Social Peer Pressuring

I remember when a whole bunch of my friends signed up for Xanga. They were blogging like crazy, leaving comments on each others’ Xanga blogs and having a jolly old time. Well, they all encouraged me to read their Xanga blogs, but I couldn’t comment on their blogs without a Xanga account. So I created a Xanga account just to leave comments.

Then came the barrage of emails requesting I join Friendster. I held out for a long time. I held out for a very long time, but I kept getting the emails over and over again. The only way to stop the emails from coming? Join Friendster. So I joined. I even gave it a chance (Maybe this social networking thing isn’t so bad…). It was lame. Friendster’s server was slow or down all the time. And I just didn’t see what the point of the site was. Sure, you connect with some old friends you don’t talk to any more. Then what happens? Well, you’re connected, but you still don’t talk to each other.

The most recent fad among my friends is Facebook. They rave about Facebook. Well, for a while my wife held out. Then she spent a weekend away with some of our friends and came back a Facebook convert. That made me even more resistant. It’s like a cult! Now, my wife is “social networking” on Facebook with my friends because I’m not on Facebook. To be honest, I recognize that my wife is having more fun on Facebook than either of us ever had on Friendster (is it possible to have less fun than on Friendster?), but I just don’t like the pressure. Join us. Join us! That’s what I hear when someone says When are you going to sign up for Facebook?

Maybe some day I will join the cult, but it just feels so creepy to me, like some weird middle school clique, a pyramid scheme, or lemmings jumping off a cliff. Well, at least the lemmings seem happy.