I upload a photo of sun rays breaking through storm clouds over my neighborhood but no one is liking it which is making me want to kill myself. I'm sweating. An hour passes. No likes. I delete the fucking photo.

My name is Sammy Jankis. My Facebook page says so. You'll notice that most of my profile pics are side views of my head. I do this because I look better from the side. If you look at me straight on, you'll think my nose is wide.

The lights are off in my bedroom and the shades are drawn. My face basks in the glow of the Macbook on my lap and I can barely see the faded letters on my keyboard.

I've been waiting all day for this. To be out of the musky school and bumping bodies in the narrow hallways and into my dark bedroom with closed venetian blinds and lightning fast Wi-Fi. The whole world is at my fingertips, and what do I decide to do with all that power – all that knowledge? Well, scroll through food pics and other people's selfies. What else?

It wasn't always like this. I mean, for people. In the middle ages, we were exploring IRL and discovering new lands. But everything's been discovered. Just go to Google Earth. We're exploring inwards now -- exploring ourselves and cyber space and all we're finding is porn. Food porn. Vanity porn. Good old porn porn. We're teasing ourselves with it, or torturing ourselves, depending on how you look at it. It's a big tease. I will never feel Faye Reagan's tits – no motor boat, no slapping that ass and riding the wave, no tea-bagging, no anal. It's like watching the Food Network about exotic grilled meats from Greece that I will never try. That's why I don't watch the Food Network anymore. That's why when I'm eating my boiled hot dogs and ketchup, I don't sit down and watch Bobby Flay marinate pork side ribs for two days before laying them on a wood charcoal barbecue.

Oh em gee. Bart posted the new Marvel movie trailer.

Sorry. I digress.

I blame Facebook for my A.D.D. Facebook, where so much is happening at the same time, who has time for the boring, regular, universal flow of time? I don't—not when I have timelines. I click on photo after photo, jumping from place to place – I'm in Daniel Silva's basement, I'm at Helen Choong's cottage, I'm at Supinder Dhar's pool party. I click on someone's tag, taking me to another timeline. I'm on Aaron Montgomery's page right now, I think he's in grade 10.

IRL there is only the now. There is no past IRL. I can't remember what I did last week. Without looking online, I can barely remember yesterday.

Facebook has become our memories. Instagram has become our past.

But how can you blame me? I mean, my life is on a loop. I wake up at the same time every school day. The bell rings at 9:05am. I end my last period at 1:40pm. Roberta crosses my window at 3:39pm.

Oh em gee, it's 3:39pm right now.

I hook the blinds with my finger and pull them down. Peeking out, I see Roberta Bevelaqua, like clockwork, walking from the bus stop and passed my townhouse complex with her kilt jacked up so high I can almost see ass. Hashtag her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.

And also like clockwork, the niner nerd is walking behind her like a creepy ninja. His steps are soft on rubber soles and almost tippy toeing, his eyes hold on Roberta's ass in constant anticipation of a gust of wind. I catch him mumbling through his overbite, a prayer for wind. I join him in a silent prayer, just in case there is a God. Hashtag oh my God, look at her butt.

I let myself be teased by her swaying her hips. The short kilt implying easy access to a quickie. Her red lipstick showing off what they would be good for. Everything about her implies sex. But no, I won't get any. Not guys like me and the niner. I'd be so much happier if I was born in the 1800's when women covered themselves up from neck to toe. Back then, even showing ankle was slutty. If only girls dressed like this now, then I wouldn't be so tempted to jack off. Maybe Muslims in the Middle East have the right idea. No more skin. No more Food Network. No more unquenchable urges boiling up inside me – the urge to hump that ass and to devour that Peking duck slow roasted at the hands of David Chan and devoured by Anthony Bordain. Hashtag jizz in my pants.

Roberta and the niner disappear around the corner. I change into a new pair of boxers and crawl back into bed. The Macbook warms the bare skin of my thighs.

I'm on Charlie Molitor's page again. The text "Friend Request Sent" shows on the blue button that used to show "Add Friend". A rush of anxiety pours over me, wondering why he hasn't accepted. I cancel the fucking request.

I had no idea how important Facebook would be when I started it. It became my voice. Likes and comments and shares became some kind of social currency. The more I had, the better I was as a person. I worked on my profile. Everyone did. The harder we worked, the more we forgot who we were before Facebook. Before the timelines started, there was just an identity that no one really knew. But on Facebook, you were out there for everyone to see. For everyone to like.

"Food's ready!" mom calls out from downstairs. Her voice kills me, she's so lame.

I notice Tobias Smart has unfriended me. What the fuck. Who does he think he is?

"Come down to eat, now!" she shouts.

"Alright, Mom!" I moan. "Jesus."

My eyes fade off into a day dream of tomorrow at school, of me confronting him – yo Tobias, you're too cool for me now? We used to play road hockey together, have you forgotten? I even gave you my old helmet for your ugly-ass head, you fucking ugly ass-head.

Sure, whenever I walked through the halls with him, everyone said hi to him and not me. It's amazing how a big-ass black guy with a red lumber jacket can be so popular in a Catholic high school of mostly Italians. He was a nerd inside, just like me, but they all would say hi to him and ignore me. Facebook should have a new button – Fuck you. Tobias posted a new photo. Click Fuck you. Tobias is in a relationship. Click Fuck you.

