Vaguebooking:
Intentional or unintentional vague or ambiguous facebook status message, which people have no clue as to what the heck you are talking about. Also included is posting fragmented song lyrics without stating the artist. (Thank you http://www.urbandictionary.com!)This word has been featured in the past, but my own recent status update and the outpouring of 'likes' from my wonderful and well-meaning family and friends prompted the word to float up from the depths of the deep past to the surface of my memory. The status update experiment worked.
Example:
People who like this
Could someone please tell me... in sufficiently vague terms... of what I was speaking? This is not an indictment... this was pure entertainment value for me.
Multiple choice question #1 re: Jenni's vaguebooking comment.
a. A month ago, Jenni had no idea what she was doing with her life, but she has spent some good time over a cup of coffee at Starbucks and now has her life all figured out. Not only that, but she now has her dream job, a house on the lake, a chameleon, and a mosquito control specialist on her personal staff team!
b. A month ago, Jenni was sitting on pins and needles wondering how she did in her qualitative research course, and now knows that she passed... with a perfectly average but not so great C.
c. A month ago, Jenni's car started rattling a little bit. It nagged at her until she finally took it into the mechanic to get checked, where she was informed that the repairs would cost $1200.
d. A month ago, Jenni started having headaches and severe pain in her right ear and had to go to a specialist for tests. She got the test results back... and now knows she has an inoperable malignant brain tumour and three months to live.*
The sarcasm dripping from my voice is amused, not irritated, and I think fondly of how I would love to go for coffee and have a genuine chat with each of these really great friends. Jane, on the other hand... she went right ahead and asked for an update. We'd go for coffee if I was a little bit closer to Michigan. I just wonder (as per my previous comments), does social media give us a false sense of familiarity and connectedness with people?
My dear sister, on the other hand, is the Queen of Anti-Vaguebooking:
My dear sister, on the other hand, is the Queen of Anti-Vaguebooking:
Specific, accurate, concrete. No vagueness here. You can count on Heidi to provide up-to-date matter-of-fact updates of her day, week, and life. Christmas newsletter-style.
But in defence of vaguebooking... should social media be used as a means of deep, genuine connection? There's nothing quite like reading the status updates of people who bare their souls on Facebook. I mean absolutely no offence to those who risk vulnerability in this context, but I question the venue. I cringe a bit because I have seen Facebook conversations used by RCMP in criminal investigations, I have read juvenile spats between teenagers on FB walls, I have perused the intimately personal accounts of people's addictions via social media. We've all heard about some teacher or other professional who was fired from work for personal opinions or a scandalous photograph posted on a public forum. Once it's out there... we can't take it back. It's public. Exposed. For e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. My wonderful sister's update wasn't inappropriately self-disclosing... I'm not saying that. I'm just asking...
...what's the balance between self-disclosure in the interest of healthy vulnerability and self-restraint in the interest of appropriate vulnerability? I'm all about vulnerability these days... something I will discuss a little ways down the line. In the meantime, social media is simmering in my stew-pot. So... your thoughts?
*Note: None of these is true.
10 comments:
You have a lot simmering in your stew-pot today!:) OK...first of all...when I clicked "like" I was thinking along the lines of A. That's what I had been getting updates from Mama about so I assumed (yes I know I shouldn't have) that it had to do with having a place to stay & that you had confirmed a job.
I (think) I'm honoured that you've called me the Queen of Anti-Vaguebooking. It does drive me rather crazy when people do that...although I didn't see your post as that because I seriously thought (key word) I knew what it was about. I think it's largely due to my personality, but also the fact that I have family so far away...I want you all (Jenni, Jodi, Cheri) to know what we're up to.
I do know what you mean about being too vulnerable. I think that somewhere around a year ago I was being too vulnerable on facebook. I didn't regret what I said & I wasn't ashamed of it...I'm just not sure I wanted to bare quite so much info to so many people. I tend to forget about some of my friends (the ones that never comment, etc), but I have to remember that if they're my friends they can see it too. In the last year or so though I've been trying to be a bit more careful of what I say.
Sidenote: I could hardly believe that you didn't comment about the fact that Ben has started drinking coffee:):)
I do like being at least somewhat vulnerable. I think it's better for me to put it in my blog though, where I can explain the situation, thoughts, details, etc. 2 sentences in a status is too likely to be misunderstood & even if it isn't, the people who truly want to understand it won't know the details.
