Pick Your Five!

Long before parents used it to spy on their kids' lives via online; way before 8th graders switched to it from AIM; and certainly before it's advertising team sent me a "Doug" cartoon advertisement in response to my posting of a Halloween costume (I went as Quail Man; my best friend Jimmy was Skeeter; and we rocked Franklin Street in Chapel Hill); Facebook was introduced to UNC-Chapel Hill.

Being that UNC was one of the first universities to catch on, I can almost say I've been around since the beginning. When my friends an I first joined, we were quasi-obsessed -- we tagged a photo here-and-there and occasionally wrote on each other's wall -- but would never have guessed "The Facebook" (yes, "The." Do you remember?) would have exploded like it has. Over the past four years I've seen "The Facebook" turn from a virtual yearbook into a worldwide phenomenon; a wave that's subscribed over 200 million users and turned Mark Zuckerberg into the fastest self-made billionaire in United States history.

When it first spread to high schools, we felt cheated. Now that all of us college people had something to connect with, we got that dreaded email saying "your little brother has requested to be your friend. The same little brother that wears the same clothes YOU wore in high school - the kid who will never take 'ignore' for an answer - would like to be your friend." I've actually never had any younger siblings, but had a lot of friends who weren't too fond of theirs ... so I can sorta relate.

Do you remember how superior your felt the first time you came back from college and went to a high school party? Or when you were the first to get that job out of college when all your buddies were still making out with a toilet in a frat house bathroom? Do you remember how cool it felt to finally be that guy who's out there living his life, and who everyone wants to know what he's up to now?

Yea, what if they already know ... because they're your Facebook friend. They already know that college is really 13th grade, your first job isn't paying crap, and that kissing a toilet seat is actually not as bad as kissing the rump of a boss. How would you feel if something like that happened to you? Cheated? Yea, we thought so too. That's why a lot of guys my age (23-24) have turned turned away from Facebook.

That is, until now.

Now it's freakin' everywhere. You can chat online instead of logging in to AIM and trying to figure out your friend's screen name. You can re-connect with people you haven't seen in 15 years, and stalk them if they accept your friend request out of pity and don't actually want to recap the last 15 years (I wasn't that cool growing up, I'll admit it. Much cooler now though!). You can join groups, poke people (what the hell is that, anyway? Poking. Is it a sexual thing? A gay thing? Or just something that's REALLY annoying that they've decided to keep since the beginning of Facebook. I swear it's like the Jar-Jar Binks of social networking.) take quizzes, and look at peronalized advertisements targeted to the information you list on your profile.

And then there are the "Pick Your Five" games. These things will be the death of me. I've been late to work, late getting to sleep, and apathetic to pretty much everyhing else. All because of these "Pick Your Five" lists. Do I look at my friends' pick-5 lists? Not really. Maybe to see if they've made a list I haven't already filled out, or if it's a topic about movies and they've said "The Notebook" is the best movie ever. To be honest, if you fill these things out, I'd make a bet that hardly any of your friends care what your 5 actually are. They will, however, want to take your 5 and make it their own top 5.

One of the best scenes in cinematic history comes in High Fidelity when Rob lists his Top 5 Track 1's and Barry calls him a pansy for giving "safe" answers.

(Safe (n.) - a cliche answer to a question that should really set you apart from anyone else. A "safe" answer would be a movie critic citing one of the following in their Top 5 Films Ever Made: Casablanca, Citizen Kane, or The Godfather 1 or 2. If you ask a girl her Top 5 Favorite Films Ever Made, a "safe" answer would be one of the following 5 options: I Don't Know (an answer that could easily take up all of the Top 5), The Notebook, Love Actually, When Harry Met Sally, or Sleepless in Seattle (If they're still a teenager, you can substitute 2009 MTV Best Movie Award winner Twilight for When Harry Met Sally)

"Safe" answers given in film:

Adaptation: When Meryl Streep answers the question "What person - dead or alive - would you want to have dinner with?" by saying "Mother Theresa ... or Jesus"

High Fidelity: Rob's Top 5 Track 1's. You must see the movie to see what they are, but in the mean time, let's end the longest tangent ever!)

Why do people give "safe" answers? Because they're either too afraid of what other people will think; or they truly don't want to think for themselves, so they revert to cliches to satisfy the person asking the question. But what if a person got to choose their own category? What if they had all the time to formulate their own 5 ... and without any worry of being late for work, losing sleep, or anything else going on in the world? Now EVERYONE can be a critic! EVERYONE can participate! Will anyone read these Pick-Five's? Absolutely not. But that doesn't matter. Freedom of speech is back, darnit! Even if we don't care what you're saying!