25 Random Things...

...You Probably Won't Know About Me

For someone of my provenance, I was an early adopter of Facebook, joining about three years ago this month.

In the past year, however, Facebook has exploded in several waves. My first wave involved mostly gay male friends and acquaintances of mine who were generally familiar with social networks via, mainly, Friendster (which I joined in, like, 2002). The second wave involved lots of co-workers and college friends (mostly of the long-lost variety). This wave required a radical revamping of my profile to make it more blandly acceptable to what I imagine are the mores and expectations of middle-aged straight people. The next wave were truly long-lost friends like people I went to grade school with. The most recent wave has included siblings, cousins, and even my mother.

On my birthday this past November I was assaulted with dozens of birthday wishes posted on my wall and, therefore, texted to my mobile phone. This was dramatically different from my previous two "Facebook birthdays" and was my first clue about a new Facebook norm I was unaware of.

Now I am nursing an enormous resentment against this 25 things mania, which I hoping will just pass. Instead it seems to be building.

In the meantime I moved on to Twitter many months ago, and rarely check my facebook profile anyway. However, my Tweets automatically post to Facebook. Since I frequently tweet, there's an illusion that I spend a lot of time on Facebook, at least among people who aren't familiar with Twitter.

In any event, I sense a Facebook backlash amongst people who were early adopters and there's some possibility Facebook will go the way of, well, Friendster.

Stay tuned.