I am about to have a conversation with you that will have you laughing at me, shaking your head and probably rolling your eyes at the ridiculousness of “today’s youth” (wait, do I still count as today’s youth? Or is that reserved for the naive youngsters I complain about on occasion? Guess we’ll never know…).
Only in the noughties would such a subject arise. Especially from my mouth keyboard. Yes, much to my own dismay, I am going to add to the numerous conversations on social networking.
I ‘discovered’ social networking rather late in the game, apparently; I found out about Myspace on the Tyra show in late 2006. She was interviewing Tom, and I had no idea who he was or what on earth they were talking about. This is probably not unexpected, being that at that time I had only owned my own computer for about a year (that’s right, I didn’t even think about buying a computer until I was 20. Even then it was only because I needed it to study. Blasphemy, I know), and was still using those prepaid internet disc things. Anyway, I jumped online and typed in the address, set up an account and…Well, and nothing. I didn’t log back on for about a month. Seemed pretty boring and pointless to me.
Eventually, I fixed up my page, searched through some profiles and started adding friends. Then, I joined some groups, added even more friends and learnt how to “customise my profile”. I slowly started understanding it all, and spent more and more time checking my inbox and group posts. My friends consisted of people I had been friends with forever, a few family members and a couple of randoms. It became a great way to fill in time while the kidlings were napping, and I actually met some pretty cool people on there. One of which has been a very good friend of mine for four years now (or there abouts).
Later, I stumbled across the rival – Facebook. Ok, I didn’t so much stumble upon it, as embarrassed myself in a conversation where I uttered the unforgivable phrase “what’s a Facebook?”. Mind you, this was in late 2007. Late again, it seems. I had been wondering why Myspace was suddenly like a ghost town.
So this was where all of my friends were hiding! I set up an account, added all of my friends and family and started poking people right and left. Send a smiley? Sure! Put a bumper sticker on my profile? Why not! Send a gift? Don’t mind if I do!
After a few months, I had friend requests popping up all over the place from people whose names I hadn’t heard in years. Old school friends, people I had met randomly whose names I had to repeat to myself for about half an hour before I remembered who they were, family members I thought had fallen off the face of the earth…By 2008 I could have sworn I had “friended” about half of every school I’d been to, every living relative I have and about half the population of my home town.
This is where the confusion sets in.
I had requests from people who had teased me relentlessly as a teenager, who then sent me messages assuring me that they had grown up now and that they were so sorry for how they had treated me. Really? You can pop up on my screen ten years later and try and relinquish your guilt? I was floored every time.
I have ex boyfriends wanting to chat, people I’d hardly spoken a word to in years leaving me numerous wall posts as if we had been friends our whole lives, apologies/explanations in my inbox from people who hated me, and loving sentiments/statements of solidarity from people I hated. How on earth do you deal with all of this stuff? What exactly is the etiquette for blowing off someone you don’t want to be friends with in a world where everyone is a mutual friend and they keep popping up in that annoying “people you may know” box? Do you take the high road, add them and be friendly? Do you point out the ridiculousness of their actions and ignore them? Do you simply ignore them and hope it never comes up again? Do you add them and then ignore them?
In real life these problems are simple. You don’t like someone; you simply don’t see them again. How is it different? Where everyone is friends with everyone else, they can all see your conversations, know what you’re doing and have some kind of expectation that because you know them there has to be some kind of internet recognition. A kind of recognition that isn’t expected in the real world.
Even worse is when you’re on the other side of this equation. What happens when you request someone you used to know, and they ignore you completely? Normally this wouldn’t bother you at all. But you can see that they have added all of your friends. They all talk to each other, share updates and comment on each other’s photos. They have people on their friends list who they have barely talked to, but your friend request remains unanswered. Why, why won’t they acknowledge you! What happens if someone you knew well doesn’t want to be your friend? What did you do wrong? Did you offend them in some way you can’t quite remember?
From having missed the boat in a rather large way, I am now caught up in the intricacies and politics of social networking. Why does rejection in a virtual world seem so much more cutting than in everyday life? Is it because we see it every day, where we normally wouldn’t even think about these people? Does it simply exacerbate our innate insecurity to have someone publicly reject you? And why do we feel the need to add every single person we ever knew, even when it is clearly inappropriate?
I’m not sure of the answers. All I can say is, those who are trying to establish some kind of non-existent or long lost connection with me – please stop it. It’s over. It’s not you, it’s me…really. And those who are still ignoring me to their little hearts’ content….please, I need validation! I’m cute and ever so funny!
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