I'm feeling a little paranoid here.
I almost did it.
I almost signed up.
I've ignored lots of invitations before.
It's easy, I just click "delete".
Lalala!! Not gonna do it!
Do I need another timesuck?
NO!
I already did the MySpace thing.
Everyone seems to be moving on, myself included.
No Facebook for me, people!
And then.
Then, it happened.
My Mother sent me an invite.
Ohfercryin'...
Now everyone is on Facebook.
Except me.
Because I have principles, people.
I'm not really sure what they are, but I'm sure I have them.
But I was gonna just give in.
"It'll be fun!" they whisper in my ear.
The voices.
So I almost clicked...
And then...
Then I saw the words, "Other people you may know on Facebook."
So I clicked the "load images" button on the email (which is always there because my trusty butler, Thunderbird, protects me from intruding images, which it figures is pretty much all images...).
And---
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
There were pictures of all my friends!
I mean, my REAL LIFE friends.
People that I know HERE in my REAL LIFE.
It wasn't just showing me some of my Mom's friends who I might happen to know.
No, no.
Here were pictures of people that my Mom does not know and who do not know her friends and do not know her friend's friends because they're MY FRIENDS in MY LIFE. Here. On MY SIDE of the country.
How did they get in a Facebook email invite from my Mom?
How do they know?
I haven't even signed up, and yet
Nice going, Facebook. You thought that clever ploy would make me want to join-- after all, ALL MY FRIENDS are doing it!
Haha!! You don't know me well enough! I was raised among Conspiracy Theorists! I know these Orwellian tricks!
So IT knows all my friends. What else does IT know about me? Did it see the peanut butter sandwich my son left to plasticize behind my couch? Did it see that I was too tired to brush my teeth before bed for three straight nights in a row? CAN IT SEE MY PILE OF DIRTY DISHES????
Why stop with knowing who I socialize with, huh?
I tell ya, it's freaking me out.
Posts
yeah and I signed up. I have found friends from college, blasts from the past, and blogging buddies. It's pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteOrwell is here in the gov--might as well have some fun.
Come on!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, but it's fun to have people come out of the wood work. I also found out there were real life (Hood River) people on FB. Who knew? Not me! I wanna be friends with my friends...but I don't necessarily wanna be friends with my friends friends, yaknowwhatImean?
If you like comments on your blog, you will LOVE comments on your "status"! :-D Much more immediate.
Don't listen to 'em, KT. Facebook is a waste of time. You have a lovely blog that requires you to write out full sentences in orderly paragraphs. Twitteresque status updates are the super-dumbed down version and pretty useless.
ReplyDeleteAnd anyway, what is it with this bandwagon logic? That should be a good reason to give goofy things like Facebook a wide berth.
(Yes, I know I have a MySpace page. Only for the blog function.)
I'm on your side. We can bring down the giant (okay- we can just resist the giant and no one will acttually notice- and those who do notice will laugh at us) if we all pull together as a team.
ReplyDeleteDon't drink the koolaid!
Katie, everyone already knows everything about you. You post it in your blog!
ReplyDeleteOkay! Fine! *Don't* get it, but don't whine about it. Sheesh. Everyone is so prejudice. It's the whole "I don't like it because everyone else likes it!" Oh, yes, brilliant logic, there. *That'll* make a good argument.
ReplyDeleteOh! Look! Cars! ... I don't like them because everyone else likes them. Cars are so over rated.
No, Lyssa, I'm not just trying to go against the flow. I was going to sign up (and probably still will, I guess...). Until I saw that it already knows who my friends are. Someone tell me how the heck it knows that?!!??!? It's weird...
ReplyDeleteMs. Beastly Driver ;-D -
ReplyDeleteFB is a different animal than a blog, obviously, and is not a dumb-downed version of one. In the few weeks since I gave in to FB I have gotten in touch with an amazing array of folks that I otherwise wouldn't hear from because no, they don't call or write, they don't have blogs and they don't read mine. Maybe we aren't too close then, right? True, but it has been fun to briefly catch up and I especially like seeing people's photo albums which would never happen anywhere else!
So there.
Let me know when you get on FB and I'll add you as a friend. You know it's what you make of it. It's a great way to keep in touch. you don't have to do any of the time wasters.
ReplyDeleteAnd ps.
I WAS hypothermic.
Hahaha...I love this. Love it.
ReplyDelete@Rosie_Kate-
ReplyDeleteFB knows who your friends are by importing your email contact list and searching for them on FB automatically. When I briefly signed up to see a video on a friend's FB page, it did that to me too, and almost convinced me to stay on. Then, it automatically told my email contacts on FB that I was (briefly) on FB, and they all immediately sent me friend requests.
Pretty intuitive system, no?
I wondered about the email thing, but how did it get my contact list when I don't use internet mail? My address book is in Thunderbird, and thus, I assume, on my computer. It can still do that? Yeek.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, Nate will not even let me think of getting facebook or anything else for that matter. lol
ReplyDeleteSo you are not alone if you don't sign up. I don't like that email thing they have though. That seems pretty invasive if you ask me.
if you get a FB account I suggest using a different email account. Just create some random one on yahoo or msn that you would never use. I have one for all my junk mail, and it saves you from getting virus' too. There was a FB virus scare last year and I deleted account and everything. you have to be carefull. Also make sure you put 100% privacy on there or you'll have random people wanting to hook up! Which I am sure you know from MS....I think FB is better than MS anyways, less trash. Just be carefull, just like email, don't open anything you aren't aware of...
ReplyDeleteCindy-- Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. I will make sure to use a junk email account.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've been reintroduced to people that weren't in my email account, btw.
ReplyDeleteYour FB only gets hacked if you click on those stupid ads that they have. Then you're account comments on other peoples FB with ads that they can click on so they can get hacked. I've had many friends that have gotten that. Just change the account password, and all is well.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe it downloads your own email list when trying to get you to sign up. Rather, FB gets your email from friends of yours who have already signed up, and asked it to search for friends of theirs that might have joined. So, when someone sends you an invite, FB remembers all of your friends who searched for you, and pulls them up to show you that there are people who know you who use FB.
ReplyDeleteI block all the ads and applications that people send to prevent them from getting my info w/out my permission.
ReplyDelete