Facial Recognition.

So you probably have a humongous list of people that you try to avoid in public. You duck behind mailboxes, you jump into dumpsters, or you run into boutiques selling sunglasses, all to avoid bad or unwanted conversations. Oh that’s right, we’ve covered that already, and established techniques to avoid such encounters (see: You Talkin’ to Me?). But what we didn’t cover is the strange mental defect that causes you to seek out, find and try to add that very same person as your superfriend in whatever ridiculous social face collecting virtual second life alternate reality garbage is popular with all of you youngsters at this particular point in time in, this, the age of information. It seems like it has gotten to the point where people are excited to send a facial request to someone that they only think they might kind of sort of recognize.

“Hey, don’t I recognize you from the Muffin Stop? I’m the guy that gets the Raisin Rainbow Brantasy muffin, good for my irregularity. Here, accept my friend request. I need to feel like I belong to something.”
“Well, I don’t even work at the Muffin Stop or know where that is, and I’ve never seen you before, but ok, I accept your request. We’re friends!”
“Awesome, thanks for increasing my face-count. I’m getting closer to my target of a bajillion friends. See you at the Muffin Stop best friend. We’re best friends!”
“But, that’s not me, I already told you, remember? I guess I must really look like him, oh well, doesn’t matter, one more friend for my collection too, gosh I’ve never felt so alive! I love you BFF.”
“Dearest Soulmate, what do you mean ‘look like him’? You’re a guy? Oh, I thought you were a lady! My bad, I just assumed from your delicate facial features… I mean, the Muffin Stop worker is woman… That’s so funny, what a funny story, what a funny mix-up, what a full life I lead! Just a few more friends and then I’ll have achieved all of my dreams for infinity years. Sleep tight, my darling prince.”

Wake up people! It’s not like you can get the whole collection and then sell it at your local hobby shop for money.

“Check it out dude! I got the whole Saint-Toastie’s Elementary School First Grade class of ’87.”
“Really, you even got the Steve ‘Glue-Eater’ Zanzipoo rookie card?”
“Yeah man, it’s pretty rare.”
“Hows about I trade you my Third Grade class of ’89 Billy ‘The Kid That Puked in Class That One Time’ Weinermeister M.V.P. hologram card for it?”

“If you throw in that cool purpley Biggie Cat’s Eye marble, then it’s a deal.”

At least baseball cards came with gum. It’s actually gotten to the point where it’s become like shopping online for people. Actually, it’s not just like that. It is that. Except that it’s free. Well, almost free, it costs free time.

The application then made a suggestion to him, claiming that “If you like this guy, you might also like this guy.” He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this claim, until, as if playing that Kevin Bacon game, but with his own life instead of with films and actors, he realized “Oh man, I got it, that’s unbelievable, he knows that guy who knows that girl who knows that old dude who knows that statue that knows that puppy that was friends with my cousin when he was in grade four… How, and why, am I only adding him as a friend now?”

What do you even say to some of these people after sending or receiving friendship invitations to them or from them, in this parallel universe where suddenly everyone you’ve ever known exists again, and is right at your friendly fingertips?

“Hey, how are you? It’s so great to add you to my gigantic growing face-pile. We’ll never actually hang out, talk in person, talk over the phone, or ever even send each other any emails or messages after these first initial ones, but it’s just so magical to hear from you again after all these decades. If you see me on the street, avoid eye contact with me!”
“I’ve been swell, or is it swollen? Well anyways, how are you? Hey, yeah, I totally agree with everything you said, and unicorns too, also we should go for beers sometime, [place a former nickname of yours here that nobody has used in at least ten years e.g.: Rocketpants or F-Dawg]. Hey, by the way, do people still call you [place a former nickname of yours here that nobody has used in at least ten years e.g.: Rocketpants or F-Dawg]?”
“No never. No one ever calls me that anymore. Yeah, we should totally have some beers sometime.”

Yeah, that will never happen.

Do yourself a favour and get rid of your account altogether. Okay, okay, okay, maybe that’s a bit drastic, and you’re not ready for that kind of drastic change yet. If you insist on keeping it, at least start discriminating a little more and go into your face-box and eliminate anyone that you wouldn’t normally be keeping in touch with, if of course it wasn’t for the whole current online socializing craze. I know you’re what you’re thinking.

