Apr
10
Social Media Overload
Filed Under Cyberstalk, Geekdom, Internet | Leave a Comment
Social media has been a slice of the internet that I have tried my best to avoid. Maybe it was the pixel-fairy filled mush that MySpace threw in my face? Maybe it is the fact that by all accounts I’m not the most social person in the world? I take pride in the relationships I have had and that, by-in-large, they have crumbled to dust. OK, maybe not pride but it really isn’t anything I lose sleep over. So the art of reconnecting with former friends, co-workers, and people that I may have met once or twice…ehh, I’d would rather pass. I have a hard enough time being social with people I actually like.
MySpace, to me, was the ultimate cluster-fuck of poor design and annoying gimmicks that I bailed out 10 minutes after agreeing to their terms of service. Maybe I was too old for that scene but even if I were a young man again I still don’t think it would appeal to me. Spammers, wanna-be thugs and rappers, teenage whores, and about a million guys thinking they might have a shot at those teenage whores really turned me off to the whole idea of sharing anything of any substance about my life online.
Then Twitter came along and changed that notion I had built up. It was still pretty new so it wasn’t overloaded with the retards of the earth and your updates where short and sweet. 140 characters was (is) all you got and while that might be a bit small, I think it weeded out a large number of people who , quite honestly, aren’t interesting. Twitter started out with mostly members of the Tech/Geek world and for me that was fine. Sharing links about gadgets and technology was perfect for me and while I used ( and currently use ) Twitter to let friends and family into my little sports world it still soothed that geeky itch I had.
Twitter has taken off in the past few months with loads of people seeing the value of a quick update to share with others. While you always have the option to follow another Tweet , I hope that the large influx of new users doesn’t mean another service that becomes more of a bother than a positive.
On the other side of the social media world is Facebook, a site I tried to avoid at all costs. All the fears and loathing I had felt with MySpace I channeled into my avoidance of Facebook. I wanted no parts of the reconnecting with high-school classmates. I wanted no parts of being a “friend” of a former co-worker who I may have talked to twice in all my years of employment there. I could think of nothing more awful, nothing more of a waste of time than that. Yet, this year, I created an account and have 125 “friends” on Facebook. Fuck me.
The thing about Facebook ( and I guess more about me) is that there is a bit of a “lurker” element that I enjoy. I don’t have to accept requests for a “friends” cause, I don’t have to accept stupid-ass “Fish” or “drinks” or any of that Myspace-ish bullshit. I can sit back and watch the car-crash, watch the freak-show, and laugh at my “friends” at how BORING their lives are. I mean honestly, you need to update your status with ” I am stuck in traffic” or “I am picking up the kids from school” or other mind-numbing garbage. Now that is not to say I don’t have people I enjoy seeing updates from…and those people know who they are…but jeez, there are plenty of “friends” I keep on Facebook just to thank the powers-that-be that my life didn’t turn out like theirs.