pandora's box
Have I written about Facebook before? Probably not. I know Roro's got her own feelings about social networking sites, and if I wasn't so lazy I'd actually offer you a link to one or two of her posts about such sites, but suffice it say there are posts out there to be found if you were to look...
Anyway, I think my brain is a little addled by the fog of dog-gas that has been filling the room for the past fifteen minutes. Jesus Christ, Ginger, first it was the "brown fountain" for three days and now the toxic fumes??? I thought dogs weren't supposed to get sick...?
Now where was I? Facebook. Mahavira talked me into signing up for a Facebook account because someone else talked her into doing it and she wanted to spread the love around a little. I've had a Myspace thingy for years, but don't do too much with it. All but one of my (very few) Myspace friends are people I know in real life (except you, SCG, you're the lucky exception to my 'only people I actually know' rule) whose pictures I often like to check out in the absence of real correspondence...
So this Facebook thing -- I signed up one night at Mahavira's urging while she was bored at work, and we proceeded to write Facebook messages back and forth for hours until the company's IT hall-monitor type software cut her off and gave her the old "You have exceeded your personal web usage quota" message. Bastards...
For about two days, my only Facebook friend was Mahavira. Suddenly I got a friend request from Shan, one of my closest friends from high school. Wow! I hadn't heard from her in about five years! Cool! And then I got a friend request from another high school friend. And then another. And then another. I'm getting friend requests from people I don't even remember from my high school, names that are only vaguely familiar, faces I don't recognize at all. What the fuck?
Now I have fifteen Facebook friends and eleven of them are from my high school. The strangest thing of all is seeing all these people as adults... as relatively normal looking, relatively liberal seeming, relatively kind and compassionate type adults. I remember high school as this awful gauntlet of people who were all cruel and judgmental and unpredictable and yucky. Now it turns out they're just regular people who probably wouldn't sneer at me walking down the hall or try to beat the shit out of each other. But... I guess that's what growing up does for you... hopefully...
Ok, I gotta go open some windows and light some incense, this is just ridiculous.
Anyway, I think my brain is a little addled by the fog of dog-gas that has been filling the room for the past fifteen minutes. Jesus Christ, Ginger, first it was the "brown fountain" for three days and now the toxic fumes??? I thought dogs weren't supposed to get sick...?
Now where was I? Facebook. Mahavira talked me into signing up for a Facebook account because someone else talked her into doing it and she wanted to spread the love around a little. I've had a Myspace thingy for years, but don't do too much with it. All but one of my (very few) Myspace friends are people I know in real life (except you, SCG, you're the lucky exception to my 'only people I actually know' rule) whose pictures I often like to check out in the absence of real correspondence...
So this Facebook thing -- I signed up one night at Mahavira's urging while she was bored at work, and we proceeded to write Facebook messages back and forth for hours until the company's IT hall-monitor type software cut her off and gave her the old "You have exceeded your personal web usage quota" message. Bastards...
For about two days, my only Facebook friend was Mahavira. Suddenly I got a friend request from Shan, one of my closest friends from high school. Wow! I hadn't heard from her in about five years! Cool! And then I got a friend request from another high school friend. And then another. And then another. I'm getting friend requests from people I don't even remember from my high school, names that are only vaguely familiar, faces I don't recognize at all. What the fuck?
Now I have fifteen Facebook friends and eleven of them are from my high school. The strangest thing of all is seeing all these people as adults... as relatively normal looking, relatively liberal seeming, relatively kind and compassionate type adults. I remember high school as this awful gauntlet of people who were all cruel and judgmental and unpredictable and yucky. Now it turns out they're just regular people who probably wouldn't sneer at me walking down the hall or try to beat the shit out of each other. But... I guess that's what growing up does for you... hopefully...
Ok, I gotta go open some windows and light some incense, this is just ridiculous.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 9:54 PM
7 Comments:
Facebook is a curious phenom. Some days I love it, stumbling upon people I totally forgot existed. And the other days I feel like my mom holding the DVD remote control - what am I supposed to do with this thing???
facebook is fun...sometimes. i go thru phases with it, usually involving some sort of word game. go figure.
I think LinkedIn is even stranger... I use it to stay connected to the business community, but what the hell else are you supposed to do with that thing?
mmm...i like myspace better (and thanks for letting me be the exception :)) i don't know, facebook is weird, don't let you do as much to your page and that i think sux. mmm...far as i know most folk from my hs i got on mine are still the way they were in hs. but yeah, it is good for getting in touch with old school folks, one girl from high school added me just today. seems like (for me) facebook is for people i know/knew and myspace is for internet folks but a few people i know.
pj -- yeah... i mostly don't know what to do with it. i think i exhausted any interest i might have had in that kind of site during my brief honeymoon period with myspace.
heather -- word game?
ja -- yeah, i don't get linkedin at all. i completely ignore any requests to friend up on that site, it seems completely useless to me. but then again, i'm not into business or networking or whatever so i guess i'm not the target market...
scg -- yeah, i think the fact that high school ended 15 years ago for me makes reconnecting with these folks seem extra weird.
word games i love:
http://apps.facebook.com/scrabulous/
http://apps.facebook.com/pathwords
a little addictive. at least for a while.
I can't believe you joined Facebook and haven't friended me yet. SO OFFENDED.
Hahahaaa! Bah, FB. I still have a mostly hate relationship with it, so I hear what you're saying. I have to admit, though, that Katr was right - it was a good career move for me. And I have yet to be contacted by my longtime stalker, so woohoo!
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