Road Apples
Feb. 8, 2010


Facebook follies

By Tim Sanders

My wife and I do not have laptops and iPods and Blackberries and so on and so forth. We neither text nor twitter. We share a single desktop computer, and for the last several months have been members of an insidious social organization known as Facebook. It all started last spring. Several of our friends and relatives began emailing us, explaining just how wonderful it would be if we would join Facebook because ... well, because just everybody with opposable thumbs and the sense God gave a goat was on Facebook! They explained that you could post photos on it, and send little messages to all your friends, and let everybody know what was going on with you all the time, and you could find out what was going on with them, too. Just like email, only ... well, more so.
It was Gossip Central.
So one day last spring I gave in. I I entered my name and measured my inseam and gave them my medical history, and the Facebook people gave me my badge and the secret password. Within the week Marilyn and I had our Facebook Profile Photo, which was taken at a local restaurant while I was chewing a rather gristly piece of steak. I don’t think I added any other Profile information, because one of Marilyn’s relatives who’d carried on and on about Facebook was now convinced that a cabal of 14-year-old Russian hackers had accessed her Facebook account information and purchased several eBay items in her name, hardly any of which fit her when they arrived at her home.

But I digress. If you are not yet on Facebook, here are some things you need to know:


1. Since Facebook relies so heavily on faces, it is permissible to use a photo of your face taken twenty years ago, before it went bad. Or you can borrow a face from a movie star. Preferably one with a full head of hair.


2. Your Facebook has a “Wall Page” which contains “Threads.” “Threads” are a series of comments on the same topic. You will see “up a tree,” for example, followed by other cryptic comments such as “under the sofa” or “in Granny’s nightgown.” These comments will confuse you until somebody takes pity on you and explains that the original comment was “Where do you suppose Grandpa is tonight?”


3. You will be deluged with people asking you to “confirm” them as a “Friend” on Facebook. It is very hard to turn somebody down who asks only to be your friend, so eventually you will have a stadium full of friends, many of whom you are unfamiliar with. This is not necessarily a bad thing, except that you will now get Facebook messages on your email page informing you that somebody you don’t know from Adam’s house cat has commented on the status of somebody else you don’t know, who is probably a friend of a friend, twice removed.


4. There are games on Facebook. I have no idea what they are or how you play them, and I don’t want to know. What I do know is that those games explain some of the odd comments you’ll see on Facebook, such as “Harold is fertilizing beans in Farmville, and could use some manure,” or “Charlene dropped a bucket of truffles down the well at Green Acres, and Arnold Ziffel needs a snorkel.” Don’t bother asking, it will only confuse you.


5. Remember that if email is like passing a note in class, Facebook is like posting it on the bulletin board. If Cousin Earl emails you to tell you that no matter what Momma says he’s marrying Cousin Doreen, it is perfectly acceptable to email him back and tell him, in the most loving and helpful way, that since they're first cousins there’s an excellent chance that all of their children will be walleyed. If, however, you post that remark on Facebook where the whole world can read it, Earl will be mortified and slit your tires some night while you’re sleeping. On Facebook you must say the following: “Earl, that’s SOOOOOOOO wonderful to hear!” (“SO” is always capitalized, and you can earn extra Facebook miles by adding more “O”s.)


6. If you are married, you and your spouse should get separate Facebook Profile Pages. Don’t ask me how to get two separate Facebook Profile Pages onto one solitary computer–we haven’t figured that out yet. Marilyn says that since we share that same Facebook page, I should sign my name when I say something dumb, so that her Facebook friends will not blame her.


7. Learn Internet acronyms. I don’t like acronyms, but I finally accepted the ubiquitous email acronym LOL, which I originally thought meant “Lloyd’s of London,” but only means “Laughing Out Loud.” Unfortunately when people get tired of the same old acronym, they feel compelled to add something else, as in, ROTFLOL, which indicates that your correspondent is “Rolling On The Floor while Laughing Out Loud.” Other annoying acronyms include PTL and AF of L-CIO. We recently got a Facebook message, or “comment,” which said: FOLPUDKROTDIANALY.

After several hours of research and a phone call, Marilyn learned that the Facebook friend in question was having a stroke mid-message.


8. Your email “Inbox” will eventually overflow with Facebook messages. They will say things like “Ramona Hackspackler commented on Gertrude Finster’s status.” This will pique your curiosity because while you never heard of Ramona, you do know Gertrude, and the term “status” sounds very serious, medically speaking. Invariably you will learn that Gertrude’s status was not terminal, but only involved her comment on her Profile Page or Home Page or somewhere that “I’m bored this morning.” Ramona’s comment was “ME 2!” This, of course, generated an endless thread of “ME 3s" and “ME 4s” by the Pod People, who have taken over your email server.


So if you are one of the remaining three Americans who is not yet a Facebook member, you can’t say you haven’t been warned. Once the Facebook people get you, you’ll never escape.