A Journey to ’25 Random Things’

1. Three weeks ago, William tagged me in a “25 Random Things About Me” chain letter. I’ve hung around with William a few times, but reading his list feels a lot like a peek at his diary: Here are his hopes, fears, and his profession of love for Twizzlers.
2. I’m tagged again by Tim (“I’m a writer… but poetry is what I love to write the most”), then Kris (“I love Bailey, my Jack Russell cocker who puts her paws over her face when I scold her”), and red-headed Stephanie (“I am addicted to television.” And, comically, “This is not my natural hair color.”)
3. I’m sensing that this thing is bigger than I might have thought. I do some research and discover the concept: Generate a list of 25 “things, facts, habits or goals” about yourself in the notes section of your Facebook profile and publish it there. Then, tap 25 of your friends by asking them to do the same. “If I tagged you,” the instructions explain, “it’s because I want to know more about you.”
4. I debate whether to play along. I like reading the truths, dreams and candy habits of my friends. But I’m a little unsettled about participating. It’s the term “chain letter” than unnerves me.
5. In the sixth grade, I got a rare letter addressed to me. It was hand-written on blue-lined paper in a sloppy pencil scrawl, and there were 10 names printed in block letters at the bottom of the page. The letter implored me to mail a dollar to the top name on the list, then to remove that name, copy the letter over again and mail it to 10 other friends. In a week, the letter said, I’d get a hundred dollars. A hundred dollars! Math has never been my strong suit, so how $1 mushroomed to $100 was beyond me. But still, I thought it was a brilliant way to support oneself, copying letters at home in front of the TV. Later, my mother described the letter as “illegal,” and she made me throw it in the trash. She wasn’t swayed by the last line, either: “Do not break this chain or you will be sorry!” I was left with a feeling of unease that persisted for weeks: If I complied, I was a crook. But if I didn’t, I was doomed in a different way.
6. Is a chain letter also illegal if it’s on the internet? I’m not sure. Anyway, I decide that, for me, generating such a list is both superfluous and overly indulgent. On this blog, I reveal far more about myself than any line-by-line inventory on Facebook. I’ve already appeared here naked, embarrassed, prostrate, injured… so what’s the point?
7. Facebook turns five years old — and comes of age, it seems, joining society-at-large.
8. Suddenly, I have a bunch of new “friends” there: My cousin Beth connects with me on Facebook. She suggests we start a Handley family group there.
9. My childhood friend Bev friends me; several people who I know through dog rescue — Carolyn, Karen, Denise — do, too. I encourage Pat, my 56-year-old sister in Florida, to join Facebook, because for the first time it occurs to me that she might enjoy it.
10. For months, Facebook has felt like an outpost to me, the online equivalent of an unkempt settlement on the dusty outskirts of town, rife with biting vampires, and arbitrary pokes, and tossed sheep. Now, suddenly, it’s buzzing like a bar with dollar drafts.
11. Facebook is now mainstream, and what makes for a “friend,” in a larger sense, is redefined — as something entirely more global, and democratic, and random. A friend isn’t necessarily someone you know well, and it may be someone you haven’t seen in years, or someone you don’t see regularly. At the same time, all of us early adopters are freaking out about our worlds blending.
12. Suze tags me: “My biggest regret is saying to a woman whose baby died, ‘you’re young enough to have another one.’ I meant well but it was only when I’d had a child of my own I realised how cruel that was.”
13. Tom tags me, and I read, “Something I’m ashamed of… when I was younger I was ashamed of bringing my Dad to school. He’s quite a bit older so the other kids thought he was my grandfather, I let them. I regret/am ashamed of this now as he’s a great man.”
14. Brian tags me and contributes a hilarious “2,056 Things” about himself, chronicling his descent into social media madness: “1623. I think I’m delirious! 1624. Hyenas and lollypops! 1625. Rainbows are smelly.”
15. Facebook protest groups crop up: 25 things you can do OTHER THAN FACEBOOK; Screw you, I’m not gonna tell you 25 Random things about myself; and Stop Tagging Me in 25 Random Things Posts You Tards. Someone makes a “25 Things I Hate About Facebook” video.
16. The NY Times runs a story on 25 Things, terming it the latest “digital fad.”
17. On the social networking site Twitter, many see the Times article as a kind of woozy canary in a coal mine: the 25 Things fad is dying, some predict.
18. The Washington Post, USA Today, and Time magazine, among others, jump on the 25 Random Things bandwagon. Writing on the LA Times, Joel Stein writes, “I don’t want to know 25 things about you. In fact, I don’t want to know two things about you. But somehow you’ve found me on Facebook and sent me your ’25 Random Things About Me,’ which I deleted….”
19. I don’t like confrontation. But if I did, something in me might have snapped at Stein’s column when he adds — snobbishly, I think: “Not long ago, very few people got their writing published, and those people were often paid for it. Now everybody can type about themselves online….”
20. My philosophy — on Facebook (and in life, for that matter) is: “Treat everyone like a who.” I try, anyway. Everyone has a voice and can be heard. Everyone has a way of looking at things that can inform the thinking of anyone else. Everyone is a “who’s who.” That’s the juiciest part of social media platforms like Facebook, and Twitter, and this blog, in fact: You don’t to wait for the LA Times to tell you it’s your turn to speak.
21. The Chicago Tribune’s Patrick Reardon sums it up nicely: “Studs Terkel made a career of interviewing ‘voiceless’ people — non-celebrities from the workaday world — and then serving as the medium to get their stories to the broader public. It used to be that the only people who got to write autobiographies were those who were famous, infamous or otherwise had a life story that publishers thought would sell.” With this Facebook thing, though, such calculations disappear.
22. My boyfriend V. tells me warmly about reading the 25 Things list written by his son’s girlfriend, and about the tenderness of their relationship.
23. Barb tags me, and writes something that stops me cold: “I’ve been married twice — there will never be a third!” It’s a throwaway line, tucked in among all the other random facts (she’s quit smoking… she has three lovely children). Her tone, if I’m reading it right, isn’t gloomy or morose, but matter-of-fact, like she’s saying she’ll never change her brand of shampoo. I can’t help but gain a renewed understanding about all that my friend Barb, who lost the love of her life to cancer a few years ago, is gently reaffirming.
24. Some might mock, deride, or poke fun. But what I love about the 25 Things list is precisely what so many of them dislike. The non-geeks are flocking to Facebook, they are setting up profiles there, they are publishing about themselves, and they are tagging you. Like LOLcats, 25 Things sheds some light on the glorious underbelly: the stuff of our dreams, fears, hopes.
25. Say what you want, but 25 Things is at once brave, rich, and, ultimately, so very human.

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