The Amish Have It Right

So I am trying to be a little more active on Facebook, and Twitter, but I find it all too horrible. But then I look at my blog and see that nothing has been posted since April, so this must also be a bane, as no one here posts anything. So I am going to post once a week, every Friday, just to see what happens. But I digress, let’s get to the real reason behind this post: Twitter, Facebook and Conan O’Brien.

First Facebook. I look at the feeds from everyone and think what a complete waste of time. Facebook really is a time thief. There are all of these cool little quizzes one can take and have all of the results displayed proudly. But let’s face it, these quizzes are a bunch of bunk. Sure they may be fun, but are we really to believe in 10 short questions a Facebook app can tell me “how stressed I am”?! I can tell you that right now without taking some damn quiz. I am stressed man, don’t add to it by giving me 10 questions that just raise my stress level to tell me I am already dead.

Or how about this one, “which secret society would I belong to”. Yes, because answering questions like “When it comes to God” and then lists several answers that make no sense, like “My father is God” will really help nail down which secret society I ought to join. I know these are all in good fun, but come on, let’s be real about this for one second. Do these quizzes do anything but waste time? But that is not the half of it, wait until you see the other quizzes they have for you . . .

“What US State do you belong in”, “Which Spice Girl are you” (I would say I am Irritated Spice), “Which Disney girl are you”, “If you were a Stripper, What whould (sic) your stage name be?”, “Which Female Grease Character Are You?”, “What Twilight boy is best for you?”, and we can not forget this gem of a quiz: “What type of vagina are you?”

Yes loyal readers (I believe there is now what, 2 of you out there), this is what Facebook has become. Since MySpace imploded on itself, there was a new void that needed to be filled, and Facebook is stepping up to the challenge of being the next social app that creates a complete waste of time. Because let’s face it, all you need is 10 questions to really find out if you trully know me right? besides, I hear all those dating sites like Match.com are really just extensions of these Facebook quizzes. Because all they really need is 10 questions to figure out who did what in the what now. Right?

And then there is Twitter. Another wonderful invention, a social application that can now announce to the world to “come see the goldfish in the toilet”. Twitter is actually a good thing, when taken in moderation and used for the right purpose. But there are people out there, regular people, who have thousands, tens of thousands of people who “follow” them, and they are following tens of thousands of people as well. I can see certain people/companies doing this to help spread the word, advertise, etc. But how the heck can you really follow tens of thousands of voices in your head? Heck, I have problems following the three voices in my head. On my Twitter account, I have a few people I am following, and a few people follow me. Not much, but even then that gets a little too much.

A couple of the people who I follow seem to have a problem that is one of those “either or” problems. Either they have no actual friends, or they are part of the system designed to make me go insane quicker than originally planned. Listen, I do not care when you wake up, I do not care if you are going to the breakfast table to eat, or that you are playing the Wii, or are bored. A “tweet” every 3 minutes is really not necessary because I do not care. Tweet every hour if you must, but at least put one of those surgeon general warning labels on it, like “Surgeon General’s warning: reading this may cause your head to explode”.

Twitter is a very simple concept to understand. Imagine this: Twitter is like grabbing “X” number of people, putting them in the same room as you, and then talking, all at once, incoherently and without any kind of direction. There will be some people who rarely talk, some who comment on other’s comments, some people who will add things like jokes or info, and then there are some people who just will not shut up. And some people are ok with multiplying this by thousands. And they thought I was the masochist.

Maybe this is the hermit talking, but Facebook and Twitter are useful, when used in moderation and for its purpose. Sort of like Twinkies. Twinkies are good, for a snack. But when you start to use Twinkies for dinner, lunch and breakfast, and then snacks, and to brush your teeth, thirst quencher, etc, you may need Jerry Springer to show up with a construction crew to remove the wall to your house, just so you can get out.

But now we get to Conan O’Brien. The other night a joke was made that YouTube, Twitter and Facebook would combine into a mega app called “YouTwitFace”. Brilliant, just brilliant. And never fear, the American spirit of get rich quick, put in as little effort as possible is still alive. As of 4:30 am the morning after that joke, all web site domains (.com, .net, .org, .edu, etc) for “youtwitface” had been registered that night/morning.

For next week’s posting, the topic will be: cheese, just how many slices of cheese can you eat before you do go blind.