Facebookless

I can't seem to escape the clutches of the evil empire Facebook; one of my publishers just sent me a powerpoint presentation on how to create a Facebook fan page for myself in order to take part in their latest marketing effort, which included these instructions:

In order to obtain a Vanity URL, you must first have 25+ “Likes” on your page.

Aside from the fact that I'm not so vain that I would even consider setting up my own fan page, I'm stumped. Likes? Likes what? My books? My hair? My sparkling personality? I never got the Likes memo. Anyway, I keep reading, and find this:

Spread the word! Friends and family are included! It’s okay to ask your friends, family, and co-workers to “Like” your page.

So they don't think 25 complete random strangers would like my page? Maybe they're right. Only a very few friends I know in real life visit here occasionally, so maybe the rest of you 6,993 people stop by here every day because you don't like me. Go on, tell me, I can take it. I know my Mom still likes me. Sniff.

Kidding. I get what they're trying to do. Fortunately I'm off the hook: according to my kids a fan page for me already exists on Facebook. I can't look at it because (rimshot) I'd have to first join Facebook. But apparently these nice people like my books enough to create a genuine fan page, so that should get me excused from faking one, the thought of which to be honest makes my skin crawl a bit. All's well etc.

Since last year I've also been getting these be-my-friend gems e-mailed to my fan e-mail account every week:



This kind of Facebook SPAM that disturbs me because I know at least one of these people is an author. Not that I think he's a fan or actually wants to be my friend, but I can't even send the professional courtesy of a polite no-thanks unless -- you guessed it -- I first join Facebook.

Which brings me to this practice of using the word friend to connect people via social media. I find it a bit troubling. One of the reasons I never considered using LiveJournal (aside from the fact that I'm not cool enough for it) is because they employ friend as means of linkage coercion. I friend you, you friend me, and we're all friends. My (obviously picky) belief that the word friend should have more meaning than simply the right to use reciprocal links is definitely not in step with the times.

Also, if someone asks to be your friend, they're paying you a compliment, right? Unless they just want a link so they can boost their traffic, in which case, maybe not. Of course if you say no for any reason, you're behaving like a snotty unfriendly jackass, which encourages negative backlash, expecially from those who for whatever reason expect to be friended. Every time I think about the friend thing I give myself a headache.

I realize social media offers many obviously irresistible marketing opportunities. I respect the working writers out there who take the time to do all this stuff, too; frankly I don't know how you guys handle it and keep up with the work. I'm just concerned that it all seems to be heading in a direction that is self-defeating and devaluing.

Thus I will continue to be Facebookless, and do my own thing, and see what happens.

Facebook Line & Sinker

I actually had a Facebook account for about three minutes today. No, that's not another April Fool's Day joke; I'm serious. And I know what you're thinking: Why would PBW do that when she doesn't use Facebook, never joins things and refuses to do any online self-promo outside her own blog?

Because, my friends and colleagues, occasionally even PBW is a gullible idiot. That's why.

The backstory: I don't like television, but now and then I watch The Weather Channel to get the forecast and check out the Doppler radar. The local forecast comes on every eight minutes, and it helps me decide when to take the dogs for a walk. Last night when I was checking to see what today's forecast was going to be, they ran a commercial for a photo contest promoting their new From the Edge show.

One of the prizes was a book of photographs by Peter Lik, which I thought was pretty cool. I love free books, and since I've gotten into amateur photography I'm always interesting in reading books about it and seeing what the pros do. I seriously doubted I'd win, but what the heck, I could try.

Although there were few details about what sort of photo you were supposed to enter in the contest, I figured I'd see if the rules would allow me to enter the shot I used to make my new blog banner, the one I took last November:



Sure, it's not perfect, but the colors and the composition are nice, and as amateur shots go I think it's pretty decent. So as the commercial directed me, I went to the Weather Channel's site, and hunted for the link to the contest, which was a real pain to find. Finally I located it and clicked on it.

It sent me to the show's Facebook page.

So it was a Facebook contest. Again. Great. I don't have anything against Facebook; I'm simply not interested in it. But I thought, okay, just this once I'll set up account solely for the purpose of entering the contest. And I could delete everything as soon as I lost the contest. Easy, right?

I know better. I really do. But I wanted a chance to win that book more than I wanted to listen to my common sense.

The second -- the absolute split second -- I created a Facebook account I got slammed. Two people instantly wanted to be my Friends (they must hook up something that reads the e-mail address you use to create the account that other people are watching for; both people send me endless amounts of SPAM on my regular e-mail.) Facebook demanded all kinds of personal information from me, too: what school had I gone to, who were my friends, who did I want to invite to be my friends, yada yada yada.

I skipped all that and went to make my profile private. No such luck. I could, however, put up a picture of myself. Tell everyone all about me on my permanently public profile. Stuff started popping up on the sidebar for me to buy, join, check out, etc. And the questions, God. Have you done this? Why not? You'd better do this. And this. My security was too low, fix that.

In two minutes so much crap was thrown at me I almost gave up. But I really wanted to enter the contest, so I skipped as much as I could, put phony info in the stuff I couldn't, and finally verified it all. At last. I could go to the contest page and get this over with one and for all.

Here's the real irony: on the contest page? The link to enter the contest didn't work. So I joined Facebook and went through all that nonsense for nothing.

Anyway. I took great pleasure in going to the account settings page so I could delete the stupid account. Only I discovered that I couldn't delete it; I was only given the option of "deactivating" the account. And before I could do that, I had to tell them why I was deactivating it. I had to explain myself by checking off one of their reason boxes (none of which said "You're pushy, intrusive dumbasses and I don't want you anywhere near me or my e-mail".)

I checked one of the idiot boxes (the "I don't think Facebook is useful" one, which has to be the understatement of the millenium) and finally, I thought, it was done. Over. I escaped Facebook! Only then Facebook assured me that I could come back and reactivate and use my account any time.

Well, at least I had enough sense to use a fake name.