One would think that the first bitchy thing I'd say is that people who update their status in a language other than English are just showing off. But I can't accuse anyone of that because that's not what I'm doing when I write one in Spanish (I am showing off, however, when I put one in Portuguese). And I am aware that it certainly might look that way to some of my Facebook friends, but the majority of my contacts do it...for us, it's quite often not even conscious. It may seem sort of an exclusionary thing, but I would argue that many others post status updates in English that are way more exclusive or cryptic, either because they are really a message for some select contact(s) or they fall under the "Ask me what I mean" category (véase, por ejemplo/see for example, "Bill is getting impatient.") Sometimes they're just not-so-cryptic ways of declaring something like, "I got ripped and laid!" (esp. with younger users). More categories to be announced in a future post. For now just a general explanation. They all start with the person's name and a verb usually follows. My updates from August/Sept. 2008 appear below and probably contain examples of the above categories, though I'd probably deny it if anyone called me on it.
19 March, 2009
They said they liked them...
So I thought maybe I'd keep a collection of my Facebook status updates somewhere other than Facebook in case my addiction gets so bad that I have to delete my account. At least I'll have them somewhere when I do write my crónica. One of the sections will be a categorization in list form, a la monsiváisiana of what people use the status space for. And as I will most likely be tempted to channel the inner Dorothy Parker and be a bit sharp (léase/read: bitchy) in my analysis, evaluation or definitions (léase/read: judgement) of some of the purposes the status updates serve for people, I'd better not exempt myself from the cut.
One would think that the first bitchy thing I'd say is that people who update their status in a language other than English are just showing off. But I can't accuse anyone of that because that's not what I'm doing when I write one in Spanish (I am showing off, however, when I put one in Portuguese). And I am aware that it certainly might look that way to some of my Facebook friends, but the majority of my contacts do it...for us, it's quite often not even conscious. It may seem sort of an exclusionary thing, but I would argue that many others post status updates in English that are way more exclusive or cryptic, either because they are really a message for some select contact(s) or they fall under the "Ask me what I mean" category (véase, por ejemplo/see for example, "Bill is getting impatient.") Sometimes they're just not-so-cryptic ways of declaring something like, "I got ripped and laid!" (esp. with younger users). More categories to be announced in a future post. For now just a general explanation. They all start with the person's name and a verb usually follows. My updates from August/Sept. 2008 appear below and probably contain examples of the above categories, though I'd probably deny it if anyone called me on it.
One would think that the first bitchy thing I'd say is that people who update their status in a language other than English are just showing off. But I can't accuse anyone of that because that's not what I'm doing when I write one in Spanish (I am showing off, however, when I put one in Portuguese). And I am aware that it certainly might look that way to some of my Facebook friends, but the majority of my contacts do it...for us, it's quite often not even conscious. It may seem sort of an exclusionary thing, but I would argue that many others post status updates in English that are way more exclusive or cryptic, either because they are really a message for some select contact(s) or they fall under the "Ask me what I mean" category (véase, por ejemplo/see for example, "Bill is getting impatient.") Sometimes they're just not-so-cryptic ways of declaring something like, "I got ripped and laid!" (esp. with younger users). More categories to be announced in a future post. For now just a general explanation. They all start with the person's name and a verb usually follows. My updates from August/Sept. 2008 appear below and probably contain examples of the above categories, though I'd probably deny it if anyone called me on it.
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