ok the dangerous teenage hug epidemic - another important new york times trend piece

if no scrabulous was really a deal breaker i guess that's fine, i mean i don't know.....

at least it tells a story and is not just like "hey this is what my friend said and this is what my other friend said"

very crucial here^^^

gained WEIGHT, pardon

haha I'm so confused by y'all picking that paragraph apart -- it's a straightforward summary of some woman's stated experience with Facebook as relayed to the writer; is this really that weird? I mean, I dunno, would you really prefer to have your intelligence insulted by having such things be ILX-friendly and go

My friend Alex joined four years ago (LOL) at the suggestion of “the coolest guy on the planet” (yeah right like she knows anything about who's cool), she told me in an e-mail message. For a while, they cultivated a cool-planet online gang.* But then Scrabulous was shut down, someone told her she was too old for Facebook (she totally is, and lame too), her teenage stepson seemed to be losing his life to it (LOL what about the children) and she found the whole site crawling with mercenaries trying to sell books and movies. “If I am going to waste my time on the Internet,” she concluded, “it will be playing in online backgammon tournaments.” (OMG LOL BACKGAMMON what a dumb fuck my friend Alex is let's all laugh at her)

* note that this one is already readable as kinda scare-quoted and potentially sarcastic

what's the difference between scrabulous and all the other ones that are basically the same concept?

well is she trying to come up with reasons why one might actually leave facebook or is she just repeating things she has been told? when i say i don't know what she means i'm not exaggerating--those sentences do not make any sense to me.

is this really that weird? I mean, I dunno, would you really prefer to have your intelligence insulted by having such things be ILX-friendly and go

it's not a binary. it's not one way or the other. why are you wasting time trying to defend a piece of writing when it obviously struck a nerve with some of us?

if she wanted to come up w/reasons to leave facebook, then fuck, do some actual reporting and find some valid ones. if you just want to regurgitate things get a blog not a nyt column.

let's defend vacuity

(I mean like I said, I get disliking the column, but that fairly neutral paragraph is like ... I dunno, it's like hating an ordinary brick in a building you dislike, you know?)

xpost - haha I'm not so much defending a piece of writing as marveling at various interpretations of it -- also dude you spent like two hours every weekday picking on various stuff I post, so let's not get into productive-use-of-time issues here

nabisco....are...you.......trolling?

this is disturbing like when you were a kid and the bad superman showed up on superfriends

"what's the difference between scrabulous and all the other ones that are basically the same concept?"

Scrabulous was more copyright infringing and thus cooler for the people on planet cool.

also dude you spent like two hours every weekday picking on various stuff I post, so let's not get into productive-use-of-time issues here

huh?

You forgot to scare quote "friend" in your ILX-version above, nabisco.

this is just a seriously mediocre article ... it isn't even wtf enough to qualify as a wannabe onion article, like the hug epidemic one.

me, trolling? I'm the one who thinks it's an ordinary paragraph about how a woman that age might relate to Facebook! I mean I basically agree with Jaymc that the whole flaw about the column (besides just being kinda *shrug*) is it's about a specific age group and social sphere's relationship with Facebook, not the world's; haha but I feel somewhat left out on why it's interesting or mockable that the Times would run a column sorta from the viewpoint of professionals 5-15 years older than me, or that one of them would say in an email that she he has this cool-guy type friend

"(I mean like I said, I get disliking the column, but that fairly neutral paragraph is like ... I dunno, it's like hating an ordinary brick in a building you dislike, you know?)"

I think I just find her "friend" Alex more repellant than you do, nabisco. It's cool. You don't have to hate all the Alex's, I do.

does she even say how old these people are though?

Comma at the end of that second sentence makes it more amusing hah.

Old enough to have a teenage stepson so pretty fucking old.

Also too old to use Facebook.

Old enough to play backgammon.

uh, the key word is stepson ... she? could be younger ...

people are going to have *widely* different reactions to a piece of writing like this, and honestly, i don't see what's so remarkable about that.

I feel like if you really hate the building, you should hate the individual bricks at least a little bit

xxp She's not. She's an old Alex with an older stepson. I can just feel it.

It's an Alex sense I have.

i dunno a better column might be like "she thinks she's too old but actually shitloads of old ppl use facebook" or "she thinks the site is overrun with mercenaries but actually they let over-40s download adblock too." like what's the point of letting her write about technology, even the social aspects of it, since she doesn't know any more about it than lots of poorly-informed people?

xp Alex: y'know Paul1ne Ol1veros is on facebook ...

xp A better column would have died stillborn in the writer's mind.

I am not on Facebook. Too old.

Also I heard it's not cool anymore.

My friend Walter told me that.

oh WAIT, Alex in SF, you are hating on the FRIEND?

that's been part of my confusion, cause you said:

How could someone write a paragraph like that and not think "I am the world's biggest douchebag"?

which reads like you're primarily hating on Heffernan for neutrally passing along the friend's tale (which you can do too, obviously)

He plays Risk Online now.

I like the paragraph that begins by describing the person as an eloquent writer, and then the quote isn't particularly eloquent.

can i be really really bitchy for a second and say that the thing i dislike the most about this column is that it begins with yet one more goddamn use of that Yeats quote?

xp nabisco: if that person were actually a friend, I wouldn't pass on the tale because it makes them look annoying.

can i get a cool planet invite?

heffernan's friend is dumb and heffernan seems to passively accept what she says as fact.

xp no dude cool planet disbanded iirc

does she even say how old these people are though?

No, but I'm guessing that a random sampling of her friends is mostly going to include people in her age group (she just turned 40).

uh, that's not that old ... half of my friends are in that age range ...

"which reads like you're primarily hating on Heffernan for neutrally passing along the friend's tale (which you can do too, obviously)"

It's the whole thing really. It's her friend, but also the way she's casually relating the whole thing. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

Blog post on Virginia Heffernan's wedding:
http://www.xtcian.com/arch/001618.php

uh, that's not that old ... half of my friends are in that age range ...

I never said it was. But it probably skews slightly old for Facebook.

That blog post makes me hate her even more.

bowtie guy is prob coolest guy on the planet
http://www.xtcian.com/RonJodiIan2VAWed(bl).jpg

slightly old for facebook doesn't seem to really matter anymore

That's her husband, isn't it?

xp alex (a few posts back) pretty much, yeah ... the whole thing reads like a hastily compiled list of reasons a few of the writer's friends quit facebook without any real point about generational differences, technological change, or interesting information

bowtie guy looks kinda familiar