So, I sat there on Facebook for nearly an hour, trying to think up clever little bits of nonsense about myself that would impress, wow, surprise, and/or humor twenty-five of my nearest & dearest.
And to let them know they were the two-dozen-plus-one special people who were privy to this cache of useless knowledge, I tagged all of them. All twenty-five. In a note entitled, "25 Random Things About Me".
Then it began.
First, the comments. The reactions. The follow-ups. The agreements.
And then I realized what I had done. Inadvertently created a stream of reply-all hell. Everytime someone thought it would be nice to tell me they also thought cilantro tasted like soap, it reverberated across twenty five notification windows across the country (and Germany too).
There's a girl in my office who also hates cilantro as much as I do. I know that now. And now, so does a person in LA who doesn't know her (my college roommate). As does another complete stranger who lives in Europe (she used to ride the bus with me).
To offset the further ripple effect of well-meant comments, I went back and untagged everyone then went on my merry notification-free way.
Fast forward a few weeks. I've been tagged a few more times, but I'm not stressed. I took care of my due diligence early on, already churned out my personal list of minutiae.
But I am noticing my newsfeed filling up with breaking news of rampant tagging going on... everywhere. The guy who was my lab partner in bio has twenty-five things he wants to share. A girl I used to take ballet class with, she has twenty-five of her own. My cousin's sister-in-law would like to reveal that she was once in a music video, in addition to twenty four other things.
To make matters worse, for a Facebook novice this all amounts to some obvious confusion. "Hey, someone tagged me that I was mentioned in this note they wrote.... and I read it like ten times. I must be so stupid, because I can't figure out where they mentioned me!"
That's because they didn't.
Shame on you, Facebook.
And it goes on.
Now, it's made the news....
From USA Today: Facebook friends share '25 Things' with the world
New York Times... Ah, Yes, More About Me? Here Are ‘25 Random Things’
MSNBC... 25 Random Things About Facebook
Time...25 Things I Didn't Want To Know About You
So, on my NEW list are the following items (not in any particular order):
- Putting dollar bills in my hand, then topping it with the loose change.
- This whole digital converter box controversy
- Spam (as in email. I have no issue with the canned food product)
- The size of the parking spots in Princeton boro. I saw a Smart Car parked in one, and there was enough room leftover for two more Smart Cars. There is enough room in all of Princeton boro for all the cars that need to park there, and then some. Maybe they painted all those lines at a time back when every person in the boro needed to parallel park their stretch limos.
Yes, that must be it. - L'il Green Patch
- The five thousand pieces of paper that you get when you pick up a prescription at the pharmacy.
- Texting me questions that require four paragraphs of verbage that I could've covered in a two minute phone call.
- Mouthy, world-weary teenagers who have been raised to say exactly what's on their minds.
- The Nassau Park shopping center parking lot.
- The TV seasons that are intermittent, sporadic, and randomly start at all times of the year.
- People who clearly can't sing, wowing us with their lack of skill in a homemade YouTube video.
- The storyline on Lost.
- Believing that a meaningful relationship can be borne from, and sustained by, cryptic, ambiguous text messaging.
- People driving SUVs who need to have their licenses suspended.
- The shrinking size of edible product inside those boxes (the ones that you buy from those nice little girls in the uniforms), in relationship to the cost per box. (I am an alumni, so I am trying not to be mean)
- Not following through. Be honest with yourself. If you're not gonna do something, shut your trap and don't say you will.
- People on meds for behavioral and mental concerns, and showing ZERO PROGRESS.
- Passing on the right.
- Mail-order catalogs with random junk (First name Harriet, last name Random Crap...)
- Children and lack of manners. What is up with that?
- Double-parking your car.
- Cheap bastards who skimp on tipping.
- Not communicating. I'm not Kreskin, I can't freaking read your mind.
- 24. The show. Only so many nuclear air strikes can be thwarted in a day's time by one man. With all due respect, thousands of people will be braindead if we don't bring an end to this show, Mr. President.
That's 24 items right there. And without further ado, here's my last and final addition to my list. And it's technically #1.
#1 is The 25 Random Things pandemonium that has been spawned from the loins of Facebook.
And if you can't figure out what the title of the above list is, then you sure as hell better not be tagging me anytime in the near future!
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