Welcome to 32nd and Chestnut...

This is the blog for 75 or so Drexel students, most of whom are new to college and new to Drexel.

We'll document the strangeness of college life, try to translate our experience for diverse readers, and chronicle what it means to be a college student during these crazy days of economic turmoil and political battle.

That's it for now; I have to go an play Spore.

Monday, October 6, 2008

I am the coolest person on Facebook

A lot of what Zuckerberg is quoted is most definitely true, that is, only if you change the word "kindly" to "cool."  For example, "when you're sharing information publicly, it really incentivizes you to be cool," or, "it aligns people so that it becomes good to be cool."  The only way it would make people act more kindly is if it is kindly to act cool, and in most circles it's not.

Facebook, to me, is like a digital advertisement for people.  It's a page saying, "Hey, look at all these cool interests I have and all of these cool things I do."  The average facebook page will contain information like favorite books, movies, TV shows, hobbies, and music.  These things are all perfect indicators to an average facebook "creeper" of what kind of person you are.  It's not difficult for me to look at a person's music, see that they are in love with the N'Sync, and instantly write them off.  This is hardly a "kindly" thing to do.  If I met this person in reality, I might first find he or she is nice, considerate, and an overall decent human.  Later, when I find out about their crappy music obsession, I would probably be able to forgive them (probably not though, my heart is cold).

Unfortunately, there is no way to look cool on facebook.  Example:  Sally has seventeen-hundred pictures of herself, a list of her favorite music, movies, and TV shows that seems to never end, and about 35 of her favorite quotes.  In addition, she has about thirty-two applications, the most annoying of which being her Bumper Stickers, of which she has two-hundred and eleven.  Sally, I say to thee, "You are not cool."  Obviously, Sally is trying way to hard to look cool, which means she is totally insecure, superficial, and ultimately lame.  Get a (expletive deleted) life.  On the other side of this, Bob spends no time on the facebook he created.  Wow, Bob, you have three friends, no one takes pictures of you, and you are completely uninteresting.  To me, this is a step in the right direction, but to most people, Bob is a nobody.  For the final example, I will use myself.  I have a small but flattering number of pictures, and my interests are short and vague.   I am trying to represent myself as cool by appearing disinterested in facebook, but obviously I care enough to go to some lengths to limit what gets put out on the internet in order to keep up this facade.  I am probably the least cool person on facebook.  On that note, friend request?

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