Dude, Where's Your Facebook?

I’m a fan of Web 2.0. I say so multiple times a day. I think it empowers the users in unprecedented ways.

I’m also fully cognizant of the fact that the creative class has been enabled like never before. Creatives all over the world know how to get in touch productively with one another, compare and contrast ideas, inspire one another and so forth. The creatives now have the opportunity to exchange ideas and new concepts like never before.

In that regard, I can say unequivocally that I am a genuine believer in the truly democratic power of the egalitarian power of Web 2.0. Unlike Andrew Keen, I don't think that writing is the prerogative of the officially trained person. Anyone who wants to, can. Consequently, the sea of web 2.0 users can decide together yet independently from one another what's good and what isn't. Just look at such uber-popular bloggers out there as Heather B. Armstrong's Dooce, a housewife who operates one of the most successful quotidianity-inspired sites. Oh, and I haven't mentioned Wikipedia yet....

Having expressed that, let me hop on to the topic du jour. Facebook.
You’ve heard of it. You’re perhaps in it. As for me, well:

VENI, VIDI, LEFT.

Here’s a little conversation I had per text message:

-Dude, you’re not on Facebook?!
-Nah, still have the same address though. Come round for some tea, ja?

I believe in the organic way relationships tend to develop and I find settings like myspace or facebook bizarre. For starters, friends, family members, co-workers, acquaintances, performers et al., see one version of you, the only version of you. We live in a world where we have to multi-task and juggle many responsibilities, sometimes contemporaneously, so presenting one’s self only one way is a tad constricting.
Actually, I find the whole setting a haven for affectation.

When it comes to communication, there exists more than one register. There is one appropriate way to communicate with one’s close friends, one way to talk to co-workers, family members, acquaintances, neighbors and so forth.
We reveal where we stand vis-à-vis those around us based on the register we pick.

I can say ‘dude’ around my closed ones, people my age, my music and travel crowd and so forth. However, I can’t employ the term with equal facility while presenting myself professionally. A sporadic ‘dude’ can may grace my rhetoric but it can’t pepper my sentences the way it could at a Muse or Stereophonics concert.

There is space in our relationships that allows for the ubiquitous ‘dude.’ I wouldn’t use lax speech when I’m giving a talk, speaking to people I don’t know, older folk and so forth. Must have something to do with the way I grew up. Or perhaps it’s just plain common sense. Who knows?

I’m sure services like Myspace and Facebook offer great things. Absolutely. I just don’t see the need to have one.

So, readers of mine, in my mind I don’t need to have a Myspace or a Facebook. Let’s see. I have gadgets galore and I know exactly who contacts me and when. Between BlackBerry-ing, texting, emailing, phoning, and oh, before I forget, that elusive face—to-face communication, I know how to reach and be reached.

So, yeah, dude, Facebook no more for me.
graph per facebook