, yet this is one of many examples of things people feel they have to share on Facebook these days. The poet makes frequent use of irony. Even though he seems to encourage us to do things like “let us resurrect, reclaim, and extend childhood,” the poet is saying that this is what people do but not necessarily what should actually be done. The use of enjambment between each stanza links one stanza to another in the same way Facebook supposedly links one person to another. There are many elements of a traditional sonnet that Alexie embraces, such as the use of rhyming quatrains and the couplet at the end. The poet chooses to use the sonnet form of writing, which is a type of historical writing no longer used that way.