Status Update: Robert drank a beverage
Facebook is transforming the culture in new and interesting ways. For example, I am friends online with many people I rarely see in person and some of whom I have never seen or haven't seen in years. Some of these folks I knew well in high school but seem to have mutated into some weird adult version of themselves complete with marriage partners and offspring. And with no effort at all I get to read all of their status updates and wall comments passively scrolling down my homepage. Recently, I ran into someone I ate lunch with for almost my entire sophomore year in high school. Our interaction was awkward and brief, as we have almost nothing in common and he didn't seem to be in a nostalgic mood, and yet I had been watching his status updates drift down my news feed for quite a while. I remembered thinking not to long ago, "wow that new ID photo is really girlish." But can you bring that up? If you want to see someone being totally creeped out, that might be a good way. But the reality that you're telling near strangers that you're "so hung over and puking" doesn't stop the parade of banal status updates. "H.H. feels SILLY!" "S.L. hates Jetlag!" "MS is so happy it's Friday!" (left up until well after the weekend is over) "BM thought The Wrestler was an excellent movie." and so on. Such quotidian remarks should be boring and yet I find myself checking on facebook now as often as I check email! I don't know what that says about me, but I think I'm going to open a twitter account.