Fan of Being a Fan

How many of you have had this conversation?

Someone asks you about something you did and you say something like, “check it out, it’s on my Facebook page,” and they go, “I hate Facebook! It’s such a time sucker! I think everyone who uses Facebook is idle or bored or immature!”

And you think, WTF????

I wish it had happened about two decades ago, but it happened a year ago when I turned 40 -- I no longer fear what others think. I love Facebook. I LOVE FACEBOOK. I also love all kinds of other things that don’t make it onto the cutting-edge of the cultural analysis-o-metre. Case in point: Oprah. Not a fan of the show, but most definitely a fan of the mag. Taking a page from Playboy fans, I read "O" for the articles. Yes, it’s filled with advertising for stuff I don’t need, and exhortations to women to fit into even more microscopic clothing sizes, and I’m not a fan of either of those things. But the articles are kick-ass. Especially the ones Martha Beck writes (former Mormon and Harvard Business School prof, now a lesbian life coach with a sense of humour so sharp it could slice Harvard Business School in two faster than you can say Gordon Matta Clark).



I am sure I don’t use Facebook the way the kids do. I’m not a kid. So, I’m not a fan of everything. Nor do I take the kagillions of tests to find out what rock star’s pet rock I’m most like. But if other people enjoy doing that, dammit, who am I to spoil their fun? I say, knock yourself out. Because the truth is, I laughed till I cried when my friend told me that her friend’s thirteen-year-old daughter "friended" my friend, and that this girl’s zeal for becoming a fan of things now takes up the lion’s share of real estate on my friend’s newsfeed page. The girl becomes a fan of something new everyday. Here’s a sampling:

Fan of hot showers, cookie dough, staying up late, I need a vacation, hoodies, sarcasm, hair straighteners. Hates mosquitoes, loves sleep, summer nights, Steve Carell, ipods, Dairy Queen, the beach, Cadbury mini eggs, shopping, and sleeping in class. Fan of making a "don't like" button on Facebook. Petitioning to allow short shorts/mini skits in school dress codes.

When I was thirteen, I yakked on my era-appropriate social-media tool all day long and was a fan of many people and things – Cheap Trick, salty peanuts, swimming after school, Richard Irvine (boy from Australia who arrived in grade 6), discos (there was no drinking age in Manila so we were at bars and discos at age thirteen), Singapore slings, Grease, pool parties, my best friends: Sara and Helena, the Euro boys who played soccer in the park, chicken and pork adobo, mangos, mangostines, bell bottoms, sleeping in, scary movies, imagining my first kiss . . . I just didn’t have a way to publish my passions, so they went from my mouth to Sara and Helena’s ears.

Today I got an e-mail from an FB friend who, among other things, told me that her new guy likes it when she’s on top. Now this woman is my age, more or less, newly divorced, and living the life of Rieley: dating whom she pleases and pledging herself to no one until she bloody well feels like it, if she ever feels like it. She’s an outspoken feminist who walks through the world like she not only owns it but owns everyone else’s world as well. I LOVE HER. So you can imagine how surprised I was to hear her make a distinction between the new guy and what I can only guess were the old guys who didn’t like it when she was on top. I can’t for one feminist second imagine she would have put up with that. My internal response: WTF? My written response: “any man who does not like it when you’re on top is suspect. Period.” That seemed to strike a chord in her. She immediately posted my response to her blog, which I immediately visited and discovered, to my great joy, that my friend is still the owner of the world. How do I know? Just look at her tags!

bullshit, caring, climax, disappointment, energy, friendship, hedging, love, patriarchy, personal care, player, reflection, relationships, relaxation, revelations, two girlfriends.

I especially love “hedging.” Everyone has had the experience of someone else hedging their bets about them. The tag is the opposite of inscrutable. It’s like having your own experience compressed into an atomic word that then explodes with self-exposure all over your bunker of failed romances.

Anyway, this rabbit-warren chase through all our social media spaces started with our connection on Facebook. This topper of a gal lives in my city but I have not seen her since Janauary. Thanks to Facebook, I get to experience her anyway, as well as all my other friends in this city, peeps whose delicious babies and spectacular holidays and cozy family reunions I can participate in without having to be there in the flesh, or waiting for weeks or months to get a long update letter in the mail. It's not a real-time event replacement. It's a supplement that adds richness to my day when I can't be there. What I find especially magical about Facebook is the way it levels the field with regards to geography and time zones, enabling me to stay connected with those who live around the globe, as if everyone, near and far, were all living on my doorstep.

So, when people say to me, “I hate it when someone from my past friends me. I don’t even know that person anymore,” I think “so, don’t accept the friendship. Period.” That’s the beauty of FB. You get to decide who is in or out, and even how in or out. But why throw out the friends with whom you do want to share pictures and jokes and status updates just to avoid the few with whom you don’t?


This is such old news I feel like I’m touting the virtues of television. But if people are still bitching about FB, I guess it’s not as old as all that. What I have never understood is if you think Facebook (or anything else) is a waste of time, then just don’t do it. No one is holding a gun to your head.


My mother used to say this really smart thing when I was kid, stomping my feet and having a full-blown hate on for something like peas or beans. She'd say, "stop hating so much."

I was doing absolutely nothing the other day when I was suddenly struck with the thought of how freaking weird it is that I’m am this mass of blood and guts and bones and I have this strange free-floating consciousness that chatters all day long, and that there are others like me walking around, and yet we all obsess over things like boys and clothes and status and whether or not we should be participating in social-media activities when it’s an unmitigated miracle that we exist, never mind that we think, or that we build crazy edifices we call buildings, and that we turn poisonous, bitter beans into a drink called coffee and then teach ourselves to enjoy drinking it! I mean, shit, what is more miraculous and unfathomable than us and all our manifestations? In those moments, I want to jump out of bed and eat a tray of brownies. But I’m worried about getting fat.


The point is, enjoy your life. Your way. And if you really want to ratchet up the joy factor, become a fan of something. It adds passion to your world. It gives you something to live for. Of course it’s pointless. Everything is pointless, which means everything is up for grabs, depending on which lens you wish to view life through. Mine is a chocolate lens with a popcorn chaser bathed in the LCD light of my FB profile page where I get to read about all of you!