They call me "Dances with Facebook"

    “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 21^st century using computers to do some 12^th 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.