CrackBook

Recently, I've started to realize something...

Facebook is constantly up on my computer, and the area on my computer screen where the Facebook "HOME" button resides, is officially worn out like the heel on an old PENNY LOAFER.

In a way, I'm embarrassed.

Somehow or another, I have become a HELPLESS victim of the frantic obsession with these online networking sites, and while the craze hasn't warped into my blackberry...yet, I enjoy reading about many of my long-lost friends through my laptop computer.

The great thing about Facebook is that it's FREE, and consequently; I am not PAWNING my prized possessions to access the information that coincides with my five hundred and some-odd friends. I simply log in, click home, and I am INSTANTLY plugged into the lives of just about EVERYONE I know.

No credit cards, no interest rates, and no contractual obligations.

But whats too much, I ask?

While I admit to being a facebook FIEND, I don't understand why people find it necessary to log their every MOVE for the whole world to see.

And more importantly, I seriously wish that people would either join the MAFIA, be a FARMER, buy a FISHTANK, marry a PIRATE, or kill a VAMPIRE, - so I don't have to HEAR about it.

I do, however, partake in a MILD array of status updates that include certain athletic outcomes, jokes, trip destinations, etc., but some people take this WAY to far.

(Before you read any further, my intention here is not to piss anyone off. These are the views of a 29 year old, SINGLE, male. So, if you are offended, I apologize in advance for the narrow-mindedness)

For example:

"_________is waiting for her hubby to come and share some of the chocolate lava cake she just made for him.”

I think everyone has a few friends like these. The person who was voted the “most intellectual” by the high school senior class is now a full time housewife who uses the term “HUBBY” without reservation, - and wants the ENTIRE Facebook community to know that she is spending her Friday night...making DUDE a cake.


*Let me just go on record NOW. I hope that I am NEVER referred to as a "hubby." When I hear this word in a sentence, its all I can do...to not DRY HEAVE.*


The best is when your friends brag about exercise.


“__________is glad that he didn’t eat the box of Girl Scout cookies instead of going to the gym and doing 3 sets of 30 bicep crunches.”

Thanks for SHARING about how many reps you did. We were all so very interested about your regimented work out plan. It’s good to know so many productive members of our nation are busy keeping trim, - and telling the world about it. Maybe next week, they will have done 80 chin ups, 3000 sit ups, and then ROW themselves into a QUADRATHALON.

Here's a good one too:

“__________is madly in love with his wife...even the day after Valentine’s!”

Great.

I'm really glad that you have found love. For real, I am. But either your wife is so incredibly LAME as to be impressed by the fact that you say things like this about her to the whole wide world, or you have some kind of bizarre INADEQUACY, - requiring you to BROADCAST signs of heterosexual HARMONY to the Universe. Maybe both.

I’m thinking both.

These kinds of 7th-grade declarations of AFFECTION for someone you’re married to can only be compared with those (sometimes overlapping) groups of Facebookers who actually write vapid messages to their spouses on each others’ walls...

“Honey, I’m getting some TAPIOCA at the store on the way home! And I just wanted to tell you Good Luck at the interview honey!...“I love you!”

There are a lot of these. OBVIOUSLY, as a 20-something year-old male, a lot of my friends are getting married and making babies. Does this really need to be shared with the entire world?

You made a fucking baby. Wow. This happens almost a billion times a year on the planet EARTH. (I'm only kidding. I understand that child-birth is exciting, I'm only executing one of my "signature" rants) While I’m sure the endless PARADE of baby pictures is a Facebook staple, I’m happy to report that I have managed to avoid most of these albums.

"I’m changing diapers!" Let me go make a status update change!

Once kids are born, you get into this sort of thing. I wouldn't know because I'm single. Thanks to the never ending supply of information, Facebook users will also get to share in their custody battles as well. How nice is it that we get to be DEPRESSED about the bizarre neuroses of your child as he is developing? In 10 years, I will be looking FORWARD to the status updates about your court dates as well. Believe me, I am taking notes.


Facebook and social networking culture take people that you happen to have met somewhere, sometime in your life, and label them for you.

Fell out of touch? Catch up on what you’ve missed. Didn’t know them that well to begin with? They’re just one click away! Look, they’re online now! Maybe you can hit them up real quick while they’re STALKING their other friends and ask them what it was like to grow up in whatever town they’re from.

On the flip-side, what has made me so attracted to this site is the ability to stay connected to people you thought you would NEVER see again. It's especially sweet to re-connect you with old friends from college.

Pre-Facebook, when you graduated, you moved onto live the rest of your life, with no intentions of EVER seeing the friends you made while taking a leak outside the late-night nitrous party at 5am.

Not now.

Online networking services have bridged the gap between acquaintances we have ALL made throughout life, both good and bad, and guess what?

I'm a "fan."