Saturday, January 5, 2008

My sister is my facebook pimp

So I got tricked onto facebook a little while ago by an old friend who kept emailing me about seeing his great pictures on facebook. The only thing was I had to actually open a facebook account to see his pics. Now you should all know by now that I love pictures. Pictures, photographs, art, I just love it all. I especially love looking at other people's pictures, you learn alot from them. But the idea of joining facebook was sort of revolting. Not really what I was interested in. But after 4 email prompts, I succumbed and joined. Now I could see my friend's pictures. Unfortunately, I had been tricked. Bastard had only posted that one picture I had already seen which had teased me into joining. So now here I was, on facebook with only one friend in the world. I was such a loser. I looked at my friends wall, he had 14 friends. Hmmmm, I thought. He tricked me onto facebook just to have more friends on his profile page. Bastard. So having only one friend in the world, I thought, well let me see who else I know on facebook. Then I remembered my niece and nephew, who are both in high school, are on facebook. So I poked them and they very goodnaturedly added their loser aunt to their friends network. Now I got to see their profile page. Talk about facebook envy! They both had something like 400 friends and had all these fun things like hatching eggs, growing plants, shaking snowglobes, fun quizzes, video clips, etc. I looked back at my facebook page. So boringly plain and white with only one pathetic post on my wall. Such a loser.

But then my gmail account had an item where it looked for friends for me via my contacts book. This is how I found Stephen Parrish's facebook page. And he wrote a blog about it right here . I also found out my best friend was on facebook, but never told me about it! So she had no choice but to friend me too. So now I had like 5 friends but still no fun stuff on my wall. I checked back at my bastard friend's wall, he was now up to 40 friends. Bastard. So I graffiti'd his wall and told him he should stop friending all the convicts just to pump up his numbers. But still my wall was hopelessly lame. And then I did it. I griped about facebook to my sister and that's when it happened. I became a facebook ho and my sister was my pimp.

My younger sister is very different from me. She is a social butterfly and I am the loner sitting comfortably in the back grunting in response to any question posed to me and nursing my drink. So she friended me and then she started asking her friends to friend me too. Suddenly I was up to 9 friends and was getting gifts and hugs and other such interesting things. Hmmmm, my little sister felt so sorry for me she had to have her friends friend me on facebook. There is something very sad and pathetic about this, huh?

But before I could get too bothered by this, I found another blogging friend on facebook. Precie then invited me to play Scrabulous!!!! What's that you ask? Scrabble on facebook! I was SO there. Problem is, you can't cheat. And if you get bad tiles, you're screwed. But hey, at least I was playing against someone with a phd in English so at least if I lost, I could say, hey, she has a phd in English, how could I win? And if I win, then I do the little WOO HOO, I'M BAD, SO BAD, UH HUH dance and become really obnoxious, but not to Precie because I'd want her to play with me again.

So now I know the real joy of facebook, playing scrabble with friends on the internet and superpoking them. Doesn't that sound like fun? You can also poke people, send them hugs, throw snowballs and sheep. Now throwing a sheep intrigued me so much that I threw one at myself just to see what happens. Apparently all that happens is that my wall now says "Ellen has thrown a sheep at herself." No picture of a sheep going splat on a cartoon person. No sheep guts splayed across the wall. Just those silly words. Where's the joy in this? So apparently I have now been poked, hugged and had cheesecake thrown at me - all in words that appear on my wall. Hmmmm, I'm not really getting this. I may have to sucker punch myself just for the joy of seeing the words "Ellen has now sucker punched herself." At least this is mildly amusing to me.

But now my facebook page actually looks less loseresque. I have a hatching egg which will develop into something disgustingly cute that will make me Aw and gag all at the same time. I also have been sent a growing plant. The only kind of plant I can't kill. Seriously, I have the black thumb of death. People have bought me many plants and told me not to worry, I can't kill it. And yet I ALWAYS kill them. I don't mean to. I want to be able to grow things. Both my parents have such green thumbs they could grow poppies out of their asses if they wanted to. But not me. My friend bought me a little cute cactus. Such a cute little thing. Only had to water it once a month. Still managed to kill it. Turned it into a smushed moldy crater instead of the cute little spiky pickle it once was. So I have high hopes for this virtual plant. It should stay green and pretty forever. Shoot maybe there is something to this facebook stuff.