In Tobias's photos, he's a huge jock. There's a photo of him on the football team, on the basketball team, and the Italians have adopted him as one of their own it seems. No, he can't be seen with me anymore. He comments "your hot" on Nadia Ricci's photo. It's "you're", not "your", you goat-fucking goat-fucker.

That's one thing I love about Facebook. No matter how much you try to make yourself look cool you will always read someone type "your hot" and "I love you're car" and "I'll see you their" and "they're you are" and I won't forget that. I may forget your name but I won't forget you've gone full retard.

Facebook has become our memories. Instagram has become our past.

The rays of the sunset are lined up perfectly with my window now, streaming through the blinds, casting parallel lines of light onto my Batman Begins movie poster above my bed. All four walls in my bedroom are plastered with movie posters. There's The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Interstellar, The Prestige, etc.

Science fiction and fantasy movies make sense to me. There is never a statement at the beginning saying 'Based on a true story' or 'Based on real events'. I don't have to question whether what I'm watching is true, or how much of it's true, or if there's any truth to it at all. In the movies I love there is no duplicity, nor singularity, they're simply make-believe. There is no James Bond. There was never a Jack Sparrow. Hashtag you don't want the truth. Hashtag you make up your own truth.

I love movies too much I think. Movies are bae. Sometimes I try to forget the good ones. That way, I can watch them again, years later, like I'm watching them for the first time. That would be dope. I mean, it happens to everyone. Watching a movie years later and not remembering what happens. Hashtag memory is unreliable.

Oh no. It's happening again. Sammy, don't do it. Too late, I'm typing Nadia Ricci into the Facebook search bar and I'm on her page again. Nadia, your washroom selfie profile pic is just too much to look at. Your thick eyebrows. Those lips. Your duck face is divine, just the right amount of puckering. In your profile you turn your head slightly to the right, exposing your slender neck under two perfect cornrows, and you look like an angel. Hashtag Nutella.

"Melvin's at the door!" my mom yells.

Shit. I throw my pants on and stumble downstairs. I open the door to an outline of Melvin in the sunlight that hurts my eyes.

"Wanna grab a patty?" he says.

"I likey," I say.

"I likey likey," he says.

"Likey likey likey?"

Melvin lives next door in the townhouse attached to mine, like Siamese homes of mediocre. He's weird, but I like him. He has no friends because he shit his pants in elementary school and then no one liked him after that.

He's almost an entire foot shorter than me, and he's tanned AF, even for filipino standards. Melvin's one of those people who hates Facebook and social media in general. He thinks it's a tool for the government, or worse, the Freemasons, to control us. He's an interesting dude. We just see the world differently, like the colour of that dress. Hashtag blue and black, or hashtag white and gold?

I follow him outside, the screen door slamming behind me. I'm hopping on one foot trying to squeeze my other foot into my Air Force Ones.

We walk a couple of blocks before Melvin starts talking about global conspiracies. The sidewalk curves to the left. Melvin drags his feet. I examine the row of townhouses lining both sides of the street, all of them brown and looking the same.

"It's just another way for the Freemasons to distract us from who we really are," Melvin is talking about Facebook. What a fucking kill joy. Maybe that's why I like him. He would suck at Facebook, seriously. Hashtag paranoid. Hashtag social retard. "That's why it's a target."

"A target for who?"

"Hackers. Cyber terrorists."

"Hackers don't give a shit about my Facebook page."

"You sure about that?"

"Even if they did, they can't break my password. It's sixteen characters long, totally random letters and numbers. Took me a week to memorize. No one will hack that shit."

"They don't have to. They can hack into all of Facebook at the same time. Look at Anonymous, man. They took down Ashley Madison."

Anonymous is a group of cyber terrorists.

"Yea, they wanted to out all those cheating assholes and home wreckers. But why take down Facebook? It's harmless."

"I told you. To free us, dude." He says. "Everyone on Facebook is fake man. It's a distraction from all the real shit that's happening."

"People are fake in real life, too. What's the difference?"

"At least there's miserable people walking around in real life. Online, everyone's so fucking happy. That's fucking impossible. No one's happy all the time."

Melvin crosses the street and I follow him.

"Happiness comes in small doses, man. Happy is a good spicy patty. Playing Street Fighter II. Getting a text from your girl."

"So how will they do it?"

"Easy. Bomb it."

"You can't fucking bomb Facebook, it's on the Internet."

"The Internet isn't some ominous presence, man. It's a physical thing existing on hard drives around the world. The cloud is an illusion. Hell, there's a server farm in Gravenhurst with all your information."

"How do you know this?"

"I know a lot of things."

"Yea, but how?"

"You'd rather not know. For your own safety."

There's a lull in the conversation and Melvin looks at his phone.

"So, anyway, have you heard of that singer Mitch Lucker?" I say. "Did you know he tweeted 'the dead are living' a couple of hours before getting killed in a motorcycle accident?"

I chuckle and glance at Melvin for a reaction, but he doesn't give any, still looking down at his phone.

"Yo, check it out, Anne sent me new photos," he shows me a photo of his girlfriend from Philippines, Anne, in a white v-neck tucked into her red shorts. She's sitting cross legged at the edge of a stone fountain. Melvin swipes left to more photos of Anne in different outfits.

"Cute," I nod.

Melvin brings the phone back under him and types on the screen with his thumb, "I'll tell her you said hello."

I can see the store up ahead and Melvin noticeably slows his pace as he types on his phone. He's smiling, and for a moment I'm kind of jealous of what he has with Anne, even though she's thousands of miles away, he's closer to her than I am to anyone.