I Am So Popular: I Can Haz Facebook

Go ahead and laugh. Actually I laughed when I said it. But the epiphany was this: It’s quite possible, like it or not, that whatever persona we adopt or have forced on us as teenagers is, essentially, the one we’ll wind up stuck with the rest of our lives.

Which brings me to Facebook, a means by which so many of us daily indulge our inner high schoolers even if we are old enough to be parents of high schoolers. Facebook is so fucking stupid. And I am so sucked in. Not as much as some, granted. But I do log on several times a day. Why do I do this? What purpose does it serve? Is it that important for me—already aware that I Am So Popular—to see how many more people are begging to friend me?

At least I have a handy excuse for having joined. As I recall, back when I had a paying blogging gig and my boss was teaching me the ins and outs of social networking, she “made” me sign up. I have a distinct memory of registering, since the word I was requested to type in to prove I wasn’t a robot was NAZI. (I emailed Facebook execs a screenshot of this, demanding an explanation. I never got one.) Even as an official member, I didn’t initially use the site much. Not at first.

I can’t say when the big suck-in happened. But at some point I started responding to a growing influx of inbox alerts notifying me of friend requests both from my real life Austin friends, and, yes, many people I hadn’t heard from in, literally, decades, including my first ever crush (we’re going back 40 years, people) and quite a few people I went to high school with.

On the one hand, I’m glad to hear from old friends. On the other hand, I am so busy being so popular in real time, how can I possibly manage all the notes people keep passing me? And, hardly ever able to resist a question mark, anytime somebody posts something on my wall in the form of a query, I feel obligated to respond, even when I have nothing to say or no time to say it.

But really, that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is the wicked temptation that visits me, temptation that is surely reflective of the inner high school student I never fully shook off. Example: Let’s say Warren, my young hot domestic partner, really pisses me off. Now, I know that’s hard to imagine. But some of you—maybe like three—who started reading my blog in the old days, back when it resided at MySpace (yesterday’s Facebook), might recall that from time to time, Warren insists on wearing white pumps after Labor Day. And every time he does, I let it chap my ass.

So recently, in the dead of winter, possibly to shake us both awake from a rut we were stuck in, he came home one night wearing this particularly hideous pair of white pumps. I took the bait, gave him a huge lecture on the faux pas, and thus began a weeks long argument.

So how high school is this? Some nights, furious not so much at the incident itself, but more at being baited, I contemplated a public Warren spanking via Facebook. Maybe I should unfriend him! That would teach him a lesson! Or perhaps I could chastise him on his wall and our many mutual friends would see!

And how much more high school is this? Someone else recently pissed me off mightily. Exhibiting a lack of boundaries more common in two year-olds, this someone crossed a couple of big lines I have. Though we’re not friends (on Facebook or in real life), might I just send a little Fuck You message to this person’s Facebook inbox? (Probably if I were still drinking.)

Last week, I gave a series of talks to high school kids in Dallas. I was trying to get them to wrap their heads around how utterly pervasive technology has always been in their lives, that they probably could not remember the pre-Internet days. I pointed out how the majority of my writing career to date, I worked on a typewriter, didn’t have a cell phone, and had to send stories to my editors via snail mail. Complete blank looks greeted me. At the end of one session, I asked how many of them spent my lecture time texting. Several kids raised their hands though I don’t think any of them made the connection between my observations and their actions.

I asked them about Facebook. Just about every one of them has a page. I asked them how many of them had parents who had Facebook pages. Some eye rolling and hand raising in response. And I asked this subset how many of them had parents who tried to friend them and if being forced to friend their parents shaped their online behavior. (Nobody seemed especially interested in opening up on this, perhaps fearing peer ridicule.) My own son insists he doesn’t have a Facebook page, and that even if he did, he wasn’t going to be friending me. (A deal I’m fine with—I don’t want him monitoring me at least as much as he doesn’t want me monitoring him.)

I also asked the kids how many friends they had. More than a couple gave numbers close to a thousand. This gave me pause—here I thought that, at nearly 500 friends, I was particularly popular. Apparently not. One student consoled me—her class has 700 students in it, hence her popularity.

By applause—how many of you are shooting for what my friend Paul calls Whore Status on Facebook? Are you shooting for the golden 1000 mark? Should I? Shall we have a little experiment? Do we think I can double my numbers within 24 hours and cross that big 1k line? Shall I sweeten the deal even though I shouldn’t have to bribe you? Okay, I’ll do it—the first three people to friend me with a message saying you read this column will get a pair of tickets to the March 11th Dick Monologues. Hurry up people—be my friend.

I read an article recently where Burger King ran a campaign offering a free Whopper to anyone who would unfriend ten people and prove it. So, what’s that? The equivalent of two dollars to axe ten friends? Even Judas got paid better than that. But some of those kids I spoke to readily admitted they went for the burger and trimmed their rolls.

Getting back to my epiphany. In the end, no matter how much I bitch about Facebook, the proof is in the pudding. I’ve heard that removing one’s Facebook page is damn near impossible. Even if that’s true, I could walk away, never log back on, escape the whole folly of it, couldn’t I? Okay, maybe not.

Maybe it’s that President of the Student Council blood still coursing through my veins that drives me to post multiple daily micro-blogs about my moment-to-moment thoughts and actions, to change my profile photo regularly, and to greet each new message with a sigh (I’m too busy for this!) and a rush (People like me! They really really like me!)

Not everyone suffers my overblown philosophizing about this time killer du jour. My friend Kriss (I believe she was a rocker in high school) got on Facebook recently and, ever since, she’s totally been getting off on it. Last night, she actually posted a note on my wall that included that wonderful high school sentiment, Your mama.

I asked her for a Facebook opinion, suggesting she email her thoughts privately. Oh, no. She posted her response on my wall where anyone could read it like an intercepted note passed in algebra. Her message?

it's beautiful- it is what the future promised. It's the best note passing option available, it weeds out the slow and humorless, it restoreth my soul.

After HOURS and HOURS of riding this mechanical bull of a snark machine,my neck now feels like it was made out of toothpicks and popsicle sticks by a third grader in a hated Summer camp she is too damn old for.

Facefook is for lovahs.

Spike Gillespie wants to weild power over you by deciding whether or not to accept your friend request. She blogs at www.spikeg.com. And she is Head Mistress for the Dick Monologues. Next show March 11th. Email spike@spikeg.com to reserve seats.