But I'm gonna have to draw the line at the pimpage. No more pimping friends for me, sis, thank you very kindly. Don't cry for me, Pimpina. I don't need 40 friends on facebook. The ones I have are fine with me. You don't have to worry about me. It's not a sin to look like a loser. As long as I don't care that I look like a loser, that's all that matters. So tell your friends to stop friending me. I like your friends, they are very nice. But I'd rather be a facebook loser than a facebook ho.

32 comments:

Erica Orloff said...

My oldest daughter got me on Facebook (she's leaving for college this year). She was like, "Don't you want to be my friend?" No, I don't. I'm a mom not a friend. But then she told me we could play Scrabble online. "Why not downstairs in the living room? We live in the same house?" "Oh, but we can play with friends of mine in FLorida. And when I go to college, we can play online." SOOOOOOOOO, I was conned into joining for Scrabble. Now her and her knucklehead friends all send me Facebook cocktails. I feel like a Facebook ho, Ello. LOL! Thanks for making me smile . . . I hear ya!
E

Carleen Brice said...

See, Facebook and MySpace...I just don't get them. I need a pimp for both.

Merry Monteleone said...

Facebook ho, bwahaha...

I have a myspace page, and I stopped in pretty regularly for a little bit, but never really did much more than talk some baseball smack with my best friend from high school and fiddle with different songs on my profile...

Facebook sounds interesting. Maybe I should sign up for an account and then I could be a facebook ho... and then I could get this nifty tee shirt Seriously, I want that tee shirt... I love this girls' site and if I didn't think the parents at Kindergarten pick up would make the sign of the cross as I passed, I would probably have broken down and bought one by now.

McKoala said...

I am so afraid of Facebook/MySpace addiction, in addition to the many other computerised addictions I have developed, that I've completely avoided them. I know I will stumble in there some time and not emerge for three weeks.

Larramie said...

Is it just me or does Facebook and MySpace give you that feeling of being back in high school and trying to be "cool?" ;)

moonrat said...

hahahahaha OH goodness i wish i could friend you. then you would have 10 friends and i would have 2. but the rally monkey would have to friend you also so in fact you'd have 11.

alas for anonymity.

pacatrue said...

MySpace pages always seem so insanely cluttered and take forever to load and then you have to listen to some crappy music they've chosen everytime you stop by and none of the friends are ever saying anything interesting and 2/3rds of the material is locked to the public forcing you to get an account.

I have three pages.

(j/k)

Stephen Parrish said...

Is it just me or does Facebook and MySpace give you that feeling of being back in high school and trying to be "cool?"

Exactly. I tried MySpace first but the experience freaked me out. A friend insisted I had to be SOMEWHERE, so I went to FaceBook next, and it freaked me out too, but this was the end of the road for uncool, unstreetwise nerds like me so I signed up.

Eato was my first friend. I have a couple of more now, but Eato will always be first.

Hilarious post, Eato; you're a hoot.

Mary Witzl said...

Reading this has convinced me that I am right not to consider Facebook or MySpace. With any more diversions, I will stop doing housework and writing altogether, and believe me, it's bad enough as it is!

I love your description of a cactus -- 'cute little spiky pickle.' I do very well with plants, but I've killed my share of cactus plants. I think they somehow know I rejected the desert.

Akasha Savage. said...

I'm on facebook...but it's all too complicated for my nineteenth century brain; I never know what I'm doing. I just poke people here, throw the odd snowball there.
Is it suppose to be fun....? ;)

SzélsőFa said...

Facebook does sound kind of fun for me now.
I won't join, thanksverymuch. I'm already addicted to blogging
;-P

Hooray to oyour success!

cindy said...

haha! i put up a fake account to try and find my past crushes. ;*) didn't work so i remain (happily)facebookless.

Lisa said...

This is so funny. I had a plea from another friend to go out and get on Facebook because she needed some friends (I declined). I'll have to stick with my blogging friends. One more distraction and I'd quit getting dressed and leaving the house :)

Charles Gramlich said...

"rather be a facebook loser rather than a facebook ho."

Sounds like a philosophy to live by. I'm so out of it I don't even know what facebook is. I'm afraid to find out. I have enough online stuff happening now.

Sarah Hina said...

Ello, you have gotta write humor pieces for The New Yorker someday. Those losers don't make me laugh nearly as much as you do!

*throwing a sheep in your general direction*

:)

Sherry said...

You are cracking me up...you wrote about this so well...I have to say after experimenting on facebook for a few months...I hate it!!! It's a great way for me to message oldest son in Uni but I'm so tired of getting messages and "invitations" to play this game, hatch that egg, guess the movie, who are you, pick your nose with me or whatever...UGH!!! I'm a mature woman for goodness sake..I just don't want to do this crap!!!

