James is writing about Facebook. Again.
April 2nd, 2008 at 18:57
One of my favourite things about Facebook consuming all of our lives is the news feed. Especially the status updates. If you’re over the age of 30, a Facebook status is basically a one line description of what someone is doing at any given time.
Usually, everyone sets them to something trivial or banal – I could probably tell you with some accuracy what some of my friends have been eating lately, and sometimes they’re used for actually useful information, such as explaining where someone is. I try to make mine pithy and whimsical.
My favourite type of Facebook status though is what I’d term dramatic ambiguity. If you’re a regular Facebook user, you must know what I mean – when you read something like “James is annoyed with certain people” or “James wishes someone would stop being a twat” – when they’re used as the 21st century equivalent of bitching about someone behind their back.
I love it when this happens because it lets you wonder and speculate on what the actual gossip is.
“[Facebook friend] wants to tell certain people where to certainly go, but can’t for the sake of diplomacy.” is a pretty obvious cry for attention – what could be going on?! Oh, the possibilities!
The other great thing about the Facebook news feed is that you get to follow all sorts of events in real time. Its always entertaining to see someone go from “in a relationship” to “single”, then to “its complicated”, then “in a relationship” again… and then a week later back to “single” permanently. Its as if Facebook is charting our own personal time lines live.
When I’m out and about doing the sort of things you’d expect a young go-getter like myself to do, I update my status fairly regularly by text message. I like to think that there’s one of my hundred or so friends sitting on their computer following my movements obsessively, like some weird stalker fan. I suppose its probably a good thing that Mark Chapman didn’t have Facebook.
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