There are so many people I was not in touch with prior to facebook after high school or college. There are some that I am so excited to re-connect with and others that I'm pretty neutral about.
Yesterday I found out by mass facebook message that a girl I went to high school with, who I did not keep in touch with or know anything about, died in a car accident. So weird. I mean, I would not have ever known this information otherwise.
I don't know if I should see facebook as a convenient way to get this information (I wouldn't read the obituaries in my parents' home town). Do I see it as "the grapevine" or do I see it as the gossip chain. I just have such weirdness about it. Maybe I shouldn't feel so strange about it. But I do.
9 comments:
that is a bit weird and gossip-y... I think I would feel a bit weirded out by such info. For me, FB is just a way to peek into lives of friends who are willing to share about their lives or ask random questions for quick thoughts. It's one thing to hear someone's opinion about a silly celebrity gossip, but it's another to hear about people you know, espescially if it's not something positive... Dunno. It makes me think about how I use FB because I'm sort of an addict. ;)
I agree on that particular point...it was very weird.
Um, yeah. I openly feel strange about facebook/myspace/whathaveyou. While it's a very convenient way to keep in touch with old friends/acquaintances who live far way, it's also kind of creepy. I especially don't get the whole virtual gifts, "pokes", "support my cause", etc. It's all very weird to me, so I don't spend much time on those venues. That's my 2 cents!
FB is what you make of it, I recently realized. You can be fb friends with people that would otherwise be unseen to you, and have a large impersonal social network. (nothing wrong with that) Or, you can choose not to, and keep only a tight circle of your true friends. I recently purged some 40+ fb friends, and now am only connected to people I am friends with. It is incredibly less gossip-like now, and I feel much more in control of it. (It was getting a little out of hand prior to the purge). I am also on it a lot less b/c there isn't much to see!!
Beth, I can relate. My goal was actually to keep my friend group very small. I've rejected invitations, not out of any malice, just not my style to have hundreds of people I don't know well who can see my business. ;-) Despite my early efforts though, I have more "friends" than I originally wanted and have considered a purge a la Caryn. Frustrating thing for me is that some folks are SO persistent with the invitations that I finally gave in to a couple that I didn't really want to.
At any rate, I sometimes share personal things that I don't mind a wider circle knowing, but if it's extremely personal I just send a private message.
The main reason I resented adding certain folks was that I felt a pressure (entirely from within) to censor myself, which I wouldn't have felt with a more intimate group. I don't mean in terms of curse words, more in terms of my beliefs and opinions about certain topics.
FB is the quintessential "worlds colliding" experience - and that's ALWAYS an odd feeling.
On the topic: I have found about a girl from my HS passing away via FB as well. Not a close friend at all, but it was jarring. I think that this kind of virtual, instant grapevine is totally normal to younger folks, but we are kind of on the cusp. We didn't grow up with the Internet, but had access to it as relatively young people and the way it permeates our lives has positively exploded in the recent past.
Does it make it more strange that the death happened in Tennessee -- so we probably would not have had it in the obituaries in Dayton? For you, it really was a twice-removed event, and I found it unsettling just as a once-removed event. As we hit this 15th year out of High School, it appears like we all are trying to do the same basic things - get ahead in the career, hold loved ones tight/ protect our families (in whatever shapes and sizes they become). But I find it troubling that like you all I really know of her is what I remember vaguely from High School - and we've all gone through dramatic changes since then (I hope). It feels like suddenly learning something very specifically, importantly intimate about someone (fb is listing husband and kids, etc. and death and grief are very intimate) of whom you know absolutely nothing meaningful. Processing that contradiction, really is a, as you put it, "freakout". I kind of feel like I really didn't have the right to know about her death? I guess this is all philosophically/metaphysically challenging. Thank you for blogging about it.
jeff
I've never found out that someone died via facebook. My parents do a pretty good job of spreading the Emporia news/gossip about things of that nature.
BUT, a facebook friend from high school (who i was not close with during or after high school) did pass away a few years ago.
His mother has kept up his facebook page and now posts happy birthday messages on people's pages. This freaks me out and I think it is very weird!
On a lighter subject, I also hate it when people post sonograms or engagement rings as their profile pictures.
Bdog,
Here's one for you. Amy and Courtney hadn't been keeping in touch in recent years. She learned of Jeff's passing (a sad tragedy) via Facebook. The silver lining; Amy has reconnected with Courtney and now has an old friend back in her life. Without Facebook, Amy wouldn't have known about it. But instead, Amy found out and were able to attend the funeral so Amy could be there to support Courtney. Weird? Yes. But as Natalie MerchAnt said "these are the days". And, I agree with Caryn, Facebook is what you make of it. It's completely self directed. If you're interested, you tune in. If not, don't fire up www.facebook.com :-)
Love ya,
E
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