CSotD: The Lonely Crowd
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Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis has extended his brand by creating a rude personality that some people find tiresome but many, many others find hilarious. His blog is a compilation of posts that mostly reinforce the concept of a rude, insensitive boor who often offends people without realizing it, and he has made a cottage industry of videos along the same line.
This has led to some blurring of the lines between Pastis and the character, Rat, in Pearls. Today's strip is a particular case of breaking the fourth wall, not in addressing the audience so much as in erasing that line between character and creator: Pastis very quickly maxed out his "friends" count on Facebook, so that the issue of whether or not he accepts a "friend" request is moot.
Even if he liked you, (A) it would mess up his carefully nurtured public persona to admit it and (B) he is maxed out and can't accept new friends anyway.
Which brings us to today's strip and the concept of not accepting "friend" requests. I was off in Watertown, NY, this week doing a teacher workshop and some classroom visits in my other role and, as we were having a little wine in the evening, my hostess and my fellow presenter and I started talking about the little communities you assemble on Facebook — The professional friends, the personal friends, the shared-interest friends — and how they cross over. Some friends are, really, only professional contacts. Some friends are, genuinely, only personal friends. Some friends really are only there because of a hobby you share.
But there are some friendships that blend and the Venn diagrams can spread as you start reading postings and get drawn into these other aspects of someone's life. There are people I met on Facebook for a particular reason but who have now become part of those other communities.
I don't think that can really happen much, however, when you have 5,000 friends, which is the Facebook maximum. At the risk of bursting anyone's bubble, I kind of doubt that Stephan is reading your Facebook postings about the hike you took in the park last weekend or the recipe for artichoke hearts that you discovered, when he's got 4,999 other friends also finding new ways to enjoy food and going on their own personal ventures out into spring.
He may very well have another, more anonymous Facebook account where he keeps up with high school buddies, former girlfriends and distant cousins, but it can't be that one.
Meanwhile, for those of us in less exalted public view, the question of turning down "friend" requests is a little more personal. Unlike Rat, we're not really looking for ways to insult people, and it's a little bit like having someone bring their tray to your table in the middle-school cafeteria.
As they sit down, you have a moment of:
1. Wow! I can't believe this person wants to eat lunch with little old me! or
2. Oh, yeah. So-and-so's friend. Kind of an interesting person. or
3. Who the hell is this? Why are they sitting here?
In that last case, it's usually someone collecting friends, someone who thinks the number of friends you have will enhance the experience. As soon as they get a new friend, they spray friend requests to everyone on that person's friends list.
This becomes kind of strange when your shared-interest group includes, for example, overseas cartoonists who post work that is either universal or posted in translation. (Cartoonists from smaller countries often go for "universal" because the audience for cartoons in their own language can be pretty limited.)
It's great to see what they've got going, both in their own cartooning and when they post links to larger projects they are involved in.
When their non-cartooning Facebook friends start looking to build numbers, however, you end up with friends who aren't posting cartoons, aren't posting in English and sometimes aren't even posting in a script you can identify.
For a time, I approved all sorts of people, given that I am more Goat than Rat. But recently, realizing that, in fact, Facebook doesn't send rejections when you don't approve a request, I've started looking at the walls of strangers who want to be friends, and to ignore the request if everything on their wall looks like "ეს ხდება იქნება ქართულ ენაზე. ეს არის ლამაზი სკრიპტი, მაგრამ მე ვერ ხედავთსიტყვას იგი."
I'm sure they'll never notice anyway, and Rat can take some small comfort in knowing that, even if there were a "rude response" option, they wouldn't understand it unless he phrased it: "ვირთაგვას არ დააკმაყოფილა თქვენი უბედური ცოტა დამარცხებულის სახე."
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