I Just Don't Get Facebook

Posted by Jenny Jerkface

I joined Facebook a few months ago, mainly because a few friends were haranguing me to and I heard that Scramble was a fun game. So, I made my own little page and threw some pictures up there for all to see and figured that I'd just hang out in Facebook world and play some Scramble.

Holy shit was I wrong.

First of all, I simply do not understand Facebook -- what the hell is up with all those applications? Call me a bum humbug but I don't understand the point of throwing snowballs at my 'friends' or being a vampire or whatever the hell else is out there. I currently have nine 'requests' pending, from my Lil' Green Patch to a Lil' Bit O' Jersey. I guess I'm just a half-hearted Facebook user. And a bitch.

MySpace was easy. You set up your page, pimped it out and waited for all the spam emails to come in. Facebook requires you to actually be involved. I don't like being involved.

And it tattles on you, too. Every little thing I do is announced on my wall. Pariahjane changed her work information. Pariahjane beat her personal score at Scramble. Pariahjane was in the bathroom for twenty minutes... well, you get the idea. I'm not a private person (obviously) but I don't know why EVERYONE has to know that I wrote on someone's wall.

I know, I know -- I'm being my typical cranky self. I mean, if I'm so disgruntled with the whole system, why don't I just delete my account, right?

One word - Scramble.

Scramble is a nifty little game where you have to match up tiles to make up words. Each round is three minutes, which happens to be how long my useless computer program at work takes to chug through it's processes. Instead of impatiently seething, I play Scramble instead. It rocks. It is the ultimate time-wasting game; I can whittle away the working hours, three minutes at a time.

There is one other reason why I'm still an active Facebook user. It's called the Past. As in High School. I'm shocked how many people have asked to be my 'friend' on Facebook from high school. I don't even remember some of them and I'm pretty sure I was enemies with others. When the requests starting coming in I was absolutely baffled. Why on earth would someone I barely knew thirteen years ago suddenly be interested in me?

Oh wait, how silly of me. They aren't interested in me. They want me to be interested in them. These folks from the way-back-when could give a shit about my life but they do want me to see theirs. They want me to coo over pictures of their kids, congratulate them on their new house, marriage, career, etc. I find it kind of interesting -- I have to admit I check out people to see who they've aged. I think it's kind of weird, too. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to care about people who, for all intents and purposes, are total strangers to me.

I understand why Facebook is so popular, though. It's geared towards people who were weaned on the World Wide Web. But enough about Facebook... I'm off to play some Scramble.