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Friendster®: As a guidebook to the "Why" Generation Daniel P. Beckmann, Moderator of Letters 12.04.03-Long Island City, New York |
The following object was submitted as a “collaborative effort” (and I use this term lightly) with intervalist Adam K. Chorney back in November of last year. In the time since the proceeding was concocted, I will now adhere to comments that Friendster® may have evolved into a useful information gathering resource for locating, arranging, securing the identities of, and contacting pre-connected North American, upper-middle class, college-educated people. However, whilst, Friendster® may presently be the largest such facility for these types of transactions, it is not the most efficient and honest method for accomplishing this task, as the functions explained below are still indeed the primary intention of this oracle.
Mark the 2000s everybody, Friendster is it for the first 4 years-well of course that, and the overshadowing sense of fear and entitlement (Postmodern "money for nothing and your chicks for free").
Definition of "Why” Generation (with more to be included in future objects):
or more simply put: 
{Willis!-Why did’t you ever tell me what you waz talkin’ bout?}
Friendster®: As a guidebook to the "Why" Generation :
There is the soul and then there’s Friendster®. There’s the complexities that make up the inner person that can’t be explained and then there’s the mantra that a human can easily be displayed simply by the accumulation of accalades staked on top of each other. Its been hard as of early for people to know where this Friendster® thing is gonna go, but I knew it stunk from the beginning and after 23 years of in·ces·sant observation I know the robotic wing of my contemporaries…and so an A-HA! was reached and let me now do the best to explain to you the location of that aforementioned smell:
Friendster.com—It is a place for robots to exchange valuable "protein strains". You see, the part that is truly missing from that place is the “human element”, the element the “whys” often have such a hard time trying to find. It turns meeting people into like shopping for a computer…I want this much RAM, this type of color box, etx.. I mean, how can you explain yourself on a single piece of paper?!? Or better yet: Why the hell would you want to?The bottomline in Lou Dobbsian terms: the robots are the people that can only see the world from within the fences of the programs that have been provided to them. "What exists beyond the fence?"
They don’t have a plan for things that fall outside of their little boxes and so that’s pretty darn scary. Friendster allows a sanitized for their protection situation for these "upper middle class robots" (with computers with high speed connections in their homes and work cause when your connection relies on paying the minute or a public library then you’ve got to have better things to do) to see what everyone else’s box looks like…cutting out any of those dreaded ‘unknowns’ that one might experience when taking the time and risk of trying to get to know their fellow human in the flesh… how’s this for a motto: "Friendster: a newer, jazzier, more improved posters on the walls of everyone’s dorm room!"
Not many people I associate with yearn to return to the times of their dorm rooms, with the monotonous slowgans and catchy zingers like Chemlab and your very own, ultra-cute version of "Mr. Poopy-face".
To be fair, I won’t be as closed-minded as to think that there isn’t a large chunk out there that some how romanticizes about the simplicity of it all…”I could just go back”-they think, but “they’d sure smell me out on “orientation day” and that makes me feel nervous(despite the fact this time I’d be awesome)…I could be an RA, but one can only really only do that for so long before its ’statutory’ and statutory is also wierd”<-for them: Friendster....for the rest of us, Friendster® is nothing more than a graveyard for the living dead!-Those little boxes like open-coffins for all to see(and I'm not catholic)! My ability to decide what I like at any given point is equivalent to my ability to breathe–which most biologists will tell you is essential for life!!
  "The Borg"-Art’s version of grandmasterbonersolstice |
The minute I would conceive of such a way to fit my 6 ft-tall self, skinny as I may be, into so few little boxes, if I am indeed going about my shit-legit, immediately then and there, the publication would already be dated!–taking the time to constantly update the list of boxes alone would make it impossible for me to have enough time to accumulate new things to put inside the boxes! {psst…I bet just right now you may be trying to put Beckmann into one of those boxes you’ve heard of, and then maybe readjusting the fit of the one you’re in for yourself for that matter…that’s your government school talkin’ to you again telling you you’re so smart for categorizin’…remember, when everyone fits in the box, that’s when we can have everything shelved fa good!.. grandmasterbonersolstice they call it..if we could only just get there!} |
IF I were to commit to explaining myself on a single page once and for all to see, then what’s the point of reading a reading a new book?, eating a new cheese?, trying a different shoe? or in fact!-even going antiquing?–the manual to my life would have already been published!–I could then throw in the towel and call that a life, for then I could finally so simply publish to the world: I LIKE DAVE MATHEWS DAMN IT AND ONLY THOSE OTHERS WHO CLAIM THEY LIKE HIM TOO! NOT JUST FOR THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES BUT FOR THE WO-YALD!!<-(strict dramatization)
SO once again here in this forum, we are split up into two groups(quite honestly with most taking a little from both to varying degrees)...1)those constantly trying to fit themselves into little boxes for easy and obvious digestion (i.e. TO THE WO-YALD THEY STATE: "here are my advertised "buttons", push these and you will get the predicted result"cough, cough-ROBOTS and 2) those trying to allude packaging, who stay up nights in fear of the day when everything will finally fit so snugly away(i.e. TO THE STRANGER ON THE ON THE STREET THEY KINDLY MENTION: "Honey, I’m a living, breathing human, I’ve got a soul/force that doesn’t dither much that you’re gonna have ta try to figure out, but other than that I’m just making it up as I go along because quite simply darlin’, that’s the gosh-darn truth of the matter…all rights reserved"–PROGRAMMERS.
