Soapbox

Join the Group

Well, I got myself a Facebook page.

   I…haven’t decided how I feel about it. I had assumed Facebook was something 16 year-old girls did to, you know, like totally talk about  boys and stuff, you know? But then I heard that my older sister had a page… and was hearing from people. In our family! People that I never hear from!
   Huh uh. No. If Barb can do it, I can do it.
    And so I did.
    I don’t yet understand half the ins and outs of this thing. Like, what is "poking" someone? (Or do I not want to know?) And there are "groups" and "events", and I know you "friend" people and get them to friend you back….

   I’m starting off slowly. I have a few people from high school on my list, including one guy who was a jock and I doubt he knew I, the theatre groupie, was alive back then. Now he’s old like me, with grown kids and he "friended" me out of the blue, which I thought was nice.  We’re all grown-ups, after all. And I have a few people in my family on my list. Facebook keeps suggesting others, but here’s how I look at it.  Imagine you’re 17. Do you want your mother’s old lady cousin to be your friend? Probably not, ’cause then you keep getting links to all her old lady friends and updates on what she’s doing. So I’m giving the kids a break.

   I did friend my former next-door neighbor, who is now a big-time photographer, thank you. I was a little nervous that he’d think it was stupid… still feeling like a wallflower, even on Facebook. He just posted some lovely photos of the inaugural on his site. I remember leaving my bike in his front yard all the time, and my Dad looking at his photographs and giving him suggestions, back in the day.

   Last night Facebook informed me that my husband (who is one of my friends- thanks honey!) has joined a group called "You Know you’re from Lancaster County When…" and I started to wonder what other groups are out there. First I checked the ones of which my friends are members:  Allison Krauss fan club… Friends of Nelsonville... not really for me. Is there anything about writing poetry, or getting your writing published? Or maybe a Beatles fan club? Ah, "search groups". Sounds promising. ~click~

   Whoa. Talk about going through the Looking Glass!

   After scrolling through 45 pages of groups I struck out completely on the Beatles club (shocking!) and poetry writing, but I did make some interesting observations.

    First, while teen-aged girls may indeed be gossiping about boys on Facebook, most of the groups here seem to be started by teenaged boys who want everyone to know how bad-ass they are,and that you are totally missing out if you’re not having sex with them. (Clearly boys are just as full of it now as they were 30 years ago.)
    Second: way too many people  think it makes them look cool to use profanity in the title of their group, as in the "F**k yes I’m Hot, my Ni**a!" group. Which might as well be called the "Hey everybody- I"m an immature jerk!!" group, or "Emotionally arrested at age 15? Join Us!"

    And what is with groups started about your cell phone? I must have seen 30 called "Tom lost his phone and Needs your number" or "Renee finally got a phone, y’all!" I just don’t get it. Too old, I guess.

   But there were some groups that fascinated me. For example: "Zombie Defense Force" . Who knew they were on Facebook? Now that I think about it,  to date there have been no Zombie attacks at all, so I guess they are doing their job well!  There is one called "F**k Islam!" which claims to be a group about "spirituality’. Yes, very spiritual, I’m sure. They probably all have bracelets that say "Who would Jesus give the finger to?"

    A group called "I Bet I can Find 1 million People who Hate Abortion" has 32,000 members. So …not yet, huh? (I wanted to start one called "No one Loves Abortion, you moron!" but common sense prevailed. )

    The group called "I Love Nuttella" has 47,000 members. Uh oh, looks like more people love Nuttella than hate abortion. Too bad. But Nuttella is just so yummy!

    There was a "Stop Hillary Clinton!" group with over 800,000 members. She’s Secretary of Defense now… so did they fail, or succeed? Perhaps they should have gotten together with the Zombie Defense force… I know people who would see some similarities!

    "I Flip my Pillow to get the Cold Side" has 800,000+ members. Well sure, I mean- who doesn’t? But I can’t imagine what there is to talk about in such a group.
    "Dude- totally flipped it 6 times last night."
    "Cool". 
    Umm… pass.

    "When I was Your Age, Pluto Was a Planet" intrigued me (58,000) as did one called   "I Judge You When you use Bad Grammar" with over 800,000 members. I do judge, actually… but I really don’t want to brag about it. Moving on.

   I found one called "World Domination" which has to date just 3 members. But really, I think it best there not be too many people interested in World Domination, don’t you? The world has enough problems without too many little Napoleons running around.

    My personal favorite was definitely the one called "I don’t Care if I’ll Die at Midnight, I am NOT Passing on your Chain Letter!" If I had a nickle for every prayer chain I have broken I would be recession-proof right about now!

   Well I did not yet find a Facebook group I want to join, but I’ll keep looking. Maybe I should start my own. Perhaps I"ll call it "Old Broads who Don’t Totally get this Facebook Thing Yet"

… and love Nuttella!