Monday, March 02, 2009

The Bonds of Facebook Friendship

Here's my Facebook profile.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=749847463&ref=profile

I do not Facebook Friend people lightly. Even though we may be friends of friends or might know each other from blogs or discussion boards or maybe we went to elementary school together and haven't talked for twenty years, we are Facebook friends now and with that, there is a certain level of respect and decorum I will try to keep.

Here is what I will do for you, Facebook friend.

1) I will remember your birthday and write something on your wall on or around the date.

2) I will occasionally comment on your status and/or notes for the sole purpose of making you laugh. The risk is, of course, the joke falling flat, offending you, and destroying our friendship forever. Sorry, that is what happens when you live on the edge like I do.

3) I will try to make my statuses fun and interesting. Nine times out of ten, this means using song lyrics in them.

4) I will NOT tag you on any note. I may post notes, but in NO WAY will I force you to read them or ask you to write a note in response.

5) If you tag me in a note, I reserve the right to respond to it or to ignore it. I am very fickle about these things.

6) If I have a potentially embarrassing photo of you and you name is NOT Will Turnage, I will ask permission before uploading it and tagging you.

7) I will not knowingly share any of your Facebook information with any third parties.

8) I will probably not use offensive language because I'm also Facebook friends with my wife and my parents. This also means I will probably delete offensive language off my wall if you choose to post it.

9) I will not knowingly end our friendship unless there is a good reason.

10) I will probably not loan you money, so don't ask.

14 comments:

Pamela said...

have you ever accidentally deleted a friend? didn't know that was possible. ;-)

in the twitter thing, what does it mean when it has the @ sign?

Pamela said...

OH, ps, I don't add lightly either. Or rather, I may add lightly, but I delete. I've actually deleted a few people that asked me to be their friend and I had to ask an old friend who the heck this person was... I don't want to be part of someone's big friend #. I don't know how the hell mine got as high as it is.

M. Robert Turnage said...

The @ sign means you are directing message at another person on Twitter. @gamookie means you are sending a public message to gamookie. There is a way to send private messages as well.

RT @namename means you are retweeting something from someone else and giving them credit.

#wordword means you are tagging your twitter with a particular term. They have search programs that let you search Twitter for all messages with a designated term. For example, if a news organization wanted to find all of the eyewitness accounts of a tornado in Dallas, they might search for #tornadoDallas.

And your number got as high as it is because you are popular and everyone loves you.

Churlita said...

I just had a friend get all up in arms because I untagged myself from a photo he posted on his page. I told him I reserve the right to untag myself from any photo I deem offensive whether because I'm flipping someone the bird or because it's unflattering and he's welcome to do the same. I think it's weird the things people get upset about.

M. Robert Turnage said...

Strange.

My brother untags himself from childhood photos all the time because he's afraid it might undermine his authority in the workplace. The closest I have come to being offended about it is making jokes at family gatherings. "Oh, don't post this pic to Facebook, because Williepie will just untag himself."

It is completely fine to untag yourself. Although, I have to admit, that one picture of you throwing up was awesome.

Pamela said...

I didn't realize I could untag. I begged someone from my trip to J-tree to untag a photo of me making a face. He did in the end. Oh well, I know now for the future.

Adn MRT, you know my eyes crossed with all that explanation. I asked for it, of course. Crossed not from orgasm by the way, but from, oh just can't take the time to understand it all.

Pamela said...

What time zone are you in now? i'm not 3 hours ahead of you.

M. Robert Turnage said...

I changed the time setting. It was set to Pacific, and I am in Central. Must have happened to one of my trips to Seattle.

The only way I can make the Twitter information easier is to get you to join Twitter so you can get hands on experience. Sorry about the crossed eyes. Your joke reminded me of Kitty on Arrested Development.

Pamela said...

If I were cool and/or had cable, I would know that character.

Susan said...

If you were on twitter today you got to see a lot of @s going back and forth between gamookie and daisyrandom.

My facebook is my more, eh, serious profile place? I've got some business associates on there so I'm sure a friend of mine that posted cartoons saying I'm certain characters on them is going to get offended when i untag myself. I'm sure I'll be referred to as "the prude" from now on. There goes my "the Party Girl" label.

M. Robert Turnage said...

Pamela, you can rent Arrested Development. Kitty is a character who humorously mixes crossed eyes and sex.

Susan, you will always be a party girl to me. Even if you join the Prudepublican Party, or become a Pruderal Prudocrat, I will still think of you as a party girl.

Susan said...

Aw, shucks man.

Pamela said...

can you twitter without a handheld device that lets you do it?

M. Robert Turnage said...

You can twitter from a computer or from a phone that can text message. You would just text message your updates to Twitter.