Because I believe oversharing is the key
I recently came across a Time.com article dissing the recent Facebook 25 Things meme in which people post a note with, you guessed it, 25 random things about themselves.
“But it’s just so stupid,” whines the article’s author, Claire Suddath (I can’t help but wonder if this is the same whiny Claire Suddath who wrote for the Nashville Scene years ago).
What’s stupid, actually, is joining a giant social network like Facebook and then bitching about learning random, pointless pieces of data about your “friends.”
I wonder if Claire holds her real-life friends to the same “Only speak to me when you have something that I am sure to deem interesting” standards.
Personally, I love oversharing. I have a blog, obviously. And a Twitter account. And a Facebook account. And there’s not much I won’t tell you about myself if you just ask. Granted there are personal pieces of information I don’t just offer up online (the interwebs are full of weirdos, after all), but when it comes to the random, weird or mundane, I’m an open book.
This short post by the astute Brittney Gilbert hits the nail on the head.
Though the rewards might be few and far between, there is something to be said for sharing bits and pieces of yourself with the world. And getting glimpses into others’ lives—glimpses that you would never, ever be privy to if you were limited to phone or in-person conversations because there are always certain things that individuals will reveal about themselves only in writing. And if you bother to read between the lines of the mundane, random or weird, you’ll see that even at our most boring we all have shades of intrigue.
It’s a shame Claire Suddath is missing out on that.
I think bogarting her friends’ 25 Thingses so she could write a piece for Time.com is kinda shitty, but that’s just me.
Related: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/02/07/25_random/
She even wraps it up with a dig at Twitter. As Jim Reams said, on Twitter no less: “Remember when everyone thought cell phones were for narcissistic, self-absorbed assholes.” Yeah. It always befuddles me when someone maligns a tool as “lame.” Twitter is easy to dismiss, if you want to. Easy being the operative word.
As for the Facebook meme, it is not a favorite of mine. But it is easy to ignore, like most things on the user=driven web. To compose a Time article about how lame it is to be forced to read something you can easily skip is humorous to me. Add Megan’s point about how FACEBOOK IS FOR SHARING, and it’s simple to see that this essay was an breezy one-off for Suddath. Hell, she cribbed 80% of it from the meme she claims to loathe.
Thanks for that Salon link, Lindsey. I look forward to reading it.
That’s a great link, Lindsey. I think if you read the two articles side by side, you’ll get some interesting perspective. That is, there’s clearly a difference in what his friends are writing versus what Claire’s friends are writing. To me, that means she clearly has reason to be annoyed. Because her friends list aren’t funny or insightful.
I’m really glad none of my 50 facts ended up on her list.
And I’m amused that of the three of you, only Lindsey has actually done a 25 things list.
The meme is two years too late and 3/4ths too short:
http://www.brittneygilbert.com/2006/09/19/100-things-about-me/
Lesley, I did the meme a few weeks ago. You can find it here if you want to read it.
I disagree that none of Claire’s friends had interesting things to say.
“I was born with an extra kidney. I wish I could have sold it on the black market and made some money, but it was underdeveloped and did nothing but cause me to wet the bed until the third grade.” – Creepy medical mystery!
Also, I laughed out loud at “Sometimes I think pee smells like Cheerios.”
Also, Brittney: Good point about the 100 Things meme. I’ve been trying to complete mine forever (right now I’m up to 58).
Megan–I looked for yours and couldn’t find it. D’oh! And I forgot about that 100 things um, thing. Good point.
I think you guys don’t have enough uninteresting people from high school on your facebook friends lists. Maybe I should compile my list of worsts…and post it on LiveJournal (friends-only, of course because I don’t want anyone to know how bitchy I am).
[...] just run with the idea So today I was thinking some more about the whole “I don’t want to read 25 things about my friends because my friends are all boring assho… reaction that Claire Suddath (and some other people) had to the Facebook [...]
Let’s just run with the idea « The Ride Home said this on February 12, 2009 at 8:26 pm
OK I’m a little late, but I saw that article and very nearly wrote up the exact same post you’ve written here!