Jordan Is....Wondering What's the Point
Thursday, August 07, 2008
I'm really fascinated with social networking sites. I had written in the past about how I didn't understand the real point to these social networking sites. It seemed to me that it was all a self-perpetuating circle jerk of people signing up at a myriad of sites, emailing their friends to join, followed by a linking frenzy and more emails out to more friends, all for the purpose of...well, what? Getting a job? I didn't need one. Meeting new people? I'm married and I don't like people anyway.
The one exception to the rule has been Facebook. I got into Facebook for the games. Scrabulous (which was rightfully shut down, since it was a direct ripoff of Hasbro's intellectual property rights from Scrabble) was the gateway drug. Now, it's other random stupid applications, but it passes the time and feeds my dual needs for games and competition. Still, there are some things I will never understand.
Facebook has an option where you can post what you are doing at any given moment. This is displayed to all of your "friends." I put "friends" in quotes because, let's be honest, if you have more than 20 "friends" on Facebook, you probably haven't seen 80% of them in years. In fact, wifey Kim and I have lately been competing to get the most friends. To be more accurate, she gloated about having more friends, so I accepted the old friend requests from people I haven't seen in years or just plain don't like. So much for my exclusive ring of friends.
But this whole announcing-to-the-world-what-you-are-doing bit just baffles me. I see the irony and all, since I write almost daily (and twice today!) about nonsensical nonsense that is a hair away from the nonsensical nonsense making up the here's-what-I'm-doing Facebook application. But at least my goal is to entertain in brief spurts, and I use this site as much to work out my own thoughts as I do to present them. But this whole Facebook thing, and Twitter for that matter, is a whole new level of lazy narcissism dressed in useless information.
Let's poke some fun at fellow bloggers for a moment, all of whom are my friends (for realz, yo, unlike the recent batch of number-padding "friends" I added at Facebook) for a little inspiration.
Someone is happy that he is getting his tile installed today! Fantastic! I'm wet with anticipation! I'm so glad that I know about your tile situation. Now I don't have to write you that long correspondence asking for more home-improvement updates!
Someone else has been chilling in NYC for the last couple of days. So, now I know he is in town and that he didn't think to call me to hang out! Lovely! Of course, I really take no offense, but damnit, if I were a more sensitive guy (or liked people in general) a statement like this could rub me the wrong way.
Another person is waiting for someone to clean up the pigeon mess. Lord knows what that means. I can only assume that some pigeons shat on her or her belongings. Either that, or there was a pigeon massacre and pigeon blood and guts have made a nasty stain. Either way, I don't take kindly to bad mouthing pigeons, if you don't already know.
And frankly, these all are very tame (and I repeat again that I really like all three of these people, so I mean thee no harm). I've read all sorts of status messages, including people contemplating their dating troubles, ecstatic about career situations, and just generally sharing whether they are happy or sad.
I suppose on some level, I understand the need to self-express, particularly when you know it is going out to a select group of "friends." However, I wonder why we all need to share to immediately and so publicly all the time, myself somewhat included. Twitter is another fine example. I don't mind reading about your evening the next day on your blog, but I don't need a Twitter message saying, "I just got a pretzel and now I'm going to eat it." And I really don't need, "I just finished the pretzel and it was delicious!" I would accept, "I'm choking on a pretzel...call the police!" but anything else is useless information. What am I going to do with the knowledge that you are enjoying a salty carb-based snack at this very moment! WHAT? Just tell me what and I will do it. Otherwise, fuck you and your Twitter.
All of this naturally leads to my own status on Facebook. I still think it is a silly feature, but I may as well use it for some comedy. I've been changing it every few days (and twice today) with sarcastic nonsense. The first was:
Jordan...wants you to mind your own business.
Then came,
Jordan...wonders why you care so much about what he is doing.
Today, I added the peculiar and vulgar:
Jordan...is taking a shit. Not right now, and not even today, necessarily, but eventually.
Then I remembered that wifey Kim's mom "friended" me recently (hey, I needed the numbers for my competition). That's why I had to change it from the shit comment. It now reads:
Jordan...asks that we never speak of this again.
Hell, I guess I don't have to understand the need for the application to pervert it to my own needs. Now, I just need to come up with more evasive, obnoxious status messages. It's my new Facebook game!
Until next time, make mine poker!
posted by Jordan @ 2:43 PM,
6 Comments:
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At 5:45 PM,
Unknown said...
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Dear Mr HighonPoker,
Your Facebook status is in violation with Facebook TOS.
Your sarcasm has been deleted.
Thank You,
Facebook Sarcasm Dept. -
At 6:15 PM,
Schaubs said...
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Micro blogging at it's finest...
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At 6:15 PM,
Schaubs said...
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p.s. - I just tried adding you.
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At 6:19 PM,
Schaubs said...
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pps - i see that you added me first!
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At 12:02 PM,
Dawn Summers said...
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What the hell? I change my status three times a day and I don't get mocked in this post?? Gay train changes his status once in like month and he gets a mention?
Dawn Summers is pissed. :) -
At 6:08 PM,
F-Train said...
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I see my plan to piss people off is not working. Maybe I need to change my facebook status to "F-Train wants Jordan to get bent." Would that do it? ;)
