Head Tale

I’m still continually amazed at Facebook as a communication tool and especially the varied ways that people use it, especially to share the most intimate details of their lives. (Is privacy dead?)

Here are a few of the things I’ve personally witnessed that I found either unique and/or “Wow, I can’t believe they posted that!”…

1. A family friend posts simply “It’s a plus!” to announce her pregnancy.
2. Numerous separations and divorces of varying degrees of animosity – from the simple “John’s relationship status is now single” to knock-down, drag-out comment brawls between the unhappy couple.
3. A co-worker announced that she’d been diagnosed with cancer and has since provided regular updates including some that are quite hilarious (“I never realised it but chemotherapy makes *all* your hair fall out. Best Brazilian ever!”)
4. Along the same line, a classmate at Western happily posts a naked photo of herself as her profile pic. Not sure if that was a statement of protest against Facebook’s restrictions on nudity, an artistic statement or an oops!
5. Somebody posted a picture of what they had for lunch (just seeing if you’re still paying attention!)
6. Another classmate who passed away quite suddenly but his profile page remains up (and occasionally active with people posting remembrances although less-so every year) to this day.
7. The post that inspired this list. There’s a guy I don’t even know but who I added as a friend when I first joined in 2006 while in library school back when FB was only open to people with an .edu address. I was desperate to find people I had some connection with since many of my real-life friends weren’t on the site and I ended up adding anyone I could find from Saskatchewan. This guy was from Oxbow (where my mom’s family is from), was studying in the US (Harvard I think!) and had political views very different than mine. But I added him and have occasionally seen him cross my news feed – including just today where I realised he’s had a really bad accident and is now in a coma, having had a couple different surgeries and whatnot. Scary, sad stuff.
8. Saw somebody do the infamous “First day back at work and boy does it suck!” post and they’re still employed at the same place.
9. Saw somebody else doing a post about how little work they were doing and they’re no longer employed at the same place!
10. To tie it full circle to #1, another former classmate posted the following to let all their friends (and apparently her husband?) know they were pregnant: “Hey Paul S., You’re going to be a dad! Hey, posting stuff like this is what Facebook is for, right?”