Did you ever wonder how much technology was taking over your life, and if your online persona was capable of doing things that your offline persona would never do? The one-step-removed aspect of online interaction is one that I find endlessly fascinating, as is the culture of Facebook, which allows people to follow my moves with as much information as I give them (and as much time/inclination as they have to do so).
I've mused before about the numbers of "friends" we all have on Facebook. The likelihood that most of them are actually friends of the sort you'd invite to your birthday dinner or to seder with the family is very low. I mean, people have hundreds of them. I tried to keep my list down, but it was fruitless. Even the restriction of "only accept friend requests from people you know in real life" doesn't help: I meet 120 people each summer. I went on tour with Coolooloosh and Subliminal/the TACT Family. I go to conferences with hundreds or thousands of people in attendance. I live on the Upper West Side. I think I just met five new "friends" while writing this post drinking my coffee in my apartment. Keeping my magic number down is not an option. And I realize that's a blessing.
But the question remains. How much do those people really know me? And how finely tuned in to my status update are they? If I suddenly became the opposite of my public persona, on April 1, no less, would people realize it was a joke, or assume that because they read it online it must be true? Or would people think it was a technical error? Or am I just suffering from blazing egomania in even thinking that people stay tuned to as silly a mechanism as the status feed?
Facebook Fools' Day Experiment: Change "Relationship Status" from "Single" to "Engaged"
Duration: 18 hours: 12:30am-6:30pm April 1
Findings: 35 respondents=15 email messages, 20 wall posts in a 18-hour period. About 70% of responses understood that the status change was a joke. About 25% of responses wished me mazal tov and wanted to know who the lucky guy was or why they were first hearing about this now. And 5% were threatened marriage proposals. From guys who are already in relationships. (Just to give you an idea of what's out there.) Most of my regular posse of New Yorkers knew better than to even respond. Or maybe they're too busy.
Analysis/Conclusions: I was expecting a few people to fall for it, and for most to understand that it was a joke because it was April 1. That my expectations were met proves that people (even my non dinner party friends) actually know me a bit better than perhaps I might have thought. I did think that someone might think it was a technical glitch, like when the JDate site redesign reset all women's profiles to read "I do not plan on having any children."
It did teach me that with over a thousand friends, I can't stay in close contact with all of them, and as a consequence, so much of the public perception of me is based on the information I share online. That's a power I need to continue to wield responsibly and accurately.
Still, some people need to get out more.
I have to admit that being engaged for a day was pretty fun--I'd like to do it for real someday, maybe with someone else to share the joy with.
Other resources: today's Urban Dictionary definition.
Any great April Fool's jokes to share? If you fell for it, admit it here and feel all better. (UPDATED: Here's one I fell for. Those darned Googlers are so funny...)