“I am officially flip-flopping.” – Mayor Joseph “Diamond Joe” Quimby, Springfield, U.S.A.
Before you judge me…
I gratefully consider myself lucky to still have a writing gig in this volatile climate, finding a new home in The Midweek Reporter. Meanwhile, Time magazine has seen fit to run a cover story on how Twitter has irreversibly changed the way people send and receive information.
I’m not quite ready to look at “old media” as a sinking ship, but I’m thinking it might be a good idea to have a foot in the lifeboat. And as we all know, $#!+ floats, so…
I signed up for Facebook.
A scant five months after railing against the very concept of a social networking website, I felt it was in my professional best interest to pimp myself out on the website that I referred to in my January column as a “Social Jurassic Park,” full of extinct relationships where “any attempt to resurrect them could have some unwholesome consequences.”
Well, I’ll admit it – I was wrong. As I timidly stuck my toe in the waters, I was embraced right away by scores of friends, many of whom joined Facebook with the same trepidation I expressed. And in stark contrast to the outwardly churlish persona I’ve cultivated over the years since I’d spoken with them, I was pleased to be welcomed into the fold. Like some digital Dorothy dazzled by Oz, I was completely overwhelmed by the people on there. “And you were there, and you and you…”
Sure there are a few weirdos, but since I’m blatant using Facebook to link to this very column, I’m not going to name names here. Like any recreational distraction, you can see how Facebook would become addictive – there are a few addicts who narcissistically narrate their every move and mood swing. Compounding my apprehension, I had an uneasy assumption that people would pick up where we left off by trying to emulate the good ol’ days, resurrect whatever petty beef that may had driven the initial wedge between us, or start griping like a Catholic mother over the fact that I hadn’t kept in touch. But it was naïve to think others haven’t moved on with their lives. Most people simply use Facebook as a medium to catch up from time to time and show off pictures of their kids. Plus I blew my wife out of the water on the friend-count, which is really what this is all about.
Now this Twitter thing I’ve signed up for still has me baffled. It’s basically a sounding board for all your one-liners, without the pain of standing on stage under a spotlight as no one laughs. But I’m enjoying it, and I’ve even had some of my tweets re-tweeted, which is seemingly the ultimate compliment.
So I invite you to follow me on Facebook or hit me up at http://twitter.com/HALLERON, where I will share, amongst other things, links to my column at www.hudsonreporter.com. (To be more specific, it’s at http://www.hudsonreporter.com/pages/columns.) Yes, I acknowledge that I’m an unrepentant whore and I have a backbone of Jell-O, but even I have to evolve and adapt. Frankly, I’ve waffled on a lot of issues in my day – cell phones, babies, and now this whole Facebook thing. To once again borrow a line from my favorite Simpsons character, “If that is the way the wind is blowing, let no one say that I do not also blow.”
Christopher M. Halleron, freelance writer/bitter bartender, writes a biweekly humor column for The Midweek Reporter. He spends a lot of his time either in front of or behind the bar in Hoboken, N.J., where his tolerance for liquor grows stronger as his tolerance for society is eroded on a daily basis. Feel free to drop him a line at c_halleron@yahoo.com.