kidattypewriter

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Defacebook

Facebook is a social utility that facilitates social harmony by allowing you to stalk people. I can't explain what else it does, and nobody else can either. You sign up to it and then you just sit there. Occasionally you add things called 'applications' which don't apply, annoy people by poking them, or sending them invitations to stupid games like 'vampire' or 'fight club'.

I was at a pub the other night and a guy was telling me and others how on their honeymoon, he and his wife had sat on separate computers playing one another on Facebook's scrabble application - rather than playing it with a board. We were all geeks, and the general consent seemed to be that this was rather romantic.

Facebook also encourages a weird approach to the English language. Occasionally you can 'update your status' with outrageous lies like 'Timothy is eating noodles out of the back of a semi-sentient washing machine' or 'Timothy is a bigger genius than Einstein' or 'Timothy is having sensuous feelings about his W C Fields DVD'. When you add people to your list of contacts, suddenly, mysteriously, Facebook designates you 'Friends', though you may very well be adding an enemy in order to insult them more effectively, or something like that. Also, when you update items on your profile, Facebook updates others, but it doesn't call you 'She' or 'He' or even 'It', it insists on referring to you in the plural, as 'They'. For instance: 'Tim Train updated their profile. They added to quotes...' etc, etc.

In addition to not knowing what Facebook is for, a lot of people seem not even to be certain about its name. I remember hearing on the radio last week a presenter refer to it as 'MyFace', confusing it with its mortal enemy, 'MySpace'. The guy he was interviewing seemed certain that Facebook was the 'new cool place to be', but it also seemed certain that he had no idea what he was talking about, since he couldn't really explain what Facebook was for, either.

Facebook: the perfect tool for the apathetic generation, since it allows you to sign up and do nothing? Perhaps in future Facebook could branch out and offer a range of alternative products:

For Nazis: Racebook.

For hippies: Spacebook.

For feminists: Macebook.

For aglet fetishists: Lacebook.

For lunatics: Nutcasebook.

14 comments:

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

So, as is my wont, I fancied myself something of a bastion of resistance, refusing to wear the long-johns of my inner self atop the corduroy pin-stripe trousers of my outer (leaving aside the little matter of mine blogge). But then the emails poured in, "Be my friend, be my friend"; how is one supposed to spurn such solicitations? The prospect of scrabble is some consolation.

Shelley said...

Scrabble against a biochemist from Melbourne is killing me. I had to goole her first move :( So embarrassed.

Then again, contact with a school friend I haven't seen in eight years - bonus.

Shelley said...

google even...

Anonymous said...

Facebook is indeed ridiculous, but it is worlds ahead of MySpace in that people can't edit their pages so that they induce seizures with the bad flashing graphics and music on auto-play. I admit, also, to enjoying their Scrabble thing very much (though I only say that because I won my first game -- I am about to lose the next one in a big way, after which I may have to change my opinion).

TimT said...

The concession seems to be that scrabble is the only good thing about Facebook. I just added scrabble and chess to mine, and challenged Herr Sterne to a game of the latter, though no success at the moment.

Shelley said...

I think mine is very much nutcasebook. Being me I can't stop myself from giving little clues about my alter ego even though only one of my friends would appreciate the joke - I don't think she's much into anagrams though.

Tim said...

Sorry, was at work today. But consider the challenge well and truly accepted! Prepare to win - I had to look up chess rules on line to figure out which one was the king and which the queen. I should have just checked under their robes.

TimT said...

Yeah, now if only I could work out how to get this facebook application to work properly...

Gemnastics said...

Disgracebook needs to die. If I spent my honeymoon on its scrabble page I'd pick up the monitor and ram it into my skull.

M L Jassy said...

Only merits of Facebook far as I can see are those which hook you up with hospitable, like-minded couches in expensive foreign cities. Only slightly more meritorious if you make it to the bed.
TimT, I too am appalled by Facebook's frequent abuse of grammar, "they" really suck. As does instantaneous friendship, just as keystroke of ego.
alexis: my scrabbler inspiration. you are a light unto the genteel tile-wielding rack addicts.

M L Jassy said...

Dictionary of Melbourne Slang - Acebook!

M L Jassy said...

Music with an anti-social message: Ryan Adams and the Fuck-Yous torture Sydney audiences...
"Ryan Adams reminded me that the line between audience and band, and between audience expectations and band preferences, is unfathomable, unpredictable and individual."
Bernard Zuel, SMH
In the great trad of country music - I love it so much it makes me suffer.

TimT said...

you are a light unto the genteel tile-wielding rack addicts.

Yea, Verily - A Good Smart Ian.

Anonymous said...

Well, after all that I'm not asking you to be my Facebook friend.

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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