SpaceBook

The man in my life, The Don, or as I like to call him, Costco King, always talks about "SpaceBook". And yes, he is trying to say "Facebook" but in true geezer style, screws it up. But he's not a geezer and he will quickly point out to you that I am older than him (by a freaking year).

You have to admit for someone not using MySpace or Facebook it's an easy flub. He resisted joining the social networking scene, but then a couple of months ago his brother whined on the phone that he needed more people in his mafia and bam, The Don became a Facebook Mafia Wars whore. Sibling rivalry and old fashioned male competitiveness kicked in and now our conversations revolve around hits, loot, and doing jobs. Eavesdroppers would be convinced that we are linked to the St. Louis mafia and I wouldn't be surprised if they are calling the police with tips. We can't have another Gambino family crime wave like in the 80's now can we?

Everyone is talking about the explosion of popularity of Facebook that has happened in the last year. In May 2008 I was pulled into a meeting where I was informed that our non-profit company needs to get on the bandwagon because the next boom will be in social networking. I had absolutely no idea what the hell she was talking about. I had heard of MySpace and Facebook, but Twitter? No clue.

Actually I had, well still do, a MySpace page. I had set it up a couple years ago to see what my kids were getting into. I was appalled by the personal information kids were displaying for all the world to see. It was a child preditor's wet dream and I spent a lot of time preaching to my kids about not revealing too much. Overall I wasn't impressed by MySpace. It was too self-indulgent and everyone had pages with garish wallpaper that hurt my eyes and blaring songs that I really didn't want to hear. Now who's the geezer?

So I figured Facebook was more of the same and I never ventured over. I even avoided it when it was suggested that we should investigate using it for work, you know being the IT goddess and all. I just couldn't wrap my mind around how this would be advantageous as a marketing tool.

And then it happened. Early December 2008 I was hit from two different angles in my personal world at the same time. A group of friends were playing Fashion Wars on Facebook and were addicted to it and my daughter was sick of trying to send me pictures through email. Both insisted I sign up. And that was the end of my productiveness.

Ha! I've never been productive. I am the queen of goofing off. But this Facebook thing sure was attractive. Almost immediately I started connecting with people I had lost touch with years ago. And as I talked about these connections, naysayers would tell me in snide tones that they had kept in touch will all the people they needed and didn't want to resurrect any old bones out of their closets. Well, bully for them! I wasn't quite so fortunate and there had been a few people that I had tried from several angles to contact and was unsuccessful. Not once but several times I have found people from my childhood that I had written off as lost forever.

And no, we don't write to each other daily now that we have reconnected. But it's nice to see the little updates that fill their lives. Congratulations to Jeff on his new engagement and to Heidi on becoming a grandmother. I cannot explain how happy I am to know what happened to these people and so many others after we left school. They remained in my memory and for the ones that didn't attend the same high school or graduate the same year, I would have never known if they were dead or alive. It's interesting to see how everyone has changed and in so many ways have stayed the same.

I've also connected with people that never really registered on my radar back in the day. That too is interesting and surprisingly, some have pictures and memories of ME. That's a little jarring. And then there are all of the friends, if just superficial, that I have added for game purposes. Some of them are regulars on the update channel and have some interesting stuff going on.

Yes, it is a little weird that I have allowed absolute strangers into my world. And this is why I like Facebook over MySpace. I have say over who can and cannot be on my friend list. And I can control how much they see. Most of my photographs are locked down pretty tight as is my personal information. They can see my status updates and that's about it. Well and my ongoing game info.

And yet all of the pundits are astonished at the magnitude of the Facebook explosion. I'm not. For the past eight years I have been on a messageboard. It started out as a discussion group for a specific book. We were predominately women in our 40's and 50's and a smattering of 30's and 20's. We found a safe haven to play, bitch, and comfort. We swapped recipes, talked about other books, recommended movies and shared baby pictures of our kids and grandkids. We have crashed several servers, driven messageboard administrators insane and dealt with our fair share of trolls. We have been social networking for nearly a decade, we just didn't know there was a name for it!

Our messageboard activity has dropped drastically since the invasion of Facebook last winter. The posts trickle in. But over on the Facebook side of things we have our status updates, sharing pictures and soapboxes, and our games. I doubt the messageboard will completely wither away as it is the last refuge for bitching and bellyaching, but most of the playing and sharing is now happening elsewhere. It's a little sad, really.

But then there are things like this coming Saturday. My graduating class is holding a somewhat impromptu 25th reunion. After our 20th we weren't really sure about pulling off another party that size in another five years. It seemed, well, excessive. Yet the Class of 1984 has all managed to make their way to Facebook and now that we are catching up in the virtual world, it would be kind of nice to do it again 3D.

So social networking has paid off. In six short months an entire graduating class has found each other, many becoming friends that had previously avoided each other. This reunion should be really entertaining, as if the last one wasn't?

There is another reunion slowly coming together as well - the kids I knew from elementary school back in Oregon. We had all scattered to the wind. I have tried in vain to find these people and bit by bit we are reconnecting. This is harder as many of us attended different high schools and now live in different states. I am surprised how weak my memory has become as some of the names don't even register. My yearbooks have been dusted off and soon I am going to have to appeal to my mother, who has just recently joined Facebook!!!! AUGH! I need to pilfer through her pictures and miscellaneous stuff that she has saved from my childhood. I wonder when I will finally be allowed to have it in my own possession? Well, I don't remember Ron Holiday. I sort of do, when I say Ronnie Holiday. I think he was a red head, but that was really dusting off some old rolodex cards from the back corners of my memory!

Just the same, I'm glad to finally be making these connections. I should send a thank you note to my daughter and that messageboard friend from Los Angeles.

I am a SpaceBook convert.