28
Apr 11birthdays, and Facebook
Facebook is such an interesting social phenomenon.
On one hand you feel connected to many more people than you would have before – you can see status updates and family photos… you keep up with friends from elementary school as well as connect with someone you just met at a party. You can interact with people in many funny ways.
But on the other hand… a very real possibility is this: your friends are now residing inside your computer.
Does it really help me to know all the mundane stuff for a wide social network? Am I benefiting from seeing an ex-boyfriend’s cute wife or a friend’s mall studio portraits? Really?
Ali started this funny little tradition of turning off his Facebook wall for his birthday. The point is to avoid the inevitable Facebook drive-bys of random acquaintances leaving HAPPY BIRTHDAY! in that exact configuration (times a million) on his wall. Think about it for a second – did you even read the facebook messages last time your birthday hit? They all blend together because they are the very definition of generic. It means nothing to me that you wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY on my wall. (I mean that in the nicest way possible.)
So… this year I gave it a try. I disallowed commenting on my wall. It was liberating! Wheeee!!! I suggested three alternate ways to reach me (blogs, mailing address, and phone number) and interestingly — know what many people did? THEY LEFT A COMMENT ON THAT WALL POST. The ratio of “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” to more interesting/thoughtful comments was up, but it’s hilarious and fascinating to me that people feel obligated to some generic social quota of hitting your wall on that one particular day to say nothing in particular. I mean, I guess it’s nice that you took the effort, but… I’m just going to say it: I don’t care about what you wrote because you haven’t talked to me in twenty years, and now you just quickly wrote the same two words as everyone else and cluttered up my wall with your genericism. I realize that makes me once again sound heartless and cruel. And I have been guilty of a few words here and there randomly hitting walls. I hope you get my point, though. Facebook birthdays seem utterly shallow to me.
Despite being unable to effectively divert people from facebook, I was tickled to receive a range of clever responses from friends (only one blog comment?), but my favorite birthday greeting had to be a music teacher friend who sent me the following:
sol sol la sol do’ ti
sol sol la sol re’ do’
sol sol sol’ mi’ re’ re’ do’ ti
fa’ fa’ mi’ do’ re’ do’
sol la sol ta (!)
HAHAHA. Simple. Effective. Creative.
The music major in me is both impressed and delighted.
Now THAT’s a birthday greeting.
(Steve Snyder, you still rock.)
April 29th, 2011 at 1:28 am
I was sort of toying with the idea of posting a whole bunch of nasty porno on my facebook in the hopes that the site would erase my profile, since they don’t let you delete it yourself. Then my grandmother friended me. Back to the drawing board.
April 29th, 2011 at 9:18 am
steve snyder DOES still rock. i love it.
April 29th, 2011 at 11:29 am
I totally agree about the drive-by Facebook posts on your birthday. Totally generic and requires little to no effort; especially since Facebook now alerts you when you login about your friends’ birthdays. (That being said, my Twitter birthday greeting probably falls into the same category. *sigh*)
Unfortunately, it seems like everyone is sharing their lives via Facebook and trying to use alternate means of communication results in a steady stream of sideways glances and puzzled responses. I applaud your effort to break free from the status quo, but sadly it appears to be a losing battle.
April 29th, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Micah, I liked your tweet. Although it didn’t take much more effort than writing on facebook, it meant a lot more to me and I wasn’t offended by its plainness. Maybe it makes me a bit hypocritical? I don’t know.
I hope it’s not a losing battle. Maybe I should just turn off my facebook wall forever but leave signposts so people can find my blogs if they care enough.
May 1st, 2011 at 6:55 am
So in terms of effort, the equation looks like this?
physical visit > postal mail > phone call > email > Twitter > Facebook
If there was a mode in Facebook that only allowed yourself to post to your page, that would be awesome.
May 1st, 2011 at 1:00 pm
that’s one reason why i don’t even have my birthday listed on facebook. it’s just so NOT personal. regardless, i hope you had a happy 32 and it’s good to know that you guys are really liking portland. miss you chica!
May 3rd, 2011 at 7:44 am
I half way feel the same way you do about “drive by” birthday greetings. But I half way like it. It’s true that saying happy birthday on Facebook isn’t highly personal and doesn’t take much effort, but it’s kind of neat to know that on this one day, a lot of people thought about me, if only for three seconds each.
May 14th, 2011 at 3:52 am
is the final ‘ta’ not written a semi-tone too high? it’s should be a minor seventh, right?
May 14th, 2011 at 4:01 am
music ponce-attempt fail.
delete previous comment.
and happy birthday.