Sunday, January 25, 2009

Confession from a Motownian

I have a confession to make: I might be a little Facebook retarded. I like Facebook...to the extent that I use it. That is to say, I have a Facebook page, I have added a bunch of friends to it and a bunch of people from high school that I may or may not actually remember. I have a few pictures of me and my kids. And every so often I actually "write on somebody's wall." Is that what it's called? I hate to sound so old-lady-ish and un-tech-savvy. I usually love to try out these new internet trends. And I'll admit that I do like the satisfaction of seeing that some of the people I knew in high school are fatter than me now. But my Facebook usage ends about there. I do not take all those quizzes that are sent to me. I reject a lot of people as friends who are suggested to me by other people who I am pretty sure would not have sat with me at lunch--thanks for those memories, by the way. And then there are those invitations to stuff that I totally don't understand. I currently have about 650 of these waiting to be accepted or rejected. I don't want to flat out reject them because I don't want to insult the sender. And because I secretly suspect that accepting them makes you cooler. But mostly because I have no idea what it means to be invited to "join their posse in Fashion Wars" or to be "Kidnap'd by Becky to Seattle with the Ol' Potato Sack Trick!" And when Facebook asks me to allow it access to everything on my computer, in my journal, in my bank account, and in my naughty drawer so that someone can "send me a cupcake" or "put an ornament on my tree," I feel a bit nervous. So I just ignore these requests and hope they go away. I did take the plunge the other day and allow Big Brother Facebook access to my life so that I could take a quiz to find out what region of the U.S. or Canada my accent is from. It picked "North or Midwest." Bravo! Only, I already knew this. Cause I grew up in the North or Midwest. So really, I just handed out the master key to my computer files to a massive website so that they could brilliantly decipher that I'm not from the South. Great. When my identity gets stolen and millions of dollars disappear from my bank account, at least I'll have the consolation of knowing that I still sound like I'm from Detroit.

15 comments:

Nicki said...

I love Facebook to catch up with people I haven't seen in years but that's about it. I did get hooked on playing Oregon Trail for awhile - that was fun.

Tiffany said...

I don't get Facebook either. You summed up so many of my feeling here.

Cook Family said...

I'm so with you!

mCat said...

Facebook feels very "high school" to me, but when I threated to quit it, I about got my face chewed off. So I log in, surf around write on a wall or two and then ignore it for a couple of days. I agree with the stupid requests, but I confess, I was so bored I took a bunch of quizzes and now can't get some stupid texts that come to my phone daily......

rychelle said...

i'm pretty sure what this post said was:

"i have a facebook account, but refuse to allow rychelle tomlin to become my friend"

;)

i really don't get it either. i joined under duress and peer pressure.

Financial Aid for College said...

I am absolutely paranoid about getting trash phone calls, trash emails, trash offers, etc. So I will not have anything to do with Facebook. Besides, at my age, NONE of my friends knows how to use Facebook. In fact most of my contemporaries can hardly boot up a computer. And I have Google blogger for the people I really love (my kids!)

Mia said...

I broke up with facebook, but you already knew that. Even when I still had an account I felt many of the same things. I did get more comfortable with rejecting requests though.

tiburon said...

I just jumped on the Facebook bandwagon but the apps make me nuts.

I ignore 99% of them.

And just so you can sleep tonight - adding an app doesn't give it access to your computer... just your facebook account.

Mindi said...

arianne my love--
YES, i am still here.

YES, i am still reading.

YES, we will be blesbians forEVAH.

don't give up yet! i haven't started shooting people in the post office of late.

and p.s.-the smoking baby RULES.

Shawn said...

Well, I like Facebook because I truly can keep in touch with what everyone is doing, in...say...15 minutes! Well, the friends that change their status, anyway.

I actually played that Oregon trail, or rather, my young son did...and I did the knight game for awhile---I've got quite a castle and kingdom built up, I tell you.

I think that it makes me feel that I can own something, even if its imaginary, cause I can't seem to own anything in real life...(sigh)

Devri said...

I have a facebook account, but really don't do anything from it. oh well.

Christie said...

I jumped in feet first into Facebook, and did all the quiz, cupcakes, etc for awhile. Now I ignore them. But I do love that I've reconnecated with some old friends that way. Its much better than MySpace too.

Kristine said...

I'm not a facebooky yet, but Logan is trying to get me to join...bla...more things to do on the internet.

veronica said...

So is there a blogger gathering tonight or not? I'm thinking NOT, but wanted to make sure...

Anonymous said...

I ignore a lot of those, but I sometimes add them just to be nice. I have no idea who sent you the Fashion Wars request (if you add me to your posse, you don't even have to play)...