Here's my Facebook rant
Jul. 18th, 2010 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Were you part of the popular clique in high school? Did you get a bunch of friends gathering at your locker between classes? Were you welcomed at the specific table at the back of the lunch room where all the cool kids sat?
If you're on LJ or Dreamwidth, probably not. Instead you probably sat at a table in the front of the lunchroom, sat at the front of classes and probably only connected with the "cool kids" when they wanted test answers.
There's one thing I've noticed about these 2 particular blogging sites - very creative and unique people share their lives, art and thoughts with one another. Perhaps that's because I like those kinds of people so that's who I have friended and read. But in general, these blogging sites seem to be places to connect with other creative and unique people.
Facebook, on the other hand, appears to be where all the cool kids hang out. Perhaps again I am limiting my choice of friends, but reading over various random profiles I get the general impression that a good portion of active Facebook members fit the "cool kids" stereotype from high school. For example, very very few of them make up a fannish name for themselves. There's no rule book that says your profile on Facebook has to have your real name! So why do so many people do it? Oh, because it's supposed to be a link to the networking community and you have to use your real name if you want to be connected to old friends, college roomies, your first crush, your first kiss, your first best friend, the first boy who pulled your hair. Give me a freakin' break.
I don't need to reconnect with those friends. The term friend is very dubious in those cases, yet Facebook seems to have made people believe that everyone's your friend, once and forever. Bullocks. If I had wanted to remain friends with those people I would have kept a little black book with their names, birthdates, phone numbers etc in it on the off chance that someday they might become useful to me.
So far I have only found one old friend on Facebook with whom I'd like to reconnect. And he was from college, not high school. And he's just as unique and creative as any of my friends on LJ. He's probably only on Facebook because he needs to promote his business which he has because of his unique talent not because he networked with some old friend, so I'll forgive him for getting in with the cool kids.
If you're on LJ or Dreamwidth, probably not. Instead you probably sat at a table in the front of the lunchroom, sat at the front of classes and probably only connected with the "cool kids" when they wanted test answers.
There's one thing I've noticed about these 2 particular blogging sites - very creative and unique people share their lives, art and thoughts with one another. Perhaps that's because I like those kinds of people so that's who I have friended and read. But in general, these blogging sites seem to be places to connect with other creative and unique people.
Facebook, on the other hand, appears to be where all the cool kids hang out. Perhaps again I am limiting my choice of friends, but reading over various random profiles I get the general impression that a good portion of active Facebook members fit the "cool kids" stereotype from high school. For example, very very few of them make up a fannish name for themselves. There's no rule book that says your profile on Facebook has to have your real name! So why do so many people do it? Oh, because it's supposed to be a link to the networking community and you have to use your real name if you want to be connected to old friends, college roomies, your first crush, your first kiss, your first best friend, the first boy who pulled your hair. Give me a freakin' break.
I don't need to reconnect with those friends. The term friend is very dubious in those cases, yet Facebook seems to have made people believe that everyone's your friend, once and forever. Bullocks. If I had wanted to remain friends with those people I would have kept a little black book with their names, birthdates, phone numbers etc in it on the off chance that someday they might become useful to me.
So far I have only found one old friend on Facebook with whom I'd like to reconnect. And he was from college, not high school. And he's just as unique and creative as any of my friends on LJ. He's probably only on Facebook because he needs to promote his business which he has because of his unique talent not because he networked with some old friend, so I'll forgive him for getting in with the cool kids.