Well after about 9 months of mostly stealth participation in Facebook, I was outed - found out - exposed. The jig was up. There could be no more making fun of my local facebook evangelists.
At least, not without admitting that I had become one of them - no not an evangelist but a user nonetheless. I use the term Facebook evangelists because that is in essence what they are. They are quite similar to the Mormon's or Jehova's witnesses that we often encounter who seem hell bent on trying to get you to sign up to their club. I believe both the Mormon's and Jehova's witnesses at least have a good excuse - they are somewhat mandated by their respective religions to "save" us by joining them. These Facebook evangelists have no such excuse! They have no such mandate that I know of but seem to relish chastising people for not being on Facebook as if you are missing out on something so truly wonderful that your life simply can't do without it. Just imagine all the poor souls that came before us - they must have lead such empty lives before the creation of Facebook. Am I to assume as well that these evangelists believe their lives poorer for not having you on Facebook with them? To these people I would often reply with the oft attributed quote (of Grouch Marx) - " I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER". This of course might have received a chuckle and put them off for a moment, but they would soon return to their recruitment drive. WHY aren't you on Facebook? Why should I be? is that the default position? Trust me I had a million excuses for NOT creating an account but the main my main objection is one that I still believe to be quite true - Facebook is a CLASSIC time waster. Personally, I already have a multitude of non productive ways to waste time including writing a blog that no one will ever read :P
So why then did I join Facebook? The truth is, I'm not really sure. Part of my motivation was so I could chastise my Facebook addicted friends after I realized just how useless Facebook really was or at least how underwhelming it is. Another reason - how could I properly continue to criticize something that I had never tried? and probably the most practical reason for joining - I had run out of room on my Picasa/Google accounts and the promise of unlimited photo storage seemed kind of enticing. So one day on a whim, while I had a friend visiting me from Portugal, I decided to create an account. I also decided that it would be a far more interesting experience if I did a little experiment when I joined. Hence the reason for this blog. I'll reveal the details of this experiment in my next post but let's just say that I should have done this blog in parallel with creating an account. I will do my best to catch myself up and hopefully not lose much of the general idea in the process. Till my next post...
