Conditional Axe Vs. Facebook

So, I’m giving a presentation to our in-house marketing team yesterday, and it’s all about social media.

Presentations have always kind of been my bane. Once, during a lecture, I just kind of lost control of myself and ended up writing things like lexeme and “Jo Nah can only use one power at a time” and a stick figure Wolverine. I have no idea why I did any of those things in retrospect, but they happened. It scared me a bit. And looking out into the blank faces of my students, I could tell whatever just happened had scared them a bit, too.

But I digress. And I’m about to digress even further, but in a different direction.

I’ve never seen the real utility of MySpace and Facebook on a personal level. I know what they do, and I know that millions and millions of people use it, but I’ve never deemed it “for me.” And it’s not like I’m some kind of Luddite. I grasp technology like a hungry baby – but not that hungry, because I’m selective about it. I don’t grok the value that it adds to my daily life beyond ego-driven self-promotion, and my quota of that is pretty well full already.

Anyway, the upshot is this: during this meeting, it came out that I’m apparently the only person in the entire world that doesn’t have a Facebook account. So, I’m going to make one – and liveblog the process.

I’m quite delighted to discover that I don’t need to submit a jar of blood or sacrifice two doves or sell my soul in order to sign up, although I do need to decipher some obnoxious captcha text, which is the same thing, when you really think about it.

Upon logging in for the first time, I find that I already have a friend request waiting. From a real person that I know. How fucking weird is that? I think that’s pretty weird.

Moving past that initial shock, it looks like, yes, everybody I have ever sent an email to or received an email from is using this stupid site. Everybody except three people, one of whom is my mother. After picking the people I actually talk to regularly and weeding out the masses of videogame and comic book PR reps, I now get to decide whether or not I want to spam the three people in my address book who aren’t using Facebook (one of whom is my mother) and invite them to join in its wonderment. I pass.

Now Facebook wants to know where I went to school and where I work. It’s kind of exciting, actually, like Facebook and I are on a date. I wonder what movie we should go see? I wonder when we’ll start making out?

Next, I get a list of people who went to my alma mater, and while I know some of them, I feel a little awkward adding them as friends when I haven’t spoken to them in 8 years. And also friends of the friends I just picked. I find this stage creepy (again, just like a date).

This then takes me to my Facebook homepage, where I immediately discover that I have been bitten by a zombie. This is basically what I was afraid of. Zombies.

Because I’m having an awesome Facebook party right now, I choose a picture of myself in a festive party hat. No, Internet faithful, I don’t just wear sombreros.

I intuit that I have to edit my profile in order to appear like I give a damn, and it takes me an unconscionably long time to figure out where I need to click to do this, despite the word EDIT in plain view. That’s one strike against you, Facebook, and has nothing to do with my own idiocy.

I fill out my religious and political beliefs accurately:

And…now Facebook wants my address. And my phone number. And my IM screenname, and my bank password and my grandmother’s maiden name. Can I skip this part?

I’m tempted to leave my relationship status as “It’s Complicated” or “Single” just to mess with people. I don’t.

My favorite books? I take back my assessment that this is like a date. I’ve never dated a girl that’s cared that much about my interests. I think I like you, Facebook.

For the curious, this is what I have to say About Me:

There is very little appealing about me. I am a writer, which means I drink a lot. I wear several career hats, but one of them is marketer, which means I hate myself, which means I drink more. I read for pleasure, a bizarre practice only undertaken by the mad and socially ill. I like to cook, which means I like to eat, which is also socially unacceptable these days. I blog, which means I am self-absorbed on an incomprehensible level. Come along and be my awesome Internet friend.

Now everybody will want to be friends with me.

And…I don’t know what I do now. I mean, I have a wall. I could maybe write something offensive on it. Maybe I could become a zombie. Or a vampire. That might be cool.