Blogger kinda Guy

Greetings all,

I noticed something recently – The more time I spend on the blogger, the less time I spend on Facebook. For me this seems to me on par with my progression of technology and how I interact with it, and I regret nothing!

I joined Facebook back in 2008 sometime, like many I felt compelled to create a profile and be absorbed into what I consider social (or antisocial) networking 2.0.

I was always somewhat critical (it’s who I am!) of Facebook, it was nothing revolutionary to me, it had a squeaky clean image it desired to have/maintain and it seemed excessively commercial (i.e. “Liking” companies/brands/products), and much of it made little sense to me…yet people eat it up.

Like most people with a Facebook profile will understand, I had people I didn’t really know (or didn’t know at all) adding me as their “friend”. I’m a nice guy and if it didn’t appear to be a spam account, I would oblige. Out of my 300+ “friends” I believe I only sent friend requests approximately 20 people.

As time passed I found Facebook to make me a cynical person…more than usual.

I didn’t ‘like’ that people seemingly put so much emphasise on being popular, I mean people with 1000 friends? Really? Perhaps I think things through more than your average Joe but if someone with that many friends finally requests me to be a friend, I don’t feel particularly important…more like a figure to boost someone else’s ego – I get nothing out of this relationship.

I also don’t ‘like’ how certain people upload so many photos. Sure it’s a nice feature to have in order share tidbits of your life, but that should be all it is for. A certain friend of mine has 2000+ photos uploaded – is it just me or does that seem a bit excessive? I haven’t looked at all the pictures as I don’t want to dedicate my entire download limit to a bunch of vanity photos, but I would estimate that around 90% or more of these photos to be just that, vanity photos…photos to remind everyone how cute/fun loving/exciting that person is.

Speaking of not “liking” things on Facebook…I don’t like the “like” function. I mean on blogger you can’t (unless you have a special feature?) just give a approving little gesture to indicate that you aren’t opposed to one’s thoughts, ideas or opinions. I like real comments, I want to know what others think, their takes on things, that’s right - a simple “like” doesn’t sit well with me.

Once I began blogging and I decided to opt in to ‘monetize’ the page, I got thinking of the ads on Facebook. “Hey” I thought “you can’t opt in to profit share from the ads that quite literally litter up your profile”. As I see it on Facebook you create content, attract your peers to the site as a whole like moths to the flame and it makes them money, and them only.

Another thing about Facebook and its users is the little “notes” application. I used this a few times, nobody took any notice despite my using it to express feelings, share ideas and so on in more words than the update feature allows for. On blogger I can write, people read it, comment it and appreciate it. Facebook is restrictive (which isn’t all bad, as I consider twitter to be a good thing) and its users have come accustom to this. They don’t care that I am capable of real thought, they just want to approve of where and what I had for lunch!

I feel more a part of something real and of a true community here on blogger.

My followers on blogger are people I’ve never met, they aren’t just co-workers, people I went to school with 10 years ago and have little to nothing to do with anymore, and they aren’t family that could call me whenever they wanted…they are real people, genuine, intelligent, funny, friendly, thought provoking and honest. And most of all they are appreciated, by me…and I hope by the rest of this great community.

Don’t ever change blogger :)