Everybody, Come See How Cool I Look!
The scene: Urgent telephone call at 1 a.m. on a Sunday
Her: Hey! What do you think of my new Facebook picture?
You: [Seriously? You pause for what would be an appropriate amount of time to convince your friend that you have actually logged on to Facebook.] It’s cute!
Her: Really? You don’t think it looks like I’m trying too hard?
You: [Stretching the truth.] Definitely not.
Her: So do you think it’s cuter than the one I had up last time?
You: Definitely.
Her: “Actually, I mean the time before that?”
You pull out the album you have saved on your desktop that documents all of your friend’s past (25+) Facebook pictures, each meticulously labeled with its date of inception and a rating that you have assigned based on a complex evaluative model you created…Wait, no you don’t, because you are not insane.
I have cut off the rest of this conversation to spare you (you’re welcome), because you likely know that it’s not nearly close to being finished. Also, let’s be honest, your friend isn’t listening to you anyway, and if she were, she wouldn’t believe what you were saying. The entire charade will end with her choosing the awkwardly angled shot that inevitably includes a random body part in the background belonging to your friend Bob who has a talent for appearing in photographs when he wasn’t even present. The crowning touch is that this misguidedly selected image will subsequently be converted into sepia (what does that even mean?) tone. Thank you, iPhoto, for making otherwise boring and unattractive people look painfully sophisticated, artsy and airbrushed.
What seems most absurd about all this is that all your friend’s Facebook “friends” presumably know her (or have met her at least once before…no? Well, hopefully?) in person. It seems unlikely that they would log onto Facebook one day, see her Facebook picture and suddenly adopt an entirely new concept of what she looks like: “You know, I thought Kaitlin was short, but in this picture she looks really tall - wow, she must be tall!” I don’t think humans are dumb enough to accept digital renderings in lieu of reality, are we?
First it was just the profile picture, then the albums came along and a burgeoning new forum was born through which people could prove, once and for all, just how cool they are. Albums sprung up left and right, documenting insanely fun weekends that conveniently lent themselves to “impromptu” photoshoots to be posted not a moment too soon for all Facebook “friends” to see: “Look at Charlie drinking a Cosmo in the Hamptons, while laughing at a joke and wearing Gucci loafers. Man, he is cool. I’m glad we’re Facebook friends/my friend Mary is Facebook friends with him so that I can look at his photos. I feel better about myself just knowing that I am friends (sort of) with someone this cool.”
Gosh, I hope it doesn’t really work like this, or we are all really big tools. But for your viewing pleasure, please read more on the topic via Daily Intel’s hilarious exploration of the Facebook status as the newest modality that Mr. Zuckerberg and his app-happy minions have conceived for us to assert our social status.
-Kristin
![Apparently there are still people who haven’t joined Facebook or Twitter or MySpace, and they’re not all necessarily century-old technophobes like my parents. The Washington Post published an article about social networking refuseniks, people in their 20s and early 30s who just refuse (refusenik = refuse + beatnik, get it?!) to join any of these digital communication websites. They truly are in the minority as a study showed about 85 percent of all Internet users between the ages of 18 and 34 visited Facebook, MySpace or Twitter in August.
Of course, these refuseniks cite reasons like “Oh, I like my privacy” or “I can focus on things I really care about,” but let’s face it, these kids miss out on a lot. To name a few, you can’t see embarrassing pictures from the pub crawl last weekend, you don’t get to know exactly which one of your friends is in the bathroom/work/bar at any given time and, most importantly, you don’t get invites to all the cool, ragin’ parties (and then you miss out on seeing the pictures of the parties you weren’t invited to…it’s a vicious cycle, really).
But maybe these kids do have the right idea. Perhaps, in the semi-words of one Janis Ian, [Facebook] is a life-ruiner; it ruins people’s lives. Sometimes Facebook gets too complicated, drama gets started over something trivial and people can break up. But where would we be without status updates and wall posts? It’s really just a toss-up.
-Kelly](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_krk9gwj4gL1qznz4co1_500.jpg)
![Everybody, Come See How Cool I Look!
The scene: Urgent telephone call at 1 a.m. on a Sunday
Her: Hey! What do you think of my new Facebook picture?
You: [Seriously? You pause for what would be an appropriate amount of time to convince your friend that you have actually logged on to Facebook.] It’s cute!
Her: Really? You don’t think it looks like I’m trying too hard?
You: [Stretching the truth.] Definitely not.
Her: So do you think it’s cuter than the one I had up last time?
You: Definitely.
Her: “Actually, I mean the time before that?”
You pull out the album you have saved on your desktop that documents all of your friend’s past (25+) Facebook pictures, each meticulously labeled with its date of inception and a rating that you have assigned based on a complex evaluative model you created…Wait, no you don’t, because you are not insane.
I have cut off the rest of this conversation to spare you (you’re welcome), because you likely know that it’s not nearly close to being finished. Also, let’s be honest, your friend isn’t listening to you anyway, and if she were, she wouldn’t believe what you were saying. The entire charade will end with her choosing the awkwardly angled shot that inevitably includes a random body part in the background belonging to your friend Bob who has a talent for appearing in photographs when he wasn’t even present. The crowning touch is that this misguidedly selected image will subsequently be converted into sepia (what does that even mean?) tone. Thank you, iPhoto, for making otherwise boring and unattractive people look painfully sophisticated, artsy and airbrushed.
What seems most absurd about all this is that all your friend’s Facebook “friends” presumably know her (or have met her at least once before…no? Well, hopefully?) in person. It seems unlikely that they would log onto Facebook one day, see her Facebook picture and suddenly adopt an entirely new concept of what she looks like: “You know, I thought Kaitlin was short, but in this picture she looks really tall - wow, she must be tall!” I don’t think humans are dumb enough to accept digital renderings in lieu of reality, are we?
First it was just the profile picture, then the albums came along and a burgeoning new forum was born through which people could prove, once and for all, just how cool they are. Albums sprung up left and right, documenting insanely fun weekends that conveniently lent themselves to “impromptu” photoshoots to be posted not a moment too soon for all Facebook “friends” to see: “Look at Charlie drinking a Cosmo in the Hamptons, while laughing at a joke and wearing Gucci loafers. Man, he is cool. I’m glad we’re Facebook friends/my friend Mary is Facebook friends with him so that I can look at his photos. I feel better about myself just knowing that I am friends (sort of) with someone this cool.”
Gosh, I hope it doesn’t really work like this, or we are all really big tools. But for your viewing pleasure, please read more on the topic via Daily Intel’s hilarious exploration of the Facebook status as the newest modality that Mr. Zuckerberg and his app-happy minions have conceived for us to assert our social status.
-Kristin](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kpgdhvZK1Y1qznz4co1_250.jpg)
