Who needs 300 friends?
As I get older I find myself increasingly annoyed by the ridiculous obsessions of younger people - the things they ‘can’t live without.’
Perhaps the most irritating - and bemusing - of all is Facebook.
I recently read a magazine article about some young up-and-coming singers who all have social networking websites to thank for getting their careers off the ground. One of them boasted of having 1,700 ‘friends’ on MySpace.
While I can see the benefits of promoting yourself, as an artist, via the internet I just don’t get the whole Facebook ‘virtual friends’ thing.
Just because someone takes a few minutes to click onto your MySpace site doesn’t make them a friend. You don’t actually know this person. You’ve never been down the pub with them, you’ve never had lunch with them, you’ve never gossiped over endless cups of tea with them, you’ve never held their hair back while they’ve been sick after a night out. You don’t do all that with virtual friends - because they’re not real.
I’ve lost count of the number of emails I’ve had from people I barely know asking me to be their ‘Facebook’ friend. There’s something a bit desperate and empty about it all. People are collecting friends like they’re new must-have accessories.
Lily Allen claimed to have a whole studio full of ‘friends’ on her BBC3 chat show. No, these were just people who wanted to get on a TV show for free. And these would be the same ‘friends’ who went on to desert the show in droves, judging by the woeful viewing figures.
Even people over the age of 30 are doing it. Isn’t Facebook something you grow out of by your mid twenties?
Several years ago, in the pre-Facebook age, setting up your own website just to showcase your own ordinary life was considered a bit naff. At least it was by me and my friends.
A girl I used to work with set up a website long before it became fashionable and, as my mates and I pored over it, our jaws dropped and our toes curled. "God this is awful, I’m embarrassed for her," I sneered as we clicked on photographs of her on various holidays and nights out. One picture was of her "looking pensive on the ski slopes." I kid you not.
When she went on to get married and have babies the website was expanded to include photos capturing every cough and spit of her family life. They were accompanied by ‘jokey’ little captions that made our toes curl even more. "What makes them think anyone is remotely interested in their family canoeing holiday?" my friends and I would ask each other, shaking our heads in despair.
We’re a bitchy lot, fair enough, but come on. Why would anyone else be interested in the minutiae of your family life? It’s the 21st century equivalent of boring your neighbours with a slide show of your holiday.
I know it sounds a bit dated, but what happened to just sticking your photographs in an album? Why the need to show them off to the rest of the world?
And that’s basically what this Facebook malarky is - it’s showing off. "Look at me, look at how many friends I have, look at my hilarious holiday snaps, look at me larking about at Glastonbury last year, look at me in my canoe, look at me eating my tea, look at me swilling out my wheelie bin."
Who cares? At the end of the day, if you have enough time on your hands to post every detail of your life onto your own website, you’re not exactly getting out there and having a life are you?