“But that’s what’s so great about it! I can keep in touch with EVERYONE FOREVER”.

But ask yourself, do you actually care what Shane Farty-Fart-Fart is doing with his life since you last saw him in summer camp, circa 1992? Be honest now please, no, not really, quite possibly, not at all. And it would be one thing if you just got a quick resume of their life as it is now, and that was it, but that’s not it. You’re going to get constant updates from everybody you’ve ever known, every day, multiple times per day, and for some people, per hour. And sadly, you could even get addicted to this stream of activity. But try and remember that there’s really no need to know what everyone you’ve ever known does with all of their time.

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Jeremy Fapperwheel:

im soooooo busy at work, hard at work, or hardly working? harharhar ROFL
1:17 pm
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Dee Dee St-Clair:
tryin ta finishing my homework last minute hehe i guess ima procrastinator lol ;)
2:31 pm
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Gerald McBoingBoing
yo totally taking a hearty poop i brought laptop into the bathroom also WTF does it mean when its dark purple : ?
7:44 pm
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Prancerina Jones
yo my ladies i getting excited for goin out dancin gettin drunk 2nite yeh biahchctches
11:04 pm
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Lucas Wonkadonk
my heads currently on fire
12:37 am
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Poonis Lagoonis
cant wait 4 summer 4evah partay ^_^ also Wonkadonk funeral 2morrow woot
7:17 am
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How attention starved is everybody that they feel the need to announce their every move. And some people are likely conceited enough to think that everyone is following their every move. I mean, if Mr. Wonkadonk had just tried to put his head fire out in the toilet instead of updating his profile, he might still be alive today, and with a full head of hair. And on that note, no one really gives a shit anyways. Because with the streaming shitstorm of excessively communicated mundane daily routine details, meaningful stuff might come along and just get blurred in with all the rest. Most people would have looked at their bulletin board caca list and not even thought to do anything to help Lucas and his tragic head fire, or even noticed that he currently had a head fire at 12:37 am at all.

So, if no one even cares that someone is face down in the mud, and no one really wants to face each other face to face, and every face is just another face in the crowd, let’s face it, why bother face collecting all of those faces in a big useless book of faces in the first face, I mean place, in the first place? I say again, delete your accounts and rejoin the live living! Go on and deny everyone’s requests! Discriminate! If you have something important to say, say it in person, or over the phone, and only to the people that matter to you most and that might actually listen to you, and care.

And don’t be that guy or gal who wastes a bunch of time online socializing, but then talks about how much of a waste of time it is, like that makes them somehow better than the rest, like they’re not hopelessly addicted to it anyways, like the rest. That’s like a smoker who always talks about how bad smoking is for his health.

“I could quit anytime. What? This? Pfffff... Whatevs I could quit anytime. I could quit all this shit right now if I wanted to.”

So prove it. Honestly, you must be exhausted from trying to keep up with that many people. Don’t you need a break from it all? Simplify! You need to stop spreading yourself so thin. Stop worrying about whether or not you’re being kept in every possible loop and realize that loops just turn around in circles like a bad game of broken telephone. Nothing’s really changing! You’re not missing out! Trust me, if something truly important comes along, people that care will tell you. If you’re working too hard to be in so many damn loops, you’re going to end up just spinning wildly out of control, and have an actual nervous breakdown, brought on by virtual drama. It’s time to move forward by taking a step backward and removing yourself a little from some of the loops and online technological chicanery.

Was that too harsh? I guess it was a bit harsh. Do people even care that much about the online socializing frou frou anymore? I could be complaining about something that no longer is relevant or even really exists. I guess I’m really out of the loop, I’m sorry. Probably you’re thinking, man that is so 2006. Probably there’s something new that I don’t even know about where people let the application map out everything that they’re thinking all of the time directly from their brain, via some Bluetooth wireless scanner device that feeds the data directly into your iBlackberryPhonePod, and allows you text your friends with your eyeballs. One thing is certain, however, privacy is so passé!

That’s it. Kev D. is offline.