“I will never join Facebook,” I had once declared with great
hubris.
I wasn’t going to be a “joiner”. I was immune to the hype.
Several of my friends even asked me why I wasn’t on Facebook. I was too good
for that. Nope. I wasn’t going to go there.
I was determined to be the guy who stood firm in his little
cabin on the side of Mt. Saint Helens while his neighbors waved goodbye on
their way out of town. All while smoked billowed from its snowy peak.
To quote one of my Facebook friends, “I caved.”
After setting up my account, I was amazed to find the number
of people that I actually know who were on there. It was almost as if Facebook
was saying, “Where the hell have you been? You’re late.” I was nearly as
shocked as the people who suddenly found my friend request in their in-box.
The prodigal son had returned and everyone wanted to comment
on it.
I have been on Twitter for some time (@ArynCorley) so I’m
not a total social media neophyte. I have this really great blog where I can
produce and archive my rants. But, “Da’ Book” is a whole different animal
altogether. I can see why people spend countless hours at work and at home
sponging bandwidth to stay connected with people who were once avatars of their
own memories.
It’s great to see photos of people whom I haven’t seen in
many years. My highly developed observational skills suggest to me that we all
get a few wrinkles as we get older.
I’m still trying to figure some things out. I haven’t “poked”
anyone yet. I think I should probably restrict to only poking my wife so I don’t
cause any hurt feelings and accusations of extra-marital poking. Tagging people
in photographs seems to be a key feature. I haven’t done that yet. The “like”
button is a handy little feature. It’s like when you get a “thumbs-up” from
your proctologist. People like when they are liked.
When I get a message about someone posting something on my
wall, it reminds me of Paint Rock and how those paintings were like the “old
skool” version of Facebook. If you wanted to leave a message on someone’s wall,
you would just paint a buffalo, crow, or little dancing guy to tell them what
you wanted them to know.
Here we are in the 21st century using
computers to do some 12th century stuff.
In some way, Facebook plays into that most basic of human
needs: to have the rest of the tribe actually give a darn about us.
Now, if you’ll
excuse me, I have some poking to do.
