Trying to grok
microblogging and
social networking just makes me feel old.
I feel the need to make the effort, though—in no small part because it
does make me feel old. I look on in baffled incomprehension at a vast swath of online life, wholly Out Of the Loop, and I realize that I'm nearly as disconnected from the Bleeding Edge of the One-And-Twenty as someone with no Internet access at all.
The Unkind Curmudgeon, the part of me that tries to reduce the world into a series of Pithy Epigrams, keeps coming back to "these are ways for people to TALK when they don't have anything to SAY."
Of course, Pithy Epigrams are exactly what microblogging services like Twitter are all
about; the Unkind Curmudgeon would thrive there.
I'm not sure I
want the Unkind Curmudgeon to thrive.
Nevertheless, I can see the utility and appeal of the Twitters and Qaikus and Status.nets of the online world. Sometimes, you just want to say something quickly and efficiently, without wrapping a well-thought-out blog entry (or stream of consciousness blather) around it. The first sentence of this entry would have been an ideal Tweet, but here, on LJ, I feel I have to elaborate.
1I also appreciate the idea of an ongoing, persistent conversation that's faster than a newsgroup but slower than IRCs or MUCKs. IM conversations have that quality on a one-to-one level: you can say something to someone, and they can respond at their leisure.
2It's the Facebooks and MySpaces that I don't get. I'm
on LinkedIn, the most professionally-oriented of the social network services, and I don't get it. There's no
content on LinkedIn. Nothing
happens. It's
static. Even if you recognize former co-workers floating around on the service, it's just "hey, I know you [LINK]". It's another place to post my resume to get ignored.
3As I understand it, Facebook and the more "social" social nets have Other Stuff: microblog-style "Status Updates";
tedious mind-numbing timesinks "games" like Farmville; the exchange of
pointless tchotchkes virtual tokens like the llamas of DeviantArt and the weird little icons that LiveJournal has tacked on in imitation.
I still don't quite grasp what you
do on these networks, though. I don't grok how you
interact with them. LiveJournal has the eminently-useful (if unfortunately-named) "Friends" list, which is an entirely useful means of monitoring those individuals who provide interesting content; I peruse mine regularly, and it irks me that there's not an equally-elegant way of following the Blogspot blogs I read.
I'm clueless about the SpaceBooks and MyFaces, though. honestly, I don't even know what such sites
look like, since most of them are, in my experience, inaccessible to those who don't already have an account.
Given the
well-publicized privacy issues and the
impossibility of deleting accounts, I am extremely leery of registering just to see if I
want to register.
Some contracts, you just don't want to sign.
4Why, you might ask, am I concerned about this at all?
It's not just because "all my friends are doing it."
Any number of recent articles in the blogosphere suggest that my mortal alter-ego's nigh-complete absence from the virtual sphere has had a negative impact on my career aspirations.
[citation needed] A Google search on my mundane name yields my 2003 capstone thesis, a few sparse credits in a handful of published RPGs, and a lengthy discourse in an etymology blog about the plural of "octopus".
It's bad enough that my professional experience is so sparse, but, as far as any potential employer can determine,
I have no personal interests whatsoever.
Nevertheless, I'm hesitant to establish overt connections between my Mundane Alter-Ego, the Earnest Environmental Scientist and Cartographer, and Your Obedient Serpent, who may be an Eloquent Commentator of Comics and Popular Culture, but also has some ...
eccentric ... search results attached to his most-used
nom de guerre.
1 Endlessly.
2 I do miss ICQ, which would let you drop someone a note even if they weren't online at the time; I described that more than once as "leaving a Post-It on their monitor".
3 But I'm not bitter!
4 I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe; by the Which I meane, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shall not wish to Answer, and shall commande more than you. —H.P. Lovecraft, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward".
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