Column: Facebook Shuffle

Ahh, the Facebook column – a great fallback for columnists looking for shit to write about.

My original idea (that was supposed to start this week) was to imitate the rest of The Aggie columnists by writing in their style. My plan went as follows:

For Mario Lugo, I envisaged writing something risqué or crazy – like an Eyes Wide Shut style orgy I went to last summer and participated in; for Beth Sekishiro, I was planning on writing something that would blow my mind if I were reading it while taking shrooms or dropping acid; for Sara Kohgadai, I was planning on ending my column with a somewhat irrelevant but nevertheless badass quote from a Tupac song (or in my case, Dr. Dre); for Erica Betnun, I was going to have a “Top 10 places to have anal on campus;” for Amanda Hardwick, I was planning on writing something Seinfeld-esque like, “What’s the deal with Cheetos? Who would find cheese and toes to be tasty? That’s disgusting;” for Michelle Rick, I imagined writing something about HB2K10, like a “How I didn’t get diced and sliced by the propeller under my boat” column; and for Will “Billy Christmas” Long, I imagined writing something that included late ’60s rock artists, stylized anecdotes of him being Batman in his spare time and some reference to watered-down beer. I was thinking Natty Ice.

So much for that idea. Back to Facebook.

Facebook is useless. We use it to talk to people we already talk to in real life, and we don’t talk to people we already don’t talk to in real life. I found a couple friends from elementary school that I hadn’t seen in over a decade – it wasn’t as interesting as you’d think. Finding a long-lost friend on Facebook is like finding a picture of a donut when you’re really hungry. Sure, it looks good, but it still doesn’t satiate your hunger. I don’t even know what the fuck that meant, so I’ll let you decipher it.

But the point of my column isn’t to bash Facebook – it’s to show you the most useful, life-changing technique available. I call it the “Facebook Shuffle,” because the word shuffle just makes shit sound cool and mysterious. It requires five, easy steps:

1. Go to your favorite friend with over 300 photos (this number can vary, but the ideal is to find a friend who has a lot of photos) and make sure you can see them and browse through them comfortably without any lag. (Note: A Facebook friend is not a Facebook friend if you can’t see their photos).

2. Browse through the latest 10 to 20 photos you see and keep the image of the person in your head.

3. Go to the newest photo available … and then hold your breath and close your eyes.

4. Press “Previous” while you’re on the first photo and you’ll go to the person’s OLDEST photo they ever put on Facebook. (Note: This ideally works best for seniors. Freshmen are still high-school/middle-school looking so it’s not interesting.)

5. Be amazed at how much your friend/acquaintance/dude you met at a bar changed over the course of college.

Some people will blow your mind. Others will be exactly the same. Regardless, it’s a very interesting exercise in the cataloging of human development. For me, it’s pretty clear I’ve gained about 100 pounds.

[I’m writing this last part of my column in SciLec during an o-chem lecture. As I look to the very back on the right side, there is a podium at the top of the steps. There’s this funny looking dude taking notes on it while standing up. I can’t help but be amazed by his obscene asshole-ocity combined with the fact that it’s totally inappropriate to pretend you’re a professor when you have no clue what the fuck is going on.]

DAVE KARIMI thinks people who use the word “amuse” – as in “I was amused that Coldstone didn’t have pistachio flavored ice cream” – are just pretentious assholes. He can be reached or touched at dkarimi@ucdavis.edu.