So, a rabbi, a priest and President Obama walk into a bar that got wireless, whip out their laptops and check out one another’s Facebook pages.
Perhaps you’ve already heard that one.
Just as old joke forms have their Internet-age updates, old news guys, if they want to remain relevant – or at least employed – must adapt. For me, that means Facebook and Twitter. Tweeting aside for the moment, a few weeks ago I subjected StateCollege.com readers to what I learned about Facebook during my first weekend thereon.
All your ex-girlfriends and most of your ex-bosses have prominent Facebook presences, for example, and none is particularly excited to see you there, for another.
It’s been a month now since I posted a first, tentative “Hello, is anybody out there?” The answer, as I quickly found out, is: “Yes, darn near everybody.” I discovered a number of other things, as well, and, although no one asked, I thought I’d share this update.
What I’ve Learned About Facebook, Version 2.0
- Some people have entirely too much time on their hands.
- Some people you thought were dead are very much alive, although “alive” may be a relative term inasmuch as some of them do not appear to have an actual life (see above).
- Humor may be universal, but one’s sense of it is not. Some of you people – and sadly, you may not know who you are – are sick.
- Like any shiny new toy, Facebook can quickly become an obsession – a time-consuming, life-devouring one.
- I thought reading five newspapers a day took time – it did. Reading comprehensively the posts from several hundred “friends” would take an eternity, even if you were two or three people – which some folks on Facebook appear to be.
- The aforementioned ex-girlfriends have more friends than you, and some of their identities are quite surprising – not that you would ever pry or get the least bit upset.
- Profile photos, like other pictures, may be worth 1,000 words, but not all of them are true.
- My nephew’s – his reflection, with upraised eyebrow, in a mirror on which a flamboyant Hungarian mustache is festooned – is absolutely hilarious.
- That attractive young woman who only recently moved to town and is just interested in hanging out with a cute guy (or tolerably featured older gentlemen), didn’t and isn’t.
- The same ax-grinders – on the left and right – who drove you to the middle of the road as a newspaper opinion-page editor are also on Facebook, and they have not mellowed nor have they mollified their opinions. While extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, as Barry Goldwater – or rather, his speechwriter, Karl Hess – famously said, it gets awfully predictable and can be boring as Hades.
- I still don’t understand tattoos and almost certainly never will.
- Nor do I understand how photos can appear normal one minute and cropped into indistinguishability another.
- Don’t post anything you don’t want your mother to see. Six degrees of separation? How about three? I post a photo of my grandfather as a young man, one grandson kneeling in front and two – including your very young and rather rotund cyberservant – bouncing on either knee. The wife of another cousin sees it, downloads it to her cell phone and shows it to my mom and dad while they are at yet another cousin’s restaurant having dinner. It is, indeed, a small world – and all the windows in your home are open and all your neighbors have video-capable communication devices.
- Facebook is an amazing communication tool. I’ve conversed more with still one more cousin’s son who is serving in the military and stationed in Japan, and have seen more of his wife and their young son – if only in photographic (digital, of course) form – exploring that exotically beautiful country than I have spoken to and seen of relatives who live just a few miles away.
- Ultimately, we’re all cousins.
- Good music is good music. Facebook friends who share it are greatly appreciated.
- Conversely, bad music is bad music and bad art is still bad art.
- Too much information really is too much information. We’re trying to keep the world – or at least the borough – safe for democracy here, and you’re Facebooking and Tweeting about make-up and pedicures. (And I apologize to those of you who appreciate make-up and pedicures, and to those of you who like reading about them. Maybe I should switch to decaf.)
- Everyone needs an editor – including editors.
- Pictures of other people drinking beer make me awfully thirsty, and happy hour starts in 15 minutes.
Well, there you go – my second take on Facebook – again, with sincere apologies to the pedicure-posters. I can’t promise, although I’d like to, that there won’t be another column on this topic. After all, everything I try to share on Facebook seems to pop up at least two or three times.
I haven’t figured that out, either.
