Facebook: My Year in Status
My life is boring. I don't go to clubs, I have never done an extreme sport and when people ask me what's new, I usually tell them what I ate for lunch. I never really worried about this before — that is, until I read a collection of my own Facebook updates. Facebook's "My Year in Status" application has collected every status update I posted this year and published them as one easily digestible essay about sleeping, eating and going to work. I really need to get out more.
What I did in 2009, according to Facebook:
In January, I received a Snuggie. In February I became very angry at a Lincoln car commercial. In March, I caught the flu and complained about it for weeks. In April, I hung new curtains. In May, I met Lou Reed (O.K., that one was interesting). I ate a bagel in June, cooked dinner in July, and in August I spent an entire day in pajamas. I only had two status updates during the month of September but one of them was about socks. I napped in October, complained about the noisy neighborhood bar in November and last week I commented about the snow. I'm one Wheel of Fortune reference away from sounding like a little old lady.
I may be bland, but judging from my friends' status roundups, I am not alone. In fact, most Facebook users lead overwhelmingly boring lives. (They must; why else would they have nothing better to do than check Facebook?) My news feed is cluttered with updates about triple word scores in Scrabble, new Taco Bell menu items and people who won't stop talking about their pets. Sure, there is the occasional flash of excitement or wit — like in August, when I said that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sounded like the name of a law firm, or November when my friend Marc went golfing in a canyon — but the moments were brief, hidden among anecdotes about breakfast burritos and daytime television programs.
Well, all of that is about to change. I vow to make 2010 much more interesting, even if I have to lie about it on Facebook. Get ready for a year full of adventure and mayhem, with updates such as:
Claire:
• Is skydiving!
• Is naked skydiving!
• Is bungee jumping off a bridge
• off the Eiffel Tower
• off the moon
• Is trapped in a pit full of vipers
• Fought my way out of a pit full of vipers by hacking at them with swords
• and then stabbing them with a bayonet
• Licked a hallucinogenic toad
• Just beat Jean-Claude Van Damme in a bar fight
• Saved babies and puppies from a burning building
• Joined the mob
• Married a unicorn
• Got stuck in a minefield
• Traveled back in time. Then traveled forward in time to write this
• Became a Somali pirate
• Sold out the Somali pirates to authorities for a chest full of gold coins
• Spent seven hours at the bank, trying to deposit gold coins
• Eventually just robbed the place
• Is trapped in the viper pit again. Damn.
O.K., so maybe I'll write all of these while sitting on the couch, wrapped in my Snuggie and sipping chamomile tea. But can you really blame me? Viper pits are notoriously uncomfortable.