Do I Know You?
With extreme trepidation I joined the legions of people on Facebook over a year ago after I was censored by the MySpace goon-squad and was likened to ‘lice’. Initially, I found the good-natured and well-mannered people on Facebook to be like crisp, clean sheets – seductive and a great comfort to linger about in on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve made some great friends on there, reconnected with old ones, sold art through it (which I never did on MySpace!), and found the conversations to be adult and way above the troll-like behavior of some of the gay message boards filled with shadowy faces and dubious profiles seemingly created for the sole purpose of flinging feces upon everyone and anyone on the internet.
You had to put your face and some information about yourself on Facebook – hence the name I gather – and meeting people was similar to doing an event or going into a bar and feeling very much like ‘fresh meat’. Good for the ego with none of the downsides. A pure win-win situation, I thought.
Then I started playing the little games and apps on there, spending way too much time clicking and poking and prodding at candy-colored tiles and flash or java based games. I’m a diabetic in a candy store who can’t stop filling his gullet with the oh-so-sweet treats, knowing all too well that I was wasting my time waiting for somebody to reply to my message or comment when they very well might be asleep in bed.
I got lazy somewhere between the crisp, clean sheets – thrusting my butt up in the air, much like my cat does when I come home demanding a good solid brushing, at best and at the worst, like some wanton sex fiend on Craigslist. Where I used to be rather suspect of anyone without a face on Facebook or just a photo and some brief blather about themselves that would make me walk away in any other social situation, I began adding people with glee abandon.
Blind invite after blind invite came so fast and so furious, studied for a brief moment in some sort of A.D.D. litmus test and then added just so I could go back to Scrabble or my Dungeons & Dragons Tiny Adventure or Castle Age, until I was so full of anonymous electronic Facebook semen that I just lost the will to stop. I’ve got ‘friends’ on my Facebook account that I can’t tell you one thing about. Not one! ‘Friends’ with such dubious taste in music, fashion, and some might say lacking in basic intelligence that maybe it is I who should have his head examined!
So I guess it begins and ends with me.
If I want the madness to stop, I have to apply the brakes. That means deleting everyone and anyone whom I don’t like, speak with, have no interest in doing things with, all those desperate people padding their friends lists with ‘cool’ people, even the hot ones, the ones who post Madonna concert footage, the ones who can’t be bothered to spell correctly, and those with personalities that must taste like cardboard. In real life, I have maybe 5 friends. Close friends. Online, I have over 600! Six-hundred people who don’t give a shit about me and frankly, that street goes both ways.
If that makes me a douche, so be it, but at least I’ll feel sane.
October 25th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Nah, doesn’t make yah a douche. Frankly I need to do the same thing soon as I think that the damn games are gonna make me go bonkers. Mind you I don’t play but overtime someone plants this or that or puts a fuckin fish in the aquarium I get notified, and the next fucking Lollipop someone wants me to break in. Though I have to admit I admire you from afar, I am proud to say I own some of your art (nothing major just a greeting card I framed). Your talented drub and I am sure an inspiration to other dirty fakers and artists alike and for sure jerk off material for me. So delete away my friend, I just hope I don’t get caught in the cross fire, unless its cross fire from your cock across my face.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Well said as always!
But I do like the dialogues that grow from your posts – always cutting through the crap and getting to the salient stuff.
The urge to accept these almost anonymous invites is great – keeps every one happy right?
Well why keep ‘em all happy? Value is in selection; that is nurtured, else it just drifts away. Folk need to hold their own views and not join the masses for convenience but take a stance.
The redeeming feature on FB is the “fan page” where interest can be flagged so that “people padding their friends lists with ‘cool’ people” can be associated. But friends go deeper…
October 26th, 2009 at 8:23 am
Evil – Which card/image did you get?
ch4suk – And this makes me wish we lived on the same continent. Heck! On the same street (for various reasons!)
I culled probably 200 people from my list, threw out 3 apps that are killing my time, and getting down to the nitty-gritty I suppose.
I do enjoy the little back and forth we all do on the comments. It’s the lurking, friend padding silent types that bug me so much.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I totally get what your saying. I was addicted to Vampire Wars on there until it got to the point that I needed 500 clan member/friends in order to win fights. I thought fuck you I don’t want all these people/strangers as friends. So that pretty much ended my game addiction on there. Still play now and then when I’m bored at work but thats it. I am discovering that I have some pretty cool cousins, that I would have never known otherwise.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I picked up the one called “The Other White Meat” fuckin love it M8.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Awesome, Evilpupy
I’ve managed to ween myself off everything except Castle Age. I’m sure that will lose it’s luster soon enough as I’m nearly level 100 and it’s no longer challenging.
I just wish there were some some of Mac compatible Dungeons & Dragons (I know – big geek! Surprise!) game I could play online.
That said, if anyone has a PS3 or Xbox – Dragon Age: Origins looks STUNNING!
October 28th, 2009 at 9:45 am
A-fuckin-men, brother!
I recently did the great purge myself, and I wouldn’t be suprised if I left a pretty high body count of confused and mollified Facebookers. I think I knew I had a problem when people from HIGH SCHOOL were finding me. Fuck that shit!
As for people who feign hysteria at being unfriended by your hot self? Fuck ‘em. As thr Edwardians would toast, “Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends!”
-SPD
October 28th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Ahahahah my security word was “cumshot” Love it!
Speaking of Castle Age, I’ve tried repeatedly to send gifts to you but it always fucks up.
November 14th, 2009 at 3:17 am
This is just the way of life in a networked society, methinks…
November 15th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Never thought about Facebook . . . reading this, I’m rather glad now!!
I think I’ll just stick to reading this blog and drooling over the delicious artwork.
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I yanked most everything from my FB page a while back. I felt that if people were truly a friend of mine, then we would have commonality which would allow us to connect besides FB! Besides, I’d rather have the content of YOUR site, your great art and posts, on my screen and in my brain. Xd