March 3, 2009

Facebook II: Attack of the Online Geezers

Last week I wrote about my newfound fondness for the popular social networking site Facebook. This is an online resource originally designed for college students, a place where a young scholar could go to post photographs of her best friend, passed out in a bathtub with a picture of a penis drawn in lipstick on her forehead.

Unfortunately, those halcyon days of artistic expression may now be threatened by an insidious group of Net denizens who are gradually infiltrating every corner of Facebook. I am, of course, referring to myself and all my friends.

Yes, an online playground once defined by images of bikini-clad undergrad girls sipping Piña Coladas in the pool in Cancun with Tecate-drunk undergrad guys looking like they can’t quite believe their luck, Facebook is now home to book clubs, 40-year high school reunion committees, and hemorrhoid awareness groups.

How did this happen?

I have discovered that you can pretty much trace the whole thing back to Chelsea Goldfarber, an Oklahoma University freshman from McCook, Nebraska who got homesick and invited her mom, Gloria, to join Facebook – just so they could keep “in touch.”

Gloria, who is a past president of the McCook Junior High School PTO and a born organizer, immediately called everyone in her phone directory who owned a computer and talked them into joining up. She quickly built up a network of middle-aged women all over McCook and the surrounding area (you know; Perry, Red Willow, Indianola, Culbertson . . .) posting albums of their Shih Tzu’s and forming Johnny Depp fan groups.

The word was out. Before long, a tsunami of older users from all around the world had swept through Facebook. Now all those undergrads in bikinis have been joined by grandchildren making pancakes.

So where is the down side of all this? Clearly we Baby Boomers bring with us a rich tapestry of insights derived from our years of life experience. I mean, we can remember gas for 30 cents a gallon, Richard Nixon, and Annette and Doreen going through puberty before our astonished eyes on the Mickey Mouse Club!

The problem is that anything you post for your friends can be seen by all your friends. And kids, the first thing a doting parent is going to want to do when they join Facebook is become your friend. Good luck turning down that particular Friend Request.

This means that every time someone flags a picture of you drinking Jager Bombs from an aircraft refueling funnel, your parents will see it. I’m just guessing that, unless your parents are the kind who bought you a monogrammed beer bong for your birthday, this might not be a good thing.

I’m not sure what the solution is here. Personally, I like using Facebook to catch up with friends I’ve not seen since Nixon was in the White House, and I won’t be giving it up any time soon. And on the other side, the young Facebookers seem to be pretty well dug in too.

My nephew told me his plan was that if any of us geezers get too “opinionated or uppity,” he could just post scanned Polaroids of us in our lime green polyester leisure suits and platform shoes. I had to break it to him that his idea would not work, since we all think we looked pretty hot back then.

Maybe Facebook could provide users with an age-sensitive automatic Fogey Flag. This would allow younger users to set up and automatically direct any of us Fogies to a “parent-safe” version of their Facebook, containing nothing but shots of them studying the dioramas at the Natural History Museum.

Oh well, time will tell how it will all work out. In the meantime I’m going to wrap this up and hop back over to Facebook, just in case anyone’s grandkids have worked their way up to waffles.

Copyright ©2009 Michael Ball. Distributed exclusively by North Star Writers Group.

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