Trish’s Blog

Hello, my name is Trish and I’m addicted to FriendFeed. [We love you, Trish.] I never thought I would reach this point, but confess I must.

Almost five months ago, my husband joined FriendFeed and I heard of little else. I’m not a geek (a term I use with the utmost love and respect) so I don’t get excited about technogeek stuff. I thought that Josh’s new obsession would die out eventually. I was wrong. I kept a bite on my tongue and bided my time. (Except there was that one time he brought his phone to the dinner table to check up  on his “other family” and I straight out said, “That’s rude.”) So I waited.

I suppose I was naive the way some children are when they take their first drag of a cigarette or sip of beer and think they can avoid the horrors of addiction. One time, just to try it… what harm can that do? Besides, Josh was posting pictures of my baby and I wanted to see what he meant that people left comments. The idea of FF is to have almost real time interaction with other people who have joined. I learned what a feed was by checking up on what Josh’s feed (things he posted) looked like and what people were saying in response. Perhaps my pride was ignited when I saw that a dozen or so people thought Zoe was cute (and they didn’t seem like social deviants out to kidnap her). I didn’t check it everyday, but it began to seem less of a threat. Maybe this FF stuff isn’t so bad, but still I waited for Josh to get tired of sitting at the computer refreshing over and over again.

Imagine my consternation when Josh announced that he was going to do a weekly podcast with two guys he met on FF. All I knew of a podcast was Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht sitting together with their laptops and microbrews talking geek… like a radio show. I kept biting my tongue, but I felt a little jealous—fine, go play with your friends, I thought. Ffundercats, ho! I was still leery when I saw Josh go from speaking Pirate (who knew that geeks celebrated Pirate Day) to anguish at the emotional and personal attacks of some people getting into debates over the Presidential election. I still kept FF at a distance.

I was too busy to do more than check on Josh’s feed periodically. I even clicked on a few names of his friends, and from the comments that were left I began to recognize their names. And I sometimes asked Josh about them. John is in Australia? Yes, he takes good pictures and his daughter is adorable. And Mark is in Canada. Right. I like to read what he had for dinner. Which one is the one that’s crazy about Rahsheen again? Oh, yeah, Monique. She’s funny. Which one is Faboo Mama? Oh, she’s the one that got you to do the macarena. And Tina is the one that went by Stupid Blogger but added her name and shocked everybody by not only turning out to be a girl and uber geeky, but cute to boot. Oh, and of course, there’s Mona who gets the boys stirred up and Lindsey (with an e) who sometimes posts pictures of hot girls, but she’s straight. Rochelle and Akiva are expecting, Tad and Lindsay (with an a) are married, too, and Ladybug Heather is engaged to Scott from Canada. There’s a Trish R and she lives just over the bridge from us. Yolanda is also in Texas.

I got to know more names of people when I finally caved and joined last month. Josh’s brother Morgan also joined, and he is the only other person I know in real life that is on FF. I learned the names of more geeks who post things that are way over my head, but I still read them and maybe I’ll learn code by osmosis. I learned what a LOL cat was and how to speak it. I know what a meme is and how to pronounce it. We have since received advice on how to get out of our cell phone contract, why we should buy iPhones, and what laptops are good when you can’t afford a Mac (or would rather not switch religions). And now I sit at the computer and hit refresh over and over again. It’s just fun! Especially when you’re on prime time and there are a lot of people engaging in conversation from recipes to hard drives.

I am fairly liberal with the “like” button which you can click to show that you like what someone has posted. The more people you subscribe to the more things you will see on your main feed. You can catergorize them into Favorites or other customized label. I decided when I joined that I wouldn’t judge and I endeavor to use tact in my comments. There are a lot of people from different parts of the world and from different backgrounds on FF. Some post things that I would rather not see. Some say things in language that I would rather not use. So I don’t respond to the things that I don’t care to engage in conversation about. I have the option of hiding the things that I don’t want to look at, and I can even block someone so that I don’t ever see their feed or their comments. I have yet to use that feature, though.

The really cool thing about FF that I didn’t really consider since I’m not a geek is that you can hook up your other online services to FF. Like your Facebook or your blog. Why is this cool? I don’t know. I just live here. No really, if you want to find out you’ll have to check it out. There are tons of blogs and tons of geeks out there who will attest to the benefits of “aggregated social media”. You have been warned, however, and may have to wait longer than you think to get over the addiction. I’m surprised that I have lasted this long.

I joined Myspace because my husband really wanted me to. I was sucked in for a while, but the maintenance of something so frivolous in light of real life responsibilities made its novelty wear off pretty quickly. I keep my account to steal band pictures for work and every now and then check up on my cousins who are on there. Facebook is more interesting to me because of the ability to throw cows at people… that and the fact that it is a much cleaner Myspace. Kind of like the difference between dressing up goth as opposed to casual dressy. Facebook also has flair which I think is a fun way to express yourself, however, its novelty has also begun to wane. (Side note: I won’t add anymore applications on FB to avoid the viruses that crashed my desktop, so if you’re sending me karma or any other requests, don’t be sad that I don’t accept or send any back. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you.)

I’ve come to my own conclusion that Twitter is like the status bar on Facebook and that’s it. I don’t have a Twitter account, though. I’m content to leave my addiction with FF for the time being.

If you’re reading this, you’re either related to me or are a friend with a blog. And most of my family and friends are not geeks, so you probably don’t know about FriendFeed. This is my attempt to draw you in or help you understand this addiction. Maybe you will take the plunge with me. You’ll be completely confused at first, but if you are actively engaged, you will find that there are plenty of people who will help get you adjusted.

For my part, revenge is sweet. Josh now has to deal with the glassy-eyed lack of attention from me that he so often dealt to me while he was feeding off friends on FriendFeed.

Posted on December 18th, 2008 by trish
Filed under: Computers, Life, New