(no subject)

[brigdh]

MY FATHER JUST FRIENDED ME ON FACEBOOK. ALSO HE FRIENDED MY GIRLFRIEND.

ALSO HE IS LYING ABOUT HIS AGE.

BRB, FREAKING OUT FOREVER.

Comments

[call-me-ishmael.livejournal.com]

I had a similar reaction when my dad friended me on Facebook. What made it worse was a bunch of relatives came out of the woodworks and did the same thing immediately afterword.

Very glad they have lots of privacy options.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I am horrified of this happening. I need to investigate the privacy options, like, immediately.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

But, isn't that why you have Facebook? So that members of your family will feel that they've found you, and stop before they track you down here?

I sympathize, though. A lot. I don't want my family to even know what the words "social networking site" mean.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

But, isn't that why you have Facebook? So that members of your family will feel that they've found you, and stop before they track you down here?

That's my strategy, anyway!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

It is so, so, so, so much better to have my family on facebook than livejournal that I cannot describe it. And yet. Now I will feel ashamed of posting basically the only thing which I post on facebook: status updates describing how I am not doing homework.

[pocketmouse]

I am always so, so glad that my father doesn't like facebook much, and definitely has no interest in friending me.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I was too. UNTIL YESTERDAY!

[rm.livejournal.com]

He's lying about his age OR I HAVE DATED PEOPLE OLDER THAN HIM!!!!

[weirdquark]

Heh, I just got a Facebook account because one of my cousins posted a picture of himself holding his baby, and this was the first most of us had heard about it. So I started out with friending family and then added friends.

But lying about his age, what?

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I actually have a reasonably sympathetic potential explanation for the lying about his age.

Here's the thing: most of the Internet skews to a younger demographic. There are places on the net where that really stands out (animanga fandom, where you occasionally will see 15-year-olds saying that it's OMG creepy that somebody is over 25 and still in fandom makes for a gaudy illustration), and I suspect Facebook may be one of them. Under the circumstances, I suspect that a great many people will shave anything from a few years to a few decades off their actual ages in their profiles just so that they don't feel like the online equivalent of somebody who's come to a party in evening clothes to find everyone else in shorts and flip-flops.

Have I mentioned recently that being able to rationalize, like, anything is by way of being my superpower? But still, I suspect I have a strong chance of being right about this one.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That interpretation entirely makes sense. It just reads as creepy somehow to me- I suppose I associate it with dating websites, more than anything else. (Though I doubt my father would friend me on a profile he intended to use for sketchy affair purposes.) It just a change of about five years, so it's a reasonable change, and yet! It somehow make the whole experience more surreal.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I initially tried to resist the Facebook thing, but so many of my non-fandom friends use it that I got sucked in.

The age thing somehow disturbs me more than the rest of it!

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Your icon is perfect for this entry.

My icon wants to be friends with it.

My dad found me on facebook, didn't friend me, but wanted to know what kind of cigars I usually smoked. (Because my userpic was one of the pictures of me as Starbuck. Whut.)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

It is my OMGWTFBBQ icon.

That is also bizarre and distressing.

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

My parents have been married for 48 years. Some months ago, my mom joined Facebook and friended me. I went to look at her profile. Under relationship status, she had selected "It's Complicated". Glad to know my 71-year-old mom can summon up the drama when she wants to.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Oh god ha ha or maybe way more is going on than you'd realized?

My parents are barely internet-literate and English isn't my mom's first language; she's literate but I think the text/emotion interface that drives social networking would make no sense for her.

I worry more about my sister but she's JUST enough older than me that the internet never really 'took' for her either. Thank god.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

OH MAN. That beats my story.

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

There is a bit more to the story, involving a cruise of the Norwegian fjords and the former Governor of the Bank of Ireland, but I've probably said too much already.

(I am seriously not making this up.)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Oh, man.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

My stepmom and I are Facebook friends, but I'm also friends with at least 15 members of my extended family - so I'm guess there's a different weirdness factor going on. Admittedly, my profile is youth group kid/work friendly (read: boring), so...

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I do have a lot of cousins and such friended, but they're all of my generation, which seems like weird to me.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Parents do not belong in your facebook groups, ack~

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I knooooooow!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

OMG, that site is wonderful. Thank you.

Also, I feel sympathy for you. I am still holding out hope that my dad will quickly forget about Facebook and not do anything with it.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Good luck!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

OH GAWD, seriously??? Ack!!! *Hugs you*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[graene.livejournal.com]

emailing details to rm, but fyi while you're already freaking out: my dream this morning involved us being on your cruise, which would also mean my mom trying to join you at dinners, etc.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee! But somehow cruise makes everything better.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

ALSO HE IS LYING ABOUT HIS AGE.

This is the part that makes me laugh SO HARD. In sympathy, mind, but still.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That is somehow the most disturbing part to me, too.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

My mother has a friend her age who uses old high school photos and lies about her age to date guys on the Internet.

It's bizarre, skeezy, and kind of compelling all at once.

[seaskystone.livejournal.com]

Facebook made my head asplode for a while with the boundary-crossing, but I have ended up locking down my profile so that no-one who isn't friended can see it, and acting at all times as though it's my "professional" persona on display there. I took out all my fandom-related groups and interests and kicked anybody who I wouldn't want to email off my friendslist.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I think of Facebook as my "real life" internet presence, so while I do things I wouldn't want my parents to see, necessarily (mostly lots of status updates about not doing my homework), there's nothing completely horrifying on there (like fandom or gay porn).

[supremegoddess1.livejournal.com]

I would be okay with them on facebook, but not livejouranl....or maybe that's just me....

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm so glad none of my family has ever found my LJ. Or at least, they haven't told me about it if they have.