The Unwritten Rules of Facebook

As many people use facebook at least once a day, or more if they're obsessive like me, and understand those little codes of conduct that make it a pleasant place to connect with friends and family, there are just as many people who use it infrequently or are just plain clueless and don't understand the lay of the land. For those people I have created a list to help them avoid the faux pas of facebook interaction.

First, you don't need to sign your posts or comments. This is a common mistake for older (generally 50+) users who still remember a time when writing to people was civilized and had manners. But the fact is that when you write something like "I love that little picture of you on your profile! You're a beautiful girl! Love, Aunt Gina" you're actually being redundant. This is what we see.

{Your Profile Picture that shows us who you are} Gina Studebaker I love that little picture of you on your profile! You're a beautiful girl! Love, Aunt Gina

You see, we actually know who you are from the start because your profile pic and your full name are automatically put at the start of your comment so you don't have to sign it. But I will say that this is less of a faux pas and more of a sweet older relative/friend thing and it's adorable so if you want to keep doing it go ahead. I'm just saying that you don't have to.

This next one is an actual faux pas. I don't totally understand why people do this (possibly to draw attention to their comment?) but I actually wince when I see it.

The all caps comment.

Everyone has an internal voice with which they read and when we write comments we give certain clues of how the internal voice should sound. When we start a comment with something like the phrase "At least," our internal voice knows that it should sound sarcastic or complaining. Or "Does anyone" immediately signals that this is a question. When you use all caps you are signalling the internal voice to sound angry and loud. For example:

{Profile Pic} Harry Winston DID YOU WATCH THE OFFICE LAST NIGHT? IT'S TOO BAD STEVE CARELL IS LEAVING. I DON'T THINK THAT SHOW WILL BE THE SAME WITHOUT HIM.

It's a pretty mild comment but you can't help thinking that poor Harry is really upset that Steve Carell is leaving the show and that Harry's yelling at you about it. So please, for the sake of us all, cut it out with the caps.

Then there are the people who feel like facebook is a great place to vent their frustration so all they do is whine and complain. Don't get me wrong, everyone complains from time to time on facebook, and if something really is wrong and you need help or if you're trying to keep everyone updated on a bad situation then post away.

But if every time you get on facebook you find yourself doing status updates that are all about how frustrating your children are, how much you hate being single, or how lame LeBron James is, you're going to find yourself being unfriended. Nobody wants more drama and negativity in their lives, especially when the source is something as unimportant as facebook.

There is a way around this, though, and that is to be hilarious. Or even just mildly amusing.

I have one facebook friend in particular who's great at this. She's constantly complaining but she says things like "At Wal-Mart and wanting to round house kick everyone in the face!!!" Or "Birthday party for the spoiled heathen is done and the kids are finally in bed! Time to bust out the pinot!"

The fact is that if you can make me smile I'm willing to forgive a multitude of sins, even all caps.
"GIFT OF COOKIES = INSTANT FRIENDSHIP"

See? It works because it made me laugh, thus all is forgiven.

I'll continue this later because I have stuff to do and this list is longer than I realized. Peace out, peeps!

If Tina Fey were my friend my life would be filled with hilarity

This morning, after getting roughly five and a half hours of sleep, I woke up laughing. I was in such a good mood that I couldn't go back to sleep. Why? Because I dreamed that I was friends with Tina Fey.

We were doing a show (not 30 Rock although Alec Baldwin made a very brief cameo) where I was playing Guitar Hero with Jason Sudeikis. (Or some sort of music game. I can't remember my own life with accurate detail let alone a dream.) My character offended his character and to show his displeasure he pouted and paraded his butt in my face to show me what I was missing out on by being so mean. Yeah... I don't know. My dreams are weird.

Anyway, we wrapped for the day and I was walking around NBC studios with Tina who was complaining about having swollen feet. When I asked her why her feet were swollen she told me she was pregnant (Gasp!) but that I couldn't tell anyone until she figured out a way to tell everyone at the same time. (Of course in real life everyone knows she's pregnant so apparently my dream self is just trying to process old information.)

So we went to the writer's room and all of the writers were there chatting and what not. Tina and I sat down and she put her feet up. "Man, I'm so bloated!" she complained and rubbed her belly. One of the female writers sitting close by looked up with raised eyebrows, looked at Tina's swollen hippo feet, did a double take and then broke out in a huge grin. "You're pregnant!" She whispered but the voice that came out of her mouth was Andy Richter's.

Yep, this was a Tina Fey is my friend/Andy Richter is a woman dream.

Tina frantically tried to shush the female Andy Richter but he/she could not be stopped. Female Andy Richter ran to the whiteboard at the front of the room, drew a grotesque picture of Tina's swollen feet and proceeded to sing this song, "This is a picture of Tina's feet, Oh Tina Fey is pregnant! Why? Whhyy? Whhhhyyyy?"

And that's when the dream ended because I woke up laughing. I think today is going to be a good one.

Bang!

Has anybody ever heard of the game called Bang? For those of you who haven't it's a card game that pits outlaws against sheriffs and there's a renegade who is trying to outlive them all. You shoot each other with Bang cards and if you don't have a card that makes the shooter miss you then you lose a life point. You can get your life points back, though, if you can find yourself some beer.

All of that is fun but what really makes the game great is that it requires teamwork. The outlaws have to band together, the sheriff and his deputes have to stop the outlaws and the renegade has to play both sides in order to survive.

My brother bought it on Saturday and we've been playing it exclusively for the last three days. I think we better take a break before the obsession turns to madness.

Sometimes when I'm writing I start to yearn for a teammate, someone who will help me out when I'm stuck, cheer me on when I doubt myself and point me in the right direction when I'm feeling lost. But writing is by nature a lonely pursuit and so I plug along by myself.

I'm just glad that when I finish my writing goals for the day I can crawl out of my basement and go play games with the people I love.

I'm a writer (?)

So I guess I like putting question marks in parenthesis. (?)

And that's the first sentence I'm putting on my newly re-purposed writing blog. Awesome.

I'm currently trying to finish my first and so far only teen fantasy novel and I've decided that it's high time I start calling myself a writer. It's just a really difficult thing to do because I've had zero success at it. Zero. But in order to inform my sense of self in a way that might lead me to success it's important for me to say it and mean it. I'm a writer. I am a writer.

When I'm done with the novel I will probably end up self-publishing, which is cool because with the advent of e-readers self-publishing has gone legit. Hooray for writers getting a share of the power. This blog will hopefully serve as a place where I can connect with readers and generate some PR energy to fuel my novel's success so I can one day make a living at this.

Mostly, though, I'll probably just end up talking about my latest adventures with the Atkins diet and my favorite quotes from 30 Rock.