Confessions of a "Space-Facer"

Okay…I’m blogging…it’s been a while…too long actually.
If anyone out there is accustomed to checking our blog to see what we’re up to they’ve probably given up thinking we started a blogspot just “keeping up with the jones’”.
Well maybe we were…or are…but that’s no excuse.
So here it is my excuse…but it’s more of a confession: I’m addicted to Facebook and Myspace…or “spaceface” as Ryan affectionately refers to these networks.

Here’s a short history on this addiction because it didn’t come about overnight.
No, I’ve been nursing this addiction for some time.
I remember Ryan explaining the “blog” concept a few years ago.
“It’s like an online diary” he said…or more appropriately an online journal (journal sounds less “soap opera-ish”).
Cool.
He could find people we and he used to know and see what they were up to and see current pics.
I remember being mildly interested at the time. But not giving it much thought,
Every now and then he’d show me someone’s recent update and we’d reminisce on the good ‘ol days.
And that was it.

So….skip to December 2005.

A local band advertized that they had their schedule on something called myspace…
The funny thing with myspace is it sucks you in…you aren’t privy to ALL the information until you sign up.
So…I signed up.
And…suddenly I was online AND “Tom” was my first friend.
Tom is the myspace mastermind and he is available for quick tips and a bit of trouble shooting.
I remember thinking “What if I don’t WANT Tom as my friend? I mean…he didn’t even ASK!”

Fast forward to Feb. 2006.

I get a notification email telling me someone has sent me a message on myspace.
Overcome with curiosity I checked it out and it was my friend Sarah…she was on myspace and searching to see who else she’d know.
And she found me.
Unbeknownst to me my profile page was completely “unpimped”, without a picture and just the default settings…like saying I was single.
Needless to say Sarah thought this was pretty funny and after accepting her as a friend she commented on my page about me being single.
By that afternoon I had changed all my settings, and had a picture up.
The following months were a flurry of friend requests, HTML “pimping”, adding profile songs, more pics and surfing myspace to see just who was out there.
Then came the blogging…
On myspace if you click on the link for blogs and there is none it says “Why don’t you try writing one…if you don’t like it you can always delete it”.
So…I tried it…and became hooked…that was sometime last summer.
I know myspace has received a bad rap for it’s spam and what have you…but I like it, it’s music orientated and that’s right up my ally.

Now…fast forward to Dec 2006.

I had coffee with a friend and in and amoungst all the chit chat she said “You should check out facebook”
Again…curiousity got the best of me and I was sucked in…signed up…didn’t do much and then suddenly…I started finding people.
The funny thing about facebook is that it starts to increase exponentially…the more people you know…the more people you find.
The home page is crazy because you can see what everyone else’s doing…which is even more addicting than myspace because you don’t’ even have to go looking for it…it does the work for you.
I can join groups, comment on people’s walls, send emails, post pictures, blog and even have a profile song.
Then there’s the poking…
What is a facebook poke anyways?
I noticed a group people were joining called “Enough with the poking already…let’s just have sex”…but I think that’s taking poking to an extreme…I mean…I return a friendly facebook poke to my brother but lets face it…I’m not trying to put the moves on.
So I joined a group called “Enough with the poking already…let’s just have pancakes”.
And there you have it…I poke the people I want to have pancakes with…although I think I could have pancakes with just about anyone…as long as they don’t try and eat my stack!
Another “facebook’ism is tagging.”
I can post a pic of…say Ryan and me and then tag us in it…this then links his page with this pic and notifies him. It’s a great idea…except of course when the baby pictures or really bad highschool pics are scanned in..yikes!
It’s all good though…I have no complaints.

I love myspace and facebook because it allows me to network with everyone…and keep in touch with people I wouldn’t normally see in the course of a week. It’s also great to keep in touch with family as Ryan’s is spread out in various places and my brother and sister-in-law are in Korea. AND local goings’ on and band schedules are posted here…so I’m all set. My vocabulary has changed too…I now frequently say: friending, tagging, poking, comment, upload, blogstalking, and HTML.

I have been doing my best to multi-task but I fear this blogspot page as suffered in spite of my best efforts. I will try and do better…but I can’t promise anything…myspace and facebook have me wrapped around their fingers!

Do you “spaceface”?
If so I’m friending you!!!

Love Kath