My Addiction To Social Networks

I am a social networking geek.  I remember when I created my first MySpace page back in 2004.  Wow that was ages ago!  Anywayz, I pimped out my page with everything from a catchy song when the page loads to a cute web design of my page.  Honestly---its kind of how I learned web-design/HTML 101 (which has only been self-taught by the way).  Looking back on the way my page looks now---it looks like a 3 year old could design it better...

I probably had like 1000 friends ( or "adds" in Myspace terms) and only knew about twenty of them.  In the meantime the Top 10 on my page consisted of relatives, high school BFF's, co-workers, old roommates, celebrities I adored, and of course Tom.  Who could forget Tom posing in profile in the white T-shirt??  I was all about some Myspace and so was everyone else!  


Then came Facebook.

I actually remember that day like it was yesterday, I was living in NYC at the time, and it was around 2005 or 2006 roughly (I guess I need to glance at my FB timeline to see the exact date).  My co-worker asked me if I was on Facebook.  When I told him no, he looked at me like I was from another planet.  When I created my account, I copied and uploaded pictures from my Myspace page and added them to my new Facebook account.  As far as the "friend" thing was concerned, I decided to take it easy on how friendly I was going to be towards complete strangers.  On Myspace, I kid you not I had friends ("adds") in the thousands.  On Facebook currently I have a little over 400 friends.  Believe it or not I want to say I know personally about 80% of them.  There are some people who friended me on Facebook who I totally do not know.  There are others who I have come to know because of Facebook and we "like" and post comments on each other's statuses almost everyday.  Then there are friends who requested me, because we worked together several years ago, attended high school, or just some random moment where I met them in person and really liked them and asked them if they were on FB so that we could stay in touch.

Because let's be honest---no one exchanges phone numbers anymore, we just friend request one another on Facebook.

So now that you have come to know my history, let me inform you how obsessed I am with this website.  I literally check my FB account AT LEAST 15-20 times a day.  No.  Scratch that.  150-200 times a day.  Yeah sorry about that, had to add the extra zeros in there.  I check from my laptop, my smartphone, at work, etc.  My phone notifies me every time someone comments on my status, so of course, I HAVE to comment back otherwise I'll have a nervous breakdown.  I think Facebook is worse than crack, because at least with crack you have some downtime in between your highs.  Not me and FB---I'm on there constantly throughout the morning, noon, and night.  YES---I am addicted!

My social networking addiction doesn't end there folks.  Oh yeah, it gets worse.  Well---maybe not all that worse, because I'm not a heavy Twitter user.  As a matter a fact, I just have a Twitter page for this blog and and a couple of others I used to write for, and that's pretty much it.  I still don't get Twitter like most social networking geeks do, but I use it.  I'm still new to hash-tag language and trending topics.

My latest addictions are Pinterest and Vyou.  Pinterest is an online board community that allows you to "pin" photos of things you love or pictures you find attractive and visually pleasing.  It's like an orgasm for your eyeballs.  I currently have 491 pins  and 29 pin boards and counting.  I've seen users with thousands of pin boards, but I haven't got there yet.  I just started up with Pinterest this year.

VYou is a social networking site setup under the Facebook model where you can post status updates through the use of video.  You can use the webcam on your laptop to post an intro video about yourself as well as offer other users the opportunity to ask you questions and in turn, you would answer them via video.  You can also ask open questions to other VYou users and they will respond via webcam also.  There are a few celebrities like Kevin Smith, Courtney Love, and even Karrine Steffans (yea the video vixen chick) that use the site.  I caught onto the site myself  after Issa Rae posted her videos in response to her new ABG web series.

Then there is Instagram.  Its a social network that is setup in a way where you can opt to have your pictures that you take with your camera phone or tablet to be publicly viewed and followed by other users.  I first started playing with Instagram on my iPad, and then when the app went android, every picture I took on my Droid RAZR was an Instagram pic.  I love the images and it makes me feel like a professional photographer.  I have about 91 photos uploaded on my Instagram account.  A pretty modest number compared to most users.

I'm a social networking geek.  I know.  I wish I wasn't so obsessive-compulsive about it, but what can I say?  I have geek tendencies.