"Can I say you're my girlfriend on Facebook?"

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (5564 of them)

I'm in the UK, so no idea about the US. I signed up with my uni email account a couple of years ago, and then just switched the profile over to my alumni email account when I graduated.

xpost

― jng (jng), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:17 (6 years ago) Permalink

maybe we could have an ILX SOCIAL GROUP????

― Baaderonixx immer wieder (baaderonixx), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:19 (6 years ago) Permalink

Its a really good way to stay in touch w people after you graduate.

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:23 (6 years ago) Permalink

Big Man On Campus! (I hope)

Yes. He seemed to know everyone and was walking around making sure people were having a good time.

I never signed up for an alumni e-mail account, and now I'm unsure of how to do so, but the only people I'd know on Facebook are young punks like deej, anyway.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:30 (6 years ago) Permalink

Its a really good way to stay in touch w people after you graduate.
-- deej.. (clublonel...), June 27th, 2006.

a bit like MEETING THEM, HOLDING CONVERSATIONS, THAT KIND OF SHIT.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:31 (6 years ago) Permalink

As a current college student, I can vouch for how omnipresent it is. In the official UC Berkeley student questionnaire (rate the counselors from 1-10 etc.) the university had an entire section in the survey asking students about facebook. I can think of two people I know who *aren't* on it.

It's far classier than myspace because you can't change your page much. No background music. No videos. This is good.

Very recently though, there has been a very noticeable trend (in Berkeley at least...can't speak for the nation) to make your profile super-private and only visable to friends. People are either getting wary, or snobby, I'm not sure which.

― starke (starke), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:33 (6 years ago) Permalink

Yeah its real easy to do that with my friends in San Francisco xp

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:35 (6 years ago) Permalink

A few more things:

1. My brother is a grad student and when he TAs a class, he always checks out his students' Facebook profiles and is sometimes surprised at what they're willing to divulge. (Then he stores this information in an Excel spreadsheet ... oh wait.)

2. I have a cousin who just finished his freshman year at Northern Illinois University. He tells me that as soon as he received his school e-mail address last summer, he immediately signed up on Facebook and found that dozens of other incoming students had done so as well. In fact, the ability to notate your dorm and room number within your profile meant that he knew nearly everyone in his hall before they ever actually met face to face.

3. Haha, my dad moderated a panel about Facebook last month.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:41 (6 years ago) Permalink

High school students can join it now too. Which is weird.

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:44 (6 years ago) Permalink

See, that's not weird to me because as far as I'm concerned, EVERYONE under 25 is on it.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:57 (6 years ago) Permalink

Yeah, trading facebooks was the first thing the staff did when we got to camp. I think the basic reason it's so much more universal than eg friendster is the total lack of crepey hookup connotations?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 14:59 (6 years ago) Permalink

he always checks out his students' Facebook profiles
Not always, just for the cute ones ;)

― robots in love (robotsinlove), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 15:06 (6 years ago) Permalink

facebook is even creepier than myspace/friendster cuz then you can anonymously crepe on cute girls in your classes.

― the eunuchs, Cassim and Mustafa, who guarded Abdur Ali's harem (orion), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 15:09 (6 years ago) Permalink

It's strange--I do feel like there is a generational divide with facebook. I joined just this year, as a 24 year old grad student. But, the first year grad students, who are right out of college, already had facebook accounts from undergrad days. they just had to switch over the designation to their new university affiliation. But the point is they already had them and were totally accustomed to using them, whereas they had convinced me to join, and then were disappointed when facebook did not function the same way they were used to (nobody checked it frequently enough, thereby making announcing parties useless).

― robots in love (robotsinlove), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 15:09 (6 years ago) Permalink

Did you read the Lewis Flyer article yet, M.?

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 15:12 (6 years ago) Permalink

Regarding the quote in topic, yeah, the relationship status on Facebook does lead to a lot of awkward situations. A friend of mine had that she was married to her boyfriend on Facebook. After they broke up for a while, he eventually changed the setting to say single which automatically did it for her profile too. It was like a whole 'nother stage of breaking up.

