The Facebook ‘status update’ in light of yesterday

The Facebook ‘status update’ in light of yesterday

Are you sick of keeping your Facebook ‘status update’ up-to-date? I am. So I started venting my frustration by coming up with silly non-sequiturs that got old and moldy quickly- and had to be updated often.

So today, relying on the ever-true mantra, ‘if you can think it, it already exists on the Internet’ I Googled ‘cleverest status updates’. I know what you're thinking and I agree- I suck. Convinced that others were faced with the same conundrum I wanted to see what other people were doing so as to NOT have to update it so often. I found what I wasn’t looking for.

We agree that I suck, but apparently not as much as some people. There are bloggers and people on forums discussing the best status updates at length. What’s really disturbing is that most of their nominees really aren’t that good. It seems like there’s a lot of waste floating around planet Earth these days.

Yesterday Finland had its first high school shooting leaving eight innocent dead. The shooter also shot himself but last I heard was barely alive. Besides the tragedy of the senseless destruction of life, the saddest part of yesterday for me was that my first reaction was a dry- again? I hope I’ll never have to say- again? Again.

Could there be a sharper contrast between yesterday's tragedy and people competing for who types the cleverest keystrokes after is..? My stupid Google query brought on a revelation- the world today is seriously fucked up.

Who are these losers that bring guns to school and open fire on their classmates? Yesterday's nincompoop posted videos of himself on YouTube and announced that he’d be committing these heinous crimes today. No one stopped him. Were we busy updating our statuses?

It seems like 2007 will go down in history as the year of school shootings and Facebook status update competitions. Both are stupid, but one is harmless, although bitterly representative of the degenerative nature of how we spend our time. If people are really interested in status updates so much, let’s take it a step further.

I guess my way of grieving is starting a discourse on the ‘status update’. Let’s make a set of categories and nominate the winners. At the same time we can reflect on how fucking useless we can make ourselves at times. Why couldn’t we stop what happened today?

There are a few main categories to which sub-categories can be attached. If anyone feels like it, go ahead and elaborate. Here are my main categories:

1. Activity- Nikko is typing
2. Sentiment- Nikko is bewildered
3. Location- Nikko is at home
4. Non-sequitur- Nikko is a coconut
5. Nonsense – Nikko is öalkjgaiv
6. Using the pre-existing ‘is’- Nikko is olated a gene that causes breast cancer

I have to give credit to Olli Martela for being the first one I saw with a category 6. status update with ‘Olli is äni on turbomies’. Heppu Pentti pulled off a combo category 3 and 6 with ‘Heppu is tuu himassa’. Full points for that one.

I’m sure there are more categories, so go ahead and suggest them. We, the people of this year anno domino 2007 have nothing better to do.

I wish you all peace, love and pura vida. May those who lost loved ones find peace in their hearts. There is no way to make sense of this tragedy.

Keep on rockin' in the free world.

Losing my blogging virginity

Hmm.. so this is the world of blogging. I guess I'm trying it out like you try on a pair of pants. No, more like a jacket. Pants are harder to try on. You have to get a changing room, take off your shoes, sometimes even change belts. Nope, this is more like trying on a winter jacket in the fall when you're just wearing a sweater and the jacket just slides on, the silk liner in the sleaves smoothly stroking your finger tips until your hands pop out and it's on.

I guess my first impression is that this is a pretty rad jacket. It's not something I'd normally wear, but I like the way it feels on. Still the whole aspect of exposing one's self forces the metaphor, and I'm not quite comfortable owning this particular jacket yet, at least in the conventional sense, or according to my initial impressions as to what I was supposed to do with this particular jacket. Maybe this is a jacket that you don't even wear, but just throw over your shoulders. Maybe it's supposed to be wrapped around the waste, or used strictly in disguise outfits.

My feelings towards blogging are changing as the more I write the more I begin to hold on to the jacket, the more I grow fond of it and leave behind my attitudes I held when I started writing. But that's the thing with trying something on, it feels different than it looks on the rack. The self-exposing part, or diary entry aspect of blogging is what I first thought would be wierd. I can never spell wierd. Is it weird or wierd? It should be both, because it would still be pronounced the same, right?

Maybe blogging is more about sharing ideas, or self-expression, or jokes, or to paraphrase Will Farrell's character in 'Old School' when he's talking about what a waitress' undies could be like, "something really cool that I didn't even know existed" when in therapy with his wife. Yes, I'm certain blogging can be worn anyway one likes.

But maybe I'm too conventional. I have to put my arms through the sleaves and shroud my shoulders, maybe sometimes pop the collar, even though the possibilities of the jacket's use could be endless. Disappointing my self-image of the courageous innovator/non-conformant I wrestle with the urge to spew my daily routine and expose my muses to the universe on my mundane habitudes. I must. I can resist no longer.

So I woke up around eleven today, but this feels wrong, for blogging could be so much more, it could be so much more experimental, it's a waste to spew, yet I must continue.. I watched a movie today! And some TV! And I took a ride on the tram and saw a friend, and drove home, and surfed the net, ate some ice cream and at around one AM before going to bed, I lost my blogging virginity to a metaphor about a jacket!

Unlike some other first time experiences, I did enjoy it, am satisfied with my performance, and am unlikely to attempt to repeat the feat in the near future.

Rock on!