The Necessity of Appearing in You’re Own Facebook
The Necessity of Appearing in Your Own Face 
There are days when that is the last place
in the world where you want to be but you
have to be there, like a movie, because it
features you. ~ Richard Brautigan
Back in the 1950’s a popular TV show, “This is Your Life” aired for a decade. The premise: a person, some celebrity of a kind, would be the receiver (target) , then people, teachers, best friends, former dates, relatives and the like would be dredged up from their recent and distant past. The mystery person (standing off stage) would proceed to give the person hints, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes heart-warming; the celebrity would then try to guess.
Facebook is very much like “This is Your Life” but on steroids. For me it has turned out to be one stupendous open house where people from you life come out of the woodwork and onto you facebook. Three years ago I attempted to join but alas my generation had not come aboard so I ended up talking to myself. (A blog is much better place for that.) Then on Christmas my daughter got me up and running again. Like most I felt a little frustrated when I first looked at the maze they call Facebook. Having left timidity behind years ago I opened the door and walked in.
My easiest path for regrouping on Facebook is family due to mine being vast. I began finding cousins and collating them onto my Facebook. My sister Lucy (being influential as the first born of the cousins) coaxed a batch of them on and gregarious Aunt Pauline wrangled in more. Now there are 70 people I am related to. 70! More than half of all my friends are actually related. After that followed the Lourdes Academy class of 1964 (I scanned in all the Senior pics and tagged them) followed by neighbors, and people I worked with from three previous jobs. Friends brought other friends and cousins brought the kids and their kids, kids. And pretty soon it was big open house where you never know who might walk in and whether you will recognize them. But unlike an open house they won’t see the stunned expression on your face as you see how they have aged and visa versa, and no one offers you a cocktail although that might be a nice addition.
And like an open house people will arrive and after they get reacquainted they will bring out the pictures of the their kids, grandkids, dogs, cars, vacations and the like. And the comments will come “adorable”, “nice family” “beautiful” etc. etc. And you are free to wonder among your guest as you get introduced to friends of friends, sisters of friends and it goes on. But there comes a time, like any party, when people are seated or standing and involved in a deeper more meaningful conversation. And you’ll want to be there because it features you.
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Community, Computer, Family, Philosophy. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