There's an annoying girl at my job who has some serious growing up to do. One of her many horrifying common behaviors is playing "house" at the job and designating different coworkers as different members of her family. For a while she had a huge crush on me, and thus I became the husband. Whenever new people were hired, she'd excitedly hug me and exclaim in her nasal voice, "This is Derek, he's my husband! He's the best husband in the world!" Then she'd switch to a more serious tone to warn the girls that they'd better not flirt with me. Terrifying. Of course, she wanted to marry me on Facebook. After weeks of continually reminding me that I have yet to click "yes" that we are indeed married, I finally gave in and did it. After a while, trying to finally give her the message that I'm not interested, I switched to being married with another one of our coworkers, a girl I'm good friends with but my "wife" hated. When she saw that I'd switched the status, she had a real break down. Female co-workers told me about her heart break over the incident.

In conclusion, jesus christ, be glad you're not on Facebook.

― like murderinging (modestmickey), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 15:42 (6 years ago) Permalink

why is this any better than myspace? i don't get it.
-- dog latin (doglati...) (webmail), June 27th, 2006. (dog latin)

Certain features that make it really useful for college students. You can list your classes in your profile and the page can create a list for you of people in your classes. You can easily find people in your class to ask them questions about upcoming tests, what the homework was, etc. Also, unlike MySpace, there's more local community centered stuff since the only people on Facebook I interact with are fellow UNCC students and I don't see anyone from Harvard. For example there's groups with local interest like "I LOVE " rather than just "I LOVE LIMP BIZKIT." Like other people mentioned, there's the announcing/organizing events too.

― like murderinging (modestmickey), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 15:49 (6 years ago) Permalink

But what is this thing that US students say is now more important than sex and texting?

MORE IMPORTANT THAN TEXTING?!?!?!?!??!

― matlewis (matlewis), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 15:54 (6 years ago) Permalink

he eventually changed the setting to say single which automatically did it for her profile too. It was like a whole 'nother stage of breaking up.

That is pretty harsh.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 15:54 (6 years ago) Permalink

I think the basic reason it's so much more universal than eg friendster is the total lack of crepey hookup connotations?

Au contraire. I think a lot of people use it for exactly that reason. That's the impression I've gotten, anyway.

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 16:36 (6 years ago) Permalink

Facebook is fucking annoying. I'm an elderly undergrad, surrounded by people who use it as a substitute for actual communication. So I decided to get kicked off of Facebook but it's not working yet--I've replaced my entire profile with excerpts from Pilgrim's Progress and some Duran Duran slash fiction, I've started reporting every person whose profile says "Libertarian," etc. No luck.

― adam (adam), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 16:41 (6 years ago) Permalink

surrounded by people who use it as a substitute for actual communication.

hi, do you know the internet?

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 16:51 (6 years ago) Permalink

hah yeah wtf how is it different than anything else on the internet?

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 16:56 (6 years ago) Permalink

that facebook thing would have been so useful for my social life in '96. and myspace too. and p2p files exchange softwares (I was so informationally poor). also, ah, if only I had pentium3 +highspeed+100gig storage+ free video editing software back then, when
i was more interested in cinema , because most of the canonic cinematographic trips were new to me etc good grief I should have been born in '81

― S. (Sébastien Chikara), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 17:03 (6 years ago) Permalink

― S. (Sébastien Chikara), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 17:12 (6 years ago) Permalink

believe it or not, there are things better for your social life than exponentially raising the amount of time you spend sitting in front of a computer.

― like murderinging (modestmickey), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 17:28 (6 years ago) Permalink

i don't.

― jeffrey (johnson), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 17:30 (6 years ago) Permalink

Hating facebook doesn't make much more sense than hating cellphones, the yellow pages, AIM and email. It's a social lubricant. If people were really replacing their social lives with it, facebook wouldn't be filled with ten trillion pictures of people getting drunk at parties.

― starke (starke), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 17:42 (6 years ago) Permalink

(which would be a better thing to complain about)

― starke (starke), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 17:43 (6 years ago) Permalink

mickey, the way I see it it's all about saving time rather than wasting it,of course; it would have been useful in my early 20's to help me find out fun places to go out , with with people I have affinities with, rather than rely mostly on luck. anyhoo, now these apps are less "urgent" to me at this time in my life.

