I remember the first day my mother arrived on Myspace. I had giant pot-leafs strewn across my page, odes to my favorite beers, friends who referred to me as "Skank" when writing me a comment about a previous party we went too and got shitfaced. To me, all hilarious, all innocent, all for me and my friends alone to share in.
THEN.... IRENE HAS FRIEND REQUESTED YOU What?????!!!! Irene!!! I don't know any Irene's......WAIT, IRENE MY MOTHER?????
I knew my mother could get online, I knew she had email, I knew she was fairly computer literate...but I did not think in a million years that she would be interested in the likes of a web presence.
I PANICKED and quickly had to change a few things. Instead of pot-leafs I thought "should I put up the Polish flag as my background? Should I change my hero's to my Mother and Father instead of Danny Danko, Beer and Hitler (jk). For a split second I thought I should put something about Jesus just in case my mother showed my grandmother my page. I couldn't NOT accept my own mother....so I reverted back to just a lame-o myspace profile where my friends were forced to enter CAPTCHA and wait for their comments to be approved. It was at that point, I just stopped using Myspace. That was years ago....
Now my entire family is on Facebook. I have managed to rant and rave enough about how stupid and pointless twitter is, so that none of them have joined that bandwagon, but I feel that will soon come to an end. There is nothing worse than your ultra conservative catholic sister checking your tweets and seeing that 50% of them are about legalizing marijuana, my support for our President and my extreme lack of faith.
This shouldn't have caused me stress, but it did. Some things parents just shouldn't know. At 15, 27 or 40. There are just some things better left untold to the people who changed your diapers, drove you to basketball practice and had the awful task of discussing sex and drugs with you. I want my mother to believe that I have held off from having sex until I become married, that I never drink or do drugs, that I faithfully follow my bible and spend my weekends volunteering for animal shelters. Insane? Yes.....but totally possible BEFORE THE INTERNET.
It was silly for me to think they wouldn't all join in eventually, so recently I decided, instead of jumping off said bandwagon, I would embrace it. I would take all of this social networking bs and turn it into a way for my family to become tolerable of my less than agreeable stance on a majority of issues. I have led a fairly good and moral life and am not regretful of my decisions or ashamed of my stances, so what do I care? It has since opened the door to conversations that I wouldn't have expected to have. Very honest and raw conversations with family that have helped me understand where I come from and why I act the way I do. I have learned more about my family because of these networks and know first hand that I have swayed a few of their opinions concerning certain things (suckahs).
The other day my father who is in his 60's explained to me what twitter was. He said he understood the point of it, he said he thought it could be excellent for local business and keeping in touch. He also said "I would never do it because I know nobody cares what the hell i'm doing during the day". I quickly responded "I WOULD LOVE IT IF YOU JOINED!!!!" (I had a mini stroke, obviously). But how cool to get a twitter from your pops saying something like "Just caught the sweetest of Gar fish while out back" or "Go Tigers!".
For now, I still have twitter. At least as far as I know. Its linked on my Blog, it wouldn't be hard to find me.....but soon.....soon I know I will receive a tweet from my mother that says "@jamieexp what do you mean you need a brewski at 1pm?" "@jamieexp how come you aren't studying and are instead sitting on the internet?" "@jamieexp why did @ashesforadam say he wanted to do your mom?"....
*sigh*.....
Check out the site I linked above, its pretty funny. I can only imagine the situations these platforms have gotten people in. I know for me without them I would probably still be viewed as a hardworking straight laced young lady who is patiently waiting for prince charming to sweep me off my feet and marry me in a catholic church.
Fuck that. :P
Peace,
Jamie
twitter: @JamieExp
jamie@theexperience.fm
