The phenom known as Facebook has reared its ugly-ass addicting head to just about everyone. And as great as it is to have a place where you can post pictures of yourself, your children, and your various activities/hobbies/vacation/drunken passed out photos, its really taking the mystery out of wondering what happened to your old friends, and worse yet, informing you how little in common you now have with some of your closest high school friends.
Don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled to have tracked down the girl I lost my virginity too. But less thrilled to see that she looks way better than she did when we were 16, and is now a lesbian. Did I cause that?
Then there is that other girl, who was unbelievably hot in high school. Guess what, she's hotter now. But does her facebook page really say she is "Christian Conservative?" And a member of "One Thousand Moms Against Barak?" Eesh. I guess she won't be asking me for pot anytime soon.
This guys fat, this guys lost all his hair. Mike still only listens to heavy metal (at age 40), and this person is now a cop.
These two got married, this persons divorced, this person finally came out of the closet (guess what? we knew in 1985.)
The internet is directly responsible for the world getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller.
Don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled to have tracked down the girl I lost my virginity too. But less thrilled to see that she looks way better than she did when we were 16, and is now a lesbian. Did I cause that?
Then there is that other girl, who was unbelievably hot in high school. Guess what, she's hotter now. But does her facebook page really say she is "Christian Conservative?" And a member of "One Thousand Moms Against Barak?" Eesh. I guess she won't be asking me for pot anytime soon.
This guys fat, this guys lost all his hair. Mike still only listens to heavy metal (at age 40), and this person is now a cop.
These two got married, this persons divorced, this person finally came out of the closet (guess what? we knew in 1985.)
The internet is directly responsible for the world getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller.
7 comments:
Mr. Liggett -- put ... down ... the gun.
facebook's like tv, or for the now generation, like youtube. a non-threatening place to play and reconnect and share photos. my kids loved it instantly. it's a useful place to post email that you know won't get bounced. it has its uses...
now, liggett, put ... down ... that gun!
Yeah, but isn't all the somewhat useless information half the fun of social networking sites?
Besides, it's just another weapon of the ruling powers to distract the hoi polloi from what the man behind the curtain is doing...heh heh heh. ;)
sure. some of that. the useless gaming is fun and i love flinging food, i will confess, and giving good karma.
but it's also a new paradigm of communication and connection. instead of losing our old friends, we accumulate them with the new.
it's an evoling neo-neural network in Chardin's Noosphere, if you ask me.
An interesting debate. I'm not a Facebooker -- yet -- but my wife just did it, at the urging of her close-knit group of college friends -- and she loves it. She's already reconnected with several wayward high school buddies, in very positive, enjoyable ways.
Since we're all experimenting with this her new-fangled blog thang (we are, right? Get blogging! Experiment!) perhaps we should be open minded about these new forms of social interaction.
It'll never replace the face-to-face sharing a of beer (or three), or the dinner party, or the backyard barbeque -- but maybe it's valid and valuable nonetheless.
Here's a thought-provoking article, backed by research:
http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2009/01/why-facebook-can-make-you-happier-.html
See you on Facebook! (No guns, Bryant!)
I must admit it has been very cool to track down random, old friends, many i just don't see anymore since I no longer live where I grew up, and when I do get back "home" I'm usually too busy to track down everyone. That's a shame. So Facebook will have to suffice, for now. As for the picture of me and the gun, that was sent to me by a VERY old friend whom I have not seen since 1987 or so. We found each other on FB, and she sent the photo. That was on my 16th birthday. She sent me a lot of pics from that night, I remember many, but not that one. I have no idea whose gun that is, or where I was. But then again, it was my 16th birthday, and I did what most red-blooded American boys did on their birthday at 16, I drank beer and smoked pot. But not with Michael Phelps. And I lived to tell about it, on facebook, and blogs, and face to face, with real human beings, over cold beers, at a backyard bar-b-q.
I am an avowed facebooker, been one for over a year. I have about 180 friends on there...yes, I do know each one of them, but of course in real life I don't exactly think of each one as a true FRIEND. Old acquaintances, colleagues, schoolmates, mostly, but of course some very active and close friendships there too.
I love it for its ability to connect us all, to get in touch with folks I haven't seen in years (decades, eep), and see who's up to what. Me, envious of any of them and their cool lives? (Like a girl I went to college with who's a congresswoman now, or the published novelists, or the ones living in Hawaii and surfing for a living?) Nah... ;) It's all spin anyway, no? But I do love it.
Post a Comment