― S. (Sébastien Chikara), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 17:46 (6 years ago) Permalink

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

― S. (Sébastien Chikara), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 17:47 (6 years ago) Permalink

If people were really replacing their social lives with it, facebook wouldn't be filled with ten trillion pictures of people getting drunk at parties.

It's not that social networking replaces your social life, it just... mediates it. Instead of personally inviting people to parties via word of mouth/telephone/email or just throwing it up on a flyer, you're sending it to a reasonably targeted, much larger group than you'd be comfortable calling. The downside is that pretty soon you're doing the majority of communication through there, any "event" that can vary from a party or concert to two people sitting around drunk turns into some "scandalous" photo diary, and there's the online backchannel that sucks everyone in.

I've been around people where there's this obnoxious feedback loop where they're pretty much trying to come up with new people to befriend and more pictures/content to put up on things like myspace, and half of what they talk about is myspace. Urgh.

― business up front, party entrance at side door (mike h.), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 18:20 (6 years ago) Permalink

That's an interesting way of putting it.

Still, why is word of mouth/telephone/email an inherently better form of communication? I agree that it's a "larger group than you'd be comfortable calling" but I think that's very likely a good thing. For example, tonight I'm going to play soccer with a casual friend from a class. He invited me and the rest of the group with a facebook message. It would have been awkward for an acquaintance to call/email, and probably would have never happened.

― starke (starke), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 18:49 (6 years ago) Permalink

man, facebook was so much better back when there were only like 8 schools on it

― lemin (lemin), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 19:21 (6 years ago) Permalink

snob

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 19:30 (6 years ago) Permalink

Facebook's early history is pretty snobby and reflects the fact that it was started by a Harvard kid. The schools were added pretty much in order of prestige. No doubt the public school kids just weren't mature enough to deal with such technology until much later.

― starke (starke), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 19:45 (6 years ago) Permalink

Now they even have community colleges, though. Anyone who takes an adult continuing education course could get on there! It'd be amazing if people in cooking and wine tasting classes started using facebook to set up events and communicate outside of class.

― business up front, party entrance at side door (mike h.), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 20:04 (6 years ago) Permalink

The influx of philistines brought Facebook down to Myspace levels of social networking websites, ones it could never recover from! Oh, how I long for the days of only having to add friends from ivy league schools.

― lemin (lemin), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 20:05 (6 years ago) Permalink

he eventually changed the setting to say single which automatically did it for her profile too. It was like a whole 'nother stage of breaking up.

I had a friend whose girlfriend changed her facebook relationship status to "single" in order to make him jealous, or something.

― 31g (31g), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 20:10 (6 years ago) Permalink

oh c'mon, thinking the relationship status setting on your facebook profile matters to you or anyone else is pretty ridiculous, right? also, there's an "it's complicated" setting

― lemin (lemin), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 20:22 (6 years ago) Permalink

if someone changes their relationship status on their facebook profile it tends to cause gossip round our way, so it's not as ridiculous as all that to worry about it. Also people use facebook for looking up friends' new beaux etc. I keep forgetting I have a facebook account, every so often I log in cos someone's 'written on my wall' or put up an embarassing photo and discover month-old messages from people who clearly know my email address, but for some reason seem to believe that everyone checks facebook more often than webmail.

putting yr actual girlfriend/boyfriend as 'wife' or 'husband' on facebook is kind of crepey though, surely it should refer only to actual married spouses or to best friends.

― permanent revolution (cis), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 21:18 (6 years ago) Permalink

a bit like MEETING THEM, HOLDING CONVERSATIONS, THAT KIND OF SHIT

which reminds me ... enrique, are you still gonna be in glasgow this weekend?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 21:31 (6 years ago) Permalink

Well when I'm all "let's go to the bar and watch the game" and my girlfriend makes it some huge elaborate Facebook event, it's irritating. Also, I liked most of my friends better before I knew what their favorite books are.

― adam (adam), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 21:33 (6 years ago) Permalink

i cancelled my facebook account when i dropped out of school.
in retrospect, i should have kept it to creep on co-eds.

― the eunuchs, Cassim and Mustafa, who guarded Abdur Ali's harem (orion), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 21:34 (6 years ago) Permalink

Also, I liked most of my friends better before I knew what their favorite books are.

haha this is true.

