MY FACEBOOK!

I like Facebook so much and like to think of myself as an addict as we like to say. I can hardly stay away from it that I sometimes fear what it is making out of me. I like it only because it is made up of interesting characters from all walks of life, characters that are alive as the energy they posses. These and other things add up to make the place interesting at all times no matter what your perspective may be.

I have seen and learnt so many things around the place just this few years of its existence than a quarter of my very own existence. I’ve made very good friends that are as real as the life we live and a few dubious and questionable characters.

All it takes to make friends is to send a friend request to the one you wish to become friends with and wait for them to accept or ignore you for a while or even for good. The only good thing about such a situation is your paths wont ever cross and u won’t be bothered except you guys share a mutual friend.

Being one of the most graphical and interactive social networking sites, it has connected long lost friends, families, school mates, offered people jobs, made marriages easier for a few patrons. It has also aided in laying people off their jobs, caused various degrees of accidents, broken homes, promoted promiscuity and many others that you can easily relate to.

Just like life, it offers everybody equal resources and usage rights. What you therefore make out of it depends on the account holder. That privilege of having a ‘residence’ in the virtual community makes everybody write and say what’s on their mind. It’s even interesting when they overtly or covertly demand some decorum on their page or wall. I like to think that, it would have been same in the real world if we all had equal privileges and resources at our disposal.

Friends we have here come in different forms ranging from the inner circle friends, fans, acquaintances, mentors, potential friends and the almighty and pervasive family members. Inner circle friends may be friends we made right here but could easily relate to on the same wavelength. These could be thoughts, interests, philosophies, ambitions, tendencies and lifestyle. They can also be friends we might have already known in the real world who are usually our church members, neighbors, school mates and colleagues at work.

Fans are the kind of friends who added others because they admire (d) or liked them. They are friends we add without checking out their profile. All we become interested in is their gallery; no wonder most of us ignore profiles without a picture. We quickly look at their pictures by which time we had already sent them a friend request. Sometimes, all we need to add such friends is their superficial attributes, be it beauty, handsomeness, sexiness and hotness. Other attributes that can make you fall under this category is when you add people because you think they are fashionable.

Acquaintances are the dormant friends who make our list. Some were once active or were your inner circle friends but for one or more reasons, does not come around anymore. Some come around occasionally, e.g.  On national holidays and special occasions such as Easter, Christmas and on your birthdays.

Mentors may be categorized as the friends we look up to, respects mutually and reasons with. These people are usually made up of our pastors, uncles, aunts, parents, employers, friends who have earned our respect because of who they are and what they stand for.

Family members can fall under any of the categories, depending on how you guys get along in the real world, just that I keep wondering why I have to send a friend request to an uncle or an aunt when all it takes is a button for a niece, nephew, father, mother or any other relative you can think of.

Status updates is one of, if not the most interesting activities you can indulge in on Facebook, without which renders your place/wall like a ghost town. Statuses ranges from facts, thoughts, events,  announcements, jokes and life stories which usually turns out to be false in most cases. Commenting on these statuses is also guided by reasons which are best known to the commentators.

Some comments on your status whether they can relate to it or not. Some do because they have an idea about what you’ve updated. There are others who comment on your status because they have nothing to do. This happens when they are done commenting on the statuses of their inner circle friends and still wanting to interact. These category of people are not regular commentators on your page.

There are other users who see Facebook as an external entity which is so independent of them. They are the kind of people who say, they cannot date a person they met here, regardless of what the person stands for or represent. They also say, they don’t blog anything personal forgetting that their pictures and statuses speak loads about them. Another group of these people are those who say they only come here to take away boredom and release stress when Facebook itself is the definition of stress.

Personally, I think these groups of people are jokers ‘cos I wonder how they do this without being personal.  Since there are so many ways to project ourselves, everything we do here reveals a bit of who we are so they might as well feel free. The use of ‘I’, ‘we’, they’ and other pronouns  clarifies your notion about what u are saying, so u see why I think there is a bit of personal stuff in there?

In the beginning, most people logged on with their real names and later on add their middle(local) names which made it quite different from other social blogs like MySpace and Hi5 but all u see now is host of names u cant even pronounce. People trying their possible best to stay anonymous, why?  I can’t tell.

It is even funny how people connect  lately. Some People don’t ask of your mobile number anymore when they meet you in town. All they ask you is ‘are you on Facebook? ‘ and those who presume you should be there go like ‘ what name do u use on Facebook? And I think it’s funny because I had to ask someone what Facebook was and the look she gave me was enough to make me say, yes I am on Facebook.

Facebook is everything you can think of, so as u make friends and update your statuses, just be careful because you don’t know who is watching and reading. Love you all my Facebook pals.