Pretty Sure I'm a Lurker

Like many of us I am a fan of the old Facebook. I like how it allows us to easily keep up to date on what our friends and family members are up to. Especially those who live far away which without Facebook we may never talk to or hear from again. Like a kidnap victim, whose kidnappers are asking for way too much money.

With Facebook I can feel like the kidnapee is still part of my life. Assuming the kidnappers allow them access to Facebook. But if they don’t have access don’t worry, I’m pretty sure I’’ll do just fine without getting their constant silly updates about what the kidnappers fed them for dinner and such. Especially when you take into account all the money I’ll be saving by not paying the kidnappers. With all those savings I could finally afford to do things like pay off my student loans or hire several private investigators to do background checks on myself. You know, in case there’s something I don’t know.

Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, Facebook. When I first jumped onto the Facebook train I was pretty good at consistently posting something about myself. Maybe even the occasional picture or two. But as the years have gone by I’ve noticed that while I still spend as much time as ever looking at other people’s statuses and pictures, I hardly ever update my own status or really post much of anything at all. I’ve become a lurker.

I’ve started to feel guilty that for all my Facebook friends, our lines of communications has become one way. Should I feel bad about this or is it OK to be a lurker?

Pat:  I really think you should reconsider the use of the term “lurker” in describing yourself. I almost didn’t open this post because I thought maybe you felt comfortable enough with me and our blaudience to share some secret detail about yourself that I, and likely our readers, really didn’t want to know about (and you can’t UN-learn somethings, buddy!).

That’s just a really creepy term...the kind they reserve for playground peepers and such. Really....please reconsider.

Christian:  OK, how about a voyeur? Is that better?

Pat:  How about “innocent watcher of other peoples’ lives”? That sounds a lot less creepy, yeah?

Hey, I kinda’ feel like all bets are off when you agree to be a member of the Facebook legion. We’re either extroverts who want the world to know about us, or introverts who simply want to know about the world, or some combination of the two. And all of them are okay. Well, actually, being a bit of an extrovert myself, the former is a bit more okay than the latter, but still...

Wanna’ know something funny? I just found out that for the last three weeks all of my posts have been going to only one of my “friends” because I forgot to change a little filter detail. After I suddenly realized why no one had been responding to my posts--whew! I thought everyone had just stopped being interested in me!--it occurred to me why I haven’t heard from that particular “friend”. I suppose that seemed a bit like lurker overkill, yeah?

Christian: That is hilarious. Ha ha! Although I don’t know why. I’ll just trust you since you say it’s funny.

An IWOOPL huh? I guess that is better than lurker.

So should I feel guilty about being an IWOOPL? When I go IWOOPLing around on Facebook and see old friends and lost relatives post their latest news I’m thankful that they are still somewhat in my life. But it then always occurs to me that while they seem to be somewhat in my life I’m not really in theirs because of my IWOOPLing. Is this fair?

Pat: Totally fair...keep on IWOOPLing! I actually like the idea that there are more people reading about me in secret than there are people reading about me...in public? Not sure what I meant there.

I think what I’m trying to say is that part of the allure of Facebook, as I’m sure Zuckerberg well knows, is that you can IWOOPL people you knew, know or will know and kind of imagine what their life is like without having to COMMIT to actually caring about them. Not sure if that’s what I meant either.

You know what really kind of freaks me out? There are some people from WAY back in my life who’ve connected with me on the ‘Book, and it’s not like I thought they were dead, but I kinda’ thought that since I stopped regularly thinking of them many years ago...they kinda’ stopped existing. Like they were partially dead.

 

Thanks, guys. It’s hard being one of Pat’s Facebook friends.

It’s weird when you realize that all of those people from your past are actually still living! And that they have gone on and had lives of their own! Lives that you can read all about as an IWOOPLer on Facebook!

Christian: Which I do. But I still feel guilty from the one-way communications on my part. So I decided I needed to come up with a solution to this problem. Instead of posting stuff myself, I thought what I needed to do was just comment on everyone else’s status updates so that they know I’m not partially dead. But that would take a lot of time.

Therefore my first strategy was to “like” everyone's posts. This way they would see that I’m still around and I’m somewhat communicating with them but I wouldn’t have to actually read all of their posts. Perfect!

So I tried it.

It worked great for the most part, but not so much on status updates by people posting things like they broke their leg or their mother just died. Or for people leaving a suicide note as a status update.

FB FRIEND: “This world is too cruel for me so I have decided to end it all. So long forever.”
ME: Like!

I needed a different strategy. One that was easy and still allowed me to not have to read everyone’s posts. I needed a “stock” comment that I could just copy and paste into everyone’s status updates, that would apply to any kind of update, positive or negative.

So I came up with this:

“Interesting.”

It’s perfect! It works for everything whether it be positive or negative. Let’s try it out:

FB FRIEND: “I got the new job!!! I gave my notice and start next week!”
ME: Interesting.

FB FRIEND: “Just found out the wife is pregnant! I’m so excited!!!”
ME: Interesting.

FB FRIEND: “Found out the baby’s not mine. Time for a divorce.”
ME: Interesting.

FB FRIEND: “This world is too cruel for me so I have decided to end it all. So long forever.”
ME: Interesting.

Swish!

I really nailed it. I think this just might solve everything.

And for all you other IWOOPLers, and non-IWOOPLers, out there, if you are wanting to do some IWOOPLing of PCPPP feel free, or even obligated if you will, to like our Facebook page. It can be found here and here, and under here. We like likes! Thanks!