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 21:39 (6 years ago) Permalink

I know a fair amount of Johnston & Wales -- a local culinary school -- on there.

― like murderinging (modestmickey), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 22:42 (6 years ago) Permalink

I hate the "it's complicated" relationship status. Relationships are confusing anyway, facebook doesn't need to add to anxiety-inducing ambiguity!

i don't know anyone obsessed with it, though. thank heavens.

― Maria (Maria), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 23:26 (6 years ago) Permalink

Does the opposing partner's status change to "Married to someone who thinks it's complicated" ?

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 28 June 2006 08:58 (6 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

HI DERE

― Scourage (Haberdager), Sunday, 20 August 2006 00:50 (6 years ago) Permalink

i have learned about two new forms of manipulation using facebook in the last week! one of my friends put that she was married to a boyfriend she wasn't serious about so that it wouldn't scare off possibly interested guys looking at her profile, who would think it was a joke. another used facebook to stalk and then get in touch with someone from catholicmatch.com, which doesn't give you contact information unless you pay, and now has a possible catholic boyfriend (as long as he doesn't decide the priesthood is his vocation). it's hilarious, i love it.

― Maria (Maria), Sunday, 20 August 2006 01:46 (6 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 5464 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I've seen that on mine too, but thought it was just because my account is affiliated as an admin on some of my work's pages.

― pplains, Monday, 17 June 2013 05:12 (2 days ago) Permalink

Instead of "thought", make that "assume". I mean, it was an assumption that someone out there really wouldn't pay seven bucks to have their posts jump the line, but I shouldn't be that surprised, I guess.

― pplains, Monday, 17 June 2013 05:13 (2 days ago) Permalink

Nah that promote button's been there ages now.

― It is like ganging up on Enya (Trayce), Monday, 17 June 2013 05:14 (2 days ago) Permalink

and yes, you pay to make sure the comment shows up in more peoples feeds, which WTF.

― It is like ganging up on Enya (Trayce), Monday, 17 June 2013 05:14 (2 days ago) Permalink

I'm convinced my fb statii appear in nobody's feeds...

― Mark G, Monday, 17 June 2013 06:31 (2 days ago) Permalink

I see yours by proxy in other peoples comments! I guess that dont count tho.

― It is like ganging up on Enya (Trayce), Monday, 17 June 2013 07:24 (2 days ago) Permalink

Good to know, but, yeah.

― Mark G, Monday, 17 June 2013 08:02 (2 days ago) Permalink

i would pay to keep my updates/pics of some people's feeds (people that i cannot delete entirely from my FB for social harmony reasons)

― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 17 June 2013 15:52 (2 days ago) Permalink

of=off

― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 17 June 2013 15:59 (2 days ago) Permalink

you can do that using the little nut icon next to the date on your statuses and setting up custom privacy groups

― ty based gay dead computer god (zachlyon), Monday, 17 June 2013 16:33 (2 days ago) Permalink

i changed my birthday to avoid 300 happy birthday wall posts from a bunch of bozos and now i can't change it back

wish i realized i could have just hid it

― http://threeframes.net (gr8080), Monday, 17 June 2013 16:43 (2 days ago) Permalink

I've merrily cruised through life FB-free up until a couple of weeks ago, when I ~~got~~ had to get access to the company's FB account. It is thee worst. What a hideous monstrosity. Why people actively go to FB for "fun" or "pleasure"...

Logged in as a business the search bar is ~gone~. FB becomes unsearchable. Whyyy, FB, whyyy? Do you actually think "a company" is an abstract entity and wouldn't want to search? You don't realize there's a human being using it for a company? Mind = blown.

I have to check on it on the go, on my ipad. Turns out you have to use this spiffy creation called PAGES. O RLY? The FB app points you to PAGES, the PAGES app points you to the FB app. And for what? Nations have started wars about less iirc.

Whatever floats yer boat, live and let live etc, not here to diss FB users. It is just literally such an unusable beast, and so so fucking ugly.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Monday, 17 June 2013 16:54 (2 days ago) Permalink

I just make it where no one can post on my wall

― Jeff, Monday, 17 June 2013 16:55 (2 days ago) Permalink

Xpost

― Jeff, Monday, 17 June 2013 16:55 (2 days ago) Permalink

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.