Anyway...I'm done babbling now. Thanks for "chatting" with me today sister:)
I like chatting with you too! I much prefer my blog to FB chats.
Queen of Anti-Vaguebooking is a compliment, trusting you don't start baring your soul on FB.
And I agree that the level of vulnerability can be slightly higher on a blog than on FB... but have you ever checked your stats? I recently figured out that I have readers in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Malaysia, Iran, India, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, New Zealand, the US, Canada... how many of these folks do I know??? and a lot of them find me on google. so i guess that brings us to the question of our privacy settings on the blog... and either public or private is okay in my mind - as long as I am okay with everyone reading everything I write (which I am).
I think because we're surrounded and even saturated by social media. To discount that as an aspect or means of deep, genuine connection would be to say that our cell phones are not part of our identity. Their existence is threaded through every part of our lives.
For instance - you and I have been using social media to bare our souls these last few days...albeit not publicly...but on Facebook nonetheless.
I just wanted to be a stick in the mud...basically...right now.
and that comment was by bear...apparently i was signed into my program account.
dear stick-in-the-muddish friends,
your incisive critique of my argument almost deserves a smart song.
since it appears that assurances are required, i feel the need to clarify. i have no desire to disconnect from you. if fb is how we manage to connect (seeing as my cell phone has a crap battery), then we'll use fb. if starbucks works better, then we'll use starbucks. personally, i think westjet would work best, but... hey - that can't happen until we both leap the 'end of summer' hurdle.
-bee
I had no idea I could check stats like that Jen. How do you do it? Westjet sounds great to me:):)
if you hit design or new post and then go to the stats tab you can nose around and see what's going on. really easy.
WARNING/SPOILER ALERT:
if you secretly harbour feelings of joy every time someone comments on your blog, this is NOT a place you should go. you will now know when people read it whether they leave a comment or not. you'll begin to feel disappointed when no one read that post that you worked so hard on, or wonder why people were so crazy about reading that two-line post. you will begin writing for your readers instead of writing for yourself.
be warned.
I love the stats thingy. And I am unhealthily concerned about whether people comment on my posts or not. I need at least one comment. Otherwise I feel inappropriately heartbroken. I imagine shutting off facebook in my post camp life. Or at least deleting half my "friends" and taking a several month fbing break.
So I wrote this beautiful long response to both your social media posts...and then blogger won't let me sign in as me in my office...hence the comment the other day.
And I seem to have lost my train of thought to the wind since then. It was something along the lines of maybe our problems with social media boils down to our laziness and lack of effort in general. The idea that everything can be done faster and processed more efficiently than ever before which makes us intolerant of communications lasting longer than 5 or 10 minutes. Or that we can track each other's lives without really having to invest in them...or invest too much in them...Staring at the "D" above the checkmark..waiting for it to turn to an "R"...and getting our shirts in a knot when the "R" doesn't illicit a response.
Maybe we're just grieving the loss of the romanticism of tangible communication. Really - we haven't changed all that much...just the form in which communication travels has changed. Instead of Pony Express riders, stagecoaches, or telegrams (which I'm sure were not private forms of communication) we have facebook, texts, emails, and messenger services. Were the Pony Express riders and telegrams not the Facebook of those days?
Maybe we're just mourning change in our lives. How many of us swore that beta or VHS would never get phased out...or that our A-Track or cassette tapes would be good forever? Technology will change...maybe someday we will be able to teleport anywhere in the world and tangible, face to face communication will be reignited. Maybe we will run from that too or overuse that to the point where we question its purpose. Maybe we won't even notice the influence it plays in our lives.
My original post wasn't exactly like that. It was better but I think you get it.
peace out
.:bear:.
I wish I had an eloquent response for those incisive observations... This is the price I pay for being opinionated on a controversial subject... it leaves ample space for critique. Maybe that's what we want though... a conversation/dialogue about how it affects us, instead of the blissful ignorance that pretends we're not affected.
And Kerry... I also have an unhealthy interest in my stats. Comments... less so. I like the conversation that occasionally happens here, but I have learned that the more honest/vulnerable my post, the less likely people will comment. Maybe they don't get it. Maybe it feels like peeking in my journal. Maybe it feels too vulnerable to comment. I don't know. But those are often the posts that matter most to me. So I don't care.
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