Friday, June 20, 2008

Social Networking Sites are Stupid

No, I do not want to join Facebook. No, I do not respond to messages on Friendster. No, I was not happy to join LinkedIn (I did it because a gie who is senior to me at the old job invited me, and then re-invited me, or whatever the fuck you call it, and it seemed like a dick move to keep ignoring him). But on the whole, I have this to say about Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and all that other shit: Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone.

Look, the fact is, friendships run a natural course. You aren't supposed to be best friends with everyone. People enter your life, and exit your life, and the duration in between those two bookends is governed by what you have in common, how much you enjoy each other's company, and the experiences you've shared (or, in some cases, because your parents are friends and your mom makes you feel guilty about not hanging out with her friend's kid - why do you think these clowns included me in high school? Because they were nice? Hell no. Eileen hooked me up. But I digress).

The point is, these social networking sites artificially extend the duration of friendships beyond their otherwise natural conclusion. "Oh, look, Billy from Kindergarten is on Facebook." So the fuck what? There is a reason that me and Billy from Kindergarten haven't spoken in 24 years: we were never friends in the first place. Now I have to read that his favorite movie is Goodfellas, he works on computers, lives in Wayne with some girl he met at Rutgers, and his favorite movie is Goodfellas? Fuck that. And then what? Drinks? Dinner? Hell no. "OMG, Kelly from 8th grade totally Facebooked me the other day. She was so fucking hot when we were in middle school." We are old, married (in some cases), and not banging girls who were hot when they were 12. Stop it. All of you.

Scrabble? Come on. You fuckers know me better than that. You can play scrabble on-line in any number of ways. Please don't give me this "I just joined it for the games" crap. That's like these people who are still telling their wives that they are reading Playboy for the articles. Cut it out. You want games? Here. Every Nintendo game ever (except Zelda for some reason, but you can play that here). Now you can play Tecmo Bowl for free all day and not worry about Facebook.

Social networking sites are for college kids and teenagers who think that every time they study for an AP History test that they need to put some inspirational quotation on their home page to capture the moment, or who have nothing better to do but harass other kids with lower self-esteem by sending them insidious messages over the internet.

It's a series of tubes, dagnabbit.

7 comments:

Open Bar said...

Hear, hear!

You know what else is stupid? These kids and their internet weblogs!

Just because you "post" some nonsense doesn't require me to "comment" on it. Just tell me in person and ask for my response.

Leave me and my abacus alone and get off my lawn!!!

Side Bar said...

Nice. I was actually going to use "get off my lawn" at the end but I went with "series of tubes" instead. I also would have accepted "kids these days," and "when I was a kid."

Open Bar said...

"Series of tubes" is good too.

But seriously, if Billy from Kindergarten Facebooks you, you can ignore him. You don't, like, get fined or anything. And hey, if Facebook helps me finally hook up with Jackie Faragouna, then it was all worth it.

Joe Grossberg said...

You should receive my response shortly. I wrote it on parchment, with a feather pen, and it is being delivered by a carrier pigeon.

Social networking sites aren't stupid; they're just not for *you*.

Open Bar said...

I was going to say the same thing, Joe, but I had to stop by the apothecary. I haven't been feeling well. He said if this nice Draught of Relief Potion doesn't work, hey, there's always blood-letting.

Side Bar said...

reductio ad absurdum

ChuckJerry said...

"reductio ad absurdum"

Is that a Harry Potter spell?

Side Bar, do you mean to tell me you've never said to yourself, "I wonder what that kid is up to?"

If you don't want to join facebook, I honestly couldn't give a fuck, but I would like to second Open Bar's pointing out of the irony of railing against it on your blog.

Isn't Goodfellas everyone's favorite movie? Is it really necessary to point it out?