If you’re a Programmer, you probably don’t gots much use for Friendster®, unless you’re poking around for research or you wish to proliferate more of your programs throughout into the robotic universe!
I testify to all the way up to the grand master poobah, that the robots are indeed out there…and in fact some of them are programmed to call me up on the fucking phone everytime somone mentions "Bush" on Network News Radio Network! They call me up with their pre-recorded script and I can’t faze ‘em no matter what I throw at them-they’re not calling to interact with me-to exchange information. No, they are simply programmed to call, read their given script and that’s all the doctor ordered!
Truthfully now folks, Its not going to be as easy for the "Whys" as it was for the "Baby" parents that created them. All the upper-middle-class white ones of that generation, of course, had their "sexual revolution"- the "Whys" to come later didn’t and we won’t. In fact, much of the thanks to this feat can be awared to the "Babies" themselves and one of their surrogate agents Ms. Reagan. But, hey, maybe all this could be a good thing, I mean more than half of the “Babies” marriages ended in divorce, in fact, contributing a great deal to the character of the "Whys"–so many "Babies" based their relations like a bone-fide baby probably would have..on raw sexual emotion while under the influence of the raw intoxicants of the moment whether it be of the chemical (both organic and non-organic) and non-chemical (commercial) sort…that when the “Babies” woke up from thier naps in the eighties, they found that original attraction may have actually been more deeply rooted in shear hate, or maybe much worse, that the person you were with looked much more attractive back then for some reason and you can’t seem to remember "why". (Bear in mind, of course, as with all Generations generalizations they have on TV, the above doesn’t represent the exceptions, or in fact, most of the economic and cultural diversities we experience in America…it is mostly centered around those Upper-middle class, college-educated white folk the media cares so much about, so save your breath for now if you will, you may need it later.)
Lets plop ahead to the future a bit to when the "whys" create the next generation…, when carried on our present path… parents then can slap easy to understand labels on their little ones claiming to like Mickey Mouse®, Organic Spahgetti-Os® and "the little engine that could®" or maybe just a plain “®” for good measure, whilst the kids wearing them initially will be left to wonder "why?"
Maybe as generations tend to take ‘generations’ to figure things out, in the “Whys” future why not have the parents post their kids "labels" directly on the Schoolster® website from the comforts of home avoiding all those terrible germs of the brightly colored carpet entirely! We’ll only let the kinders leave the house to play football-cause that’s important and builds character and also to go to those Kaplan(R) SAT courses!-cause my kid’s still the best! All Rights Reserved on this one…LLC.
In the meantime, I am very comfortable to assume that we should all let the robots be happy and for those of us with trepidations surrounding the manufacturing of your casket for public unveiling at the ripe age of 22, (and to be charitable the following ‘credo’ we’ll even include those robots who avoid Friendster® strictly for confidence reasons{I mean, hey, why not? it wouldn’t hurt to build some momentum behind this and these are people too who just might need empowerment!}):
MAINTAIN YOUR PRESENT COURSE FELLOW SOJOURNER…
BE AS HONEST AS POSSIBLE…
AND HECK, IF IT SUITS YOU, SAY HI TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN, ALWAYS TRYING TO FOSTER THE FERTILE ENVIRONMENT WHERE EVERYONE’S TRUE SOUL/FORCE CAN SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY…
And for those more sonic learners, try to remember the ol’ cheezzy captain from the sea when he says:
 Long John Silvers®-Hays, KS |
Eyeee…the programmers by definition are squirmy little bunch…try to hold on to um and they wiggle right away…ahhh, but where i’d we be without the changing of tides of the seas… |
-Josh Bender contributed to this object
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