Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Facebook Becomes Me. Definition # 9.

Lately, I have become addicted to Facebook. (i hate generic words, but i truly have an addiction. Surealiously.)
I do not think this is a healthy thing, my brain already spends entirely too much time overanalyzing, and Facebook has complicated this preoccupation tenfold. The site has taken once singularly defined, easy-to-interpret words (Like & POKES!? & friend.... requests???), warped them, and confused the shit out of me&my language dissections.

Lets explore this.

Urban Dictonary, what is facebook?


The decision to announce a relationship via Facebook is WAY too involved. Whether the status change is simple and traditional, such as 'engaged' or complex, such as 'complicated' (don't get me started) & 'open' (wtf Facebook that is NOT an acceptable option, I hope you understand you will be held accountable if middle school students start using this .. phrase? habit? practice? whatEVER an 'open relationship' is defined as, as a form of courtship. Bring back My So-Called Life!!!) carries with it a slew of nausea inducing issues, such as a required "JANE DOE IS NO LONGER IN A RELATIONSHIP" when things go sour. Oh thats gotta feel good to read. Even better, everyone you are friends with, everyone you met at a bar and blackberry facebooked immediately (or is that just me?), your first grade classmates, your co-workers, former co-workers, aunts, uncles, their friends you met once or twice, etc etc blah blah blah, ALSO are informed that you are 'no longer in a relationship."

Is word of mouth dead?

1 comment:

Ryan Manaloto said...

Nothing is official until it shows up on Facebook.

Words I've definitely uttered many times when I've been around friends who are in psuedo-relationships. That's just how it is now. Word of mouth is dead. It's just too damn slow.

Jane Doe got dumped (or maybe she did the dumping). Either way, that Facebook news-feed update is a proclamation. An instant proclamation. All this new technology (and the new media that springs from it) quenches something that everyone wants now: immediacy

We are all saturated by information, whether any of it is important or not. Information is power. It always has been. Whoever is at an advantage nowadays is whoever gets it first. I'm not saying that Jane Doe getting dumped or John Smith's being a "Fan" of Starbucks is any sort of power (unless Jane Doe is a hottie and I want to be her rebound target). But I still want to know... and I probably want to click that "Like" button or leave my own comment.

Being able to update or check your Facebook every time you are on a computer isn't even fast enough. God forbid something cool (or uncool) happens while you are in transit. That's why you and I both have Facebook on our Blackberry's.

I can either dispense or digest information from my Blackberry to or from another person 8 different ways (and that's not including a regular phone call). One day that won't even be fast enough...