facebook ageism
i got into a weird personal discussion over IM in which a long distance friend of mine stated that he thought it was disrespectful for me to have “it’s complicated” as my relationship status (because – hey – it is complicated) on Facebook instead of the generic “in a relationship”. under “what are you looking for?”, i had also checked “whatever i can get” (instead of “friends” or “networking”), because i thought it was funnier than the other responses. the result of the combination of these two, he said, was that i was “denying my relationship” online and leaving myself open to or even inviting romantic advances on Facebook and trying to hide my LTR.
i found his arguments traditional and inside the box, and he wouldn’t take any of my web 2.0 counter-arguments seriously. first, i don’t agree with him in interpreting the “what are you looking for ” question and “whatever i can get” response sexually, and secondly, i don’t agree that if you put something other than “in a relationship” you’re courting advances (unless you put you’re single when you’re not, then maybe you are). nevermind that fact that i don’t hook up with people i meet online, nor do i ever have any interest in ever doing so. or, that almost everyone in the world who knows me well enough to be my friend on facebook knows that i’ve been in an LTR for almost 10 years. besides, i said, jay’s facebook profile says he’s looking for “random play”. so WTF? why am i the lecherous whore?
eventually i got him to shut up about it, especially when i added “with jay” (with link to jay’s facebook profile) to the “it’s complicated status”, and jay’s now shows he’s in a complicated relationship with me. our respective answers for what we’re looking for remain the same.
anyway, then my friend started poking around his own profile, and wanted to know why he didn’t have those options – “random play” and “whatever i can get” – under “what are you looking for?” it turns out that facebook decided to get rid of those options for people over 30, as some straight hetero types found it offensive.
i know a lot of people on facebook who are in the market for “random play” over the age of 30. assuming that anyone over 30 is somehow either going to be offended by that or “not that type” or already too settled down for such a thing is just …. ageist. and lame.
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What I want to know is, will Facebook change my answer to something else when I turn 30?
Yet another reason why I refuse to have anything to do with the site. And both my strongest reasons came from you, Amy.
ben: there are reports of that, yes. fascists!
and erik: i know there are issues with the site, but some of us are just soc.net junkies.
oh, ben, i hope so. and i hope it involves a reference to staying home with video games.
facebook is proving a super-interesting new playfield, imo. i’m intrigued by just about all of it.
(oh–and yes, that’s lame ageism. except… amy, you’re 30; and jay’s over 30; so what are you talking about?!)
wow. just wow.
all of it.
orange: this change was recent. if you already had those selected, you’re grandfathered in. for the time being.
you are grandfathered into a euphemism for a se*ually-adventurous lifestyle choice. that’s fantastic. i’m so glad you got in while the getting was good.
only slightly tangenting, but on a broader theme: i’m also glad that we’re young enough to be getting in on this whole web 2.0, SNS, text-centric (see danah’s post today), over-communicative THING that’s going on. i mean, how much more interesting is it to be living through this craziness than to be watching it from the age of 40 with our noses in the air?
orange, ouch.
I try not to keep my nose in the air, it just happens. With Facebook, I’ve got very solid reasons for staying away and not signing over my likeness and use of my likeness and thoughts in perpetuity. Draconian terms of use/service need to be exposed and the sites that try to initiate them need to be taken to task over them.
However, I do get much of the Web 2.0 buzz and appreciate the massive convergence and communications explosion of options. But things like Twitter (except as a very useful emergency broadcasting mechanism) just leave me scratching my head. Just like I can’t understand why the kids in my elementary school are so insane for the “pro” wrestling garbage.
ha. ageist me! i’m sorry, erik. i don’t know you at all; i have no idea how old you are; i have no attachment at all to whether you’re on facebook or not; and i was writing my post thinking amy was probably my sole audience.
rereading what i wrote, i suppose i could clarify that i don’t think age is an automatic barrier to appreciation of web 2.0 socializing. i picked 40 arbitrarily–i should’ve said 50 in order to be less likely to offend. i have friends in their late 30s and early 40s who are way into SNS and web 2.0 communication, but i don’t think i’m wrong when i say that it’s rare to find people over 40 in the general population who comprehend and embrace and participate in SNSs and crazy fluid constant e-comm.
(i don’t blog on my SNSs, and there’s nothing i’m sharing on facebook that i care to protect. i understand the general distress that people have about ‘draconion’ terms of use, but i only care about it in the abstract.)
No worries, orange. I hate to say it but I’ve got some ageist qualities (mostly dealing with the punk drivers in my town) and I wholeheartedly agree that most 40 somethings are clueless about SNS and Web 2.0.
Kids these days look at email as being the tool of the old fogey internet set.