So I still message son, and I poke him because that's what mom's do and basically it's just there and I don't bother with it...and some "friends" from the past, I'm not wanting them to find me!!

I do however think it's hysterical that you can't cheat at Scrabulous!!! LOL!!

Josephine Damian said...

Well, I gotta be the biggest whore (that's pronounced "hoo-were" where I come from) around.

When I started on myspace, I went into friend-whore frenzy until I got to 100, then I started coasting. In about 7 months I've racked up 425+ fiends. My goal is 1000 by year end.

My first week on myspace, an editor from an e-zine asked me to submit a story! (they thought my profile was cool and "dark"). I did. They accepted it. Yay!

Because I got such a quick payoff at the start, I kept up with it and have networked with all kinds of published authors, agents, and some cool wanna-be's (like me) as well.

Barry Eisler credits myspace with giving him his first NYT bestseller - sending bulletins is an easy way to get the word out - promotion-wise. All these social networking spaces can be tremendous promotional tools, and are well worth the time, IMO.

Yeah, I'm just as addicted to the Internet as the rest of you guys, but I limit the amount of time I spend on myspace, just as I limit my blogosphere time.

Chris Eldin said...

LOL!!! Hahahah!
I don't think this is for me right now, (another computer time suck) but what a great post!!
:-)

Sandra Cormier said...

Oh, my gosh... the pressure! It's bloody high school all over again. At least blogging is more like college.

Melissa Amateis said...

I have fought mightily against joining MySpace and Facebook and so far have won. I have my blog, which I think it sufficient - and I guess I don't get the whole appeal of Facebook and MySpace. Maybe I'm just getting old. ;-)

Josephine Damian said...

Melissa: I use myspace to drive traffic to my blog - it's a synergy, not a conflict in demands for time, IMO. For me, it's all about name recognition and networking - whatever works, as long as it's done in moderation.

Colleen_Katana said...

Oh, oh! I'm on facebook! Add me as your friend!

Although it has its dangers. My first boyfriend found me on facebook and I had to reconnect with him and his wife (my old cheerleading coach whom he had cheated on me with!) last year over Christmas. Drama.

Beware of Facebook and Myspace. It is inevitable that someone you don't want to see again will seek you out!

Precie said...

LOL!!! So glad I'm not the only one suffering Facebook addiction. This reminds me...I need to invite you to a few more apps...like "Likeness" and "Books iRead."

I do draw the line at Pirates and Zombies. Can't do those.

Scrabulous ROCKS. SuperPoke rocks. Facebook rocks. Everyone must join.

Josephine...do you hear me? You must join! Then I can challenge you to Scrabulous too! :)

Karissa Chen said...

hee hee hee. i am what one of my friends affectionately calls "a friend whore". i have a myspace, facebook, and a friendster account. it's simply unavoidable, though i do try to minimize the amt of clutter on my pages. scrabulous is awesome though.

moonrat refuses to play with me though.

Vesper said...

Funny and... scary!
You're very good, Ello!!! :-)

I'm on Facebook, but it's as if I weren't; I have two friends who had asked me to join so I did it, but that's the end of it. I have no idea how it works or what to do with it and I intend to leave it like that. :-)

March2theSea said...

i can't bring myself to join any social networking site...glad you are having some fun at least.

Lana Gramlich said...

I was nagged into joining Facebook by a Canadian friend. Within a day or two, a major Facebook security issue was announced in the news & I promptly cancelled my account. I'm also familiar with virus problems via MySpace, as it happens where I work all the time. Now I just won't "do" any of those social networking sites. I have an e-mail address & my friends know it (obviously, or they couldn't send me these invites.) If I had to join all of the social networking sites my friends belong to, I could never keep track of them.
There's something to be said for privacy, too...

Travis Erwin said...

Facebook sounds better than Myspace which I am on but don't get. If for no other reason than to try the scrabble, I'm gonna sing up for Facebook. Look for me soon so I won't be the pathetic guy with no friends.

Patti said...

i. am. resisting. facebook.....xpa

The Anti-Wife said...

I'm still trying to figure out all the nuances of blogging. I'm too old for all this shit!

olufunke grace bankole: said...

ello, you are hilarious!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the hilarious story! I, too, was coerced into joining Facebook. In fact I sent a link to this entry to that very friend, so she may just see this comment on here and protest. Anyway, up until the Pimp My Sister part, that is an excellent description of my own initiation into the phenomenon. Lots of fun to read!