One area where this comes into play is with the fads, trends, and popular culture of the times in which you live. No one wants to be that fuddy-duddy who thinks their iTunes account is tied to their phone bill, or records their "stories" on their VCR, or uses the term "The Facebooks", or still watches Standard-Definition TV, or utters phrases like "Gettin' jiggy wit' it". However, like it or not, we are all marked with our relative expiration dates. No, I'm not talking about our true dates of expiration, but the date when we simply become culturally obsolete.
I believe this is colloquially known as being "old"...
Other than obtaining a working knowledge of as many tasks as possible, my main goal in life is to delay my inevitable obsolescence as long as I can. I pride myself on being somewhat current. I keep an ear to the streets, doing my best to stay hip to the latest trends, news, and happenings. You won't see me out wearing sagging jeans or a snap-back cap, nor will you catch me watching any of the millions of iterations of Real Housewives of _____, but I believe I am fairly aware of what's "in" among the generation I'm beginning to fall behind of. With the wealth of things to keep up with and the fact that being a full-fledged adult somehow shaves 8-10 hours off each of your days, this is a daunting task - even for an insomniac busybody such as myself.
The one frontier of modern society I've been reticent - if not defiant - about exploring is that of social media. I consider myself a social purist, preferring to exchange conversation and carbon dioxide with a person in the same room, preferably with a cold non-alcoholic beverage. As you are aware, with today's techno-dependent/instantly gratified society this is becoming exponentially more difficult, if not impossible, with each passing day.
I try to keep up. I have a Facebook account - but my relationship status with it has always been "Complicated". I've been a member since 2007, and in this time I've managed a total of three status updates, the last of which took me about 2 minutes to figure out how to post. I've also added two pictures showing my face and another two where only my feet are visible. This is the extent of my Facebook activity.
I've had my troubles with the service. I didn't sign on for five months one time because I forgot my password and didn't care to retrieve it. I don't know how to stop people from tagging me in photos [Update: I learned how to do this today], especially photos I'm not even in. The only reason I keep the account open is because it's becoming apparent that the only way anyone communicates these days is via Faceook. Without it, I believe my friends would completely forget I existed. This became a stunning reality when I realized that the number of close friends that call or text me on my birthday shrinks every year while the number of Facebook birthday wall posts I get from people whom I haven't spoken a word to in 15 years doubles.
Generally, I don't understand social media. This isn't an indictment on my intellect, but one more sign that the times are passing your boy by. (Yeah, that's me driving in the center lane of the interstate with my right turn signal feverishly blinking, trying to get into the right lane with the Oldsmobiles and Buicks while all the BMW's, Hondas, and Nissans scream past on my left.) I don't pretend to hold any misgivings about the place social media has in our society. It's more pervasive than anything I can remember and it's rendering many forms of communication obsolete.
Only a few years removed from hitting their strides, rock-solid constructs such as text messaging and email are being ushered away like CD's in Best Buy, replaced with "tweets", "status updates", and "wall posts". John Q. Public tweets, celebrities retweet, horses have Facebook pages, news outlets use hashtags, everyone wants to be "liked", no one wants to be "tagged", we're all being "followed", strangers are being "poked"... and there I was wondering when everyone stopped using MySpace.
 | |
| Dramatic reenactment of me using Facebook |
It was time for me to be proactive.
Revisiting the topic of concession, I realized that if I wanted to preserve my already-decaying social carcass for another 5 or so years, I'd have to suck it up and get with the times. I had to see what the fuss was about. Specifically, I had to abandon my rebellious nature and do something I swore on a stack of science books that I'd never do...
On Monday January 30th, 2012 at 11:55am, I sold my soul to The Beast:
Be on the lookout for #tweetsurrender: Part II...
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