Teens Can Make Anything Evil

Fosco, like pretty much everyone else, is on Facebook. Indeed he feels a small measure of pride that, as a Harvard alum, Fosco can remember when "The Facebook" was actually a book (that's what the annual "Freshman Register" was informally called--it was the way that you got to know all of your freshman classmates, before you even arrived at school). Interestingly enough, copies of these old Freshman Facebooks can go for a pretty penny online. I'm sure Fosco's year will eventually be worth even more when one of his classmates becomes President or Pope or Bono.

But as Facebook the website continues its relentless incursion into all of our personal lives, some new questions are coming to the fore. Like:

• What's the best way to de-friend someone? (I'm looking at you, Linda.)
  
• Should I "friend" my boss/advisor?
  
• How many ex-boyfriends/girlfriends on my Friendlist is too many?
  
• If I were a Supreme Court Justice, which one would I be?

And, perhaps most importantly: "Should my teenager use Facebook?"

As far as Fosco is concerned, the answer to any question that begins "Should my teenager use..." is always NO. But I guess not all parents are as well-prepared as Fosco. And for those parents who want to consider the possibility that their teens should use Facebook, Fosco would like to recommend this article on HuffPo. The author, Kari Henley, is interested in how the cognitive development of teens may prevent them from using Facebook in an appropriate way. She tells this story:

Jill is a mother of three children ages 10-14, who are fully into the digital generation. All have iPods, computers, Wii games, cell phones, and are addicted to Facebook. They are like most middle school aged kids in America today who have their hands on toys most adults only recently acquired themselves.

One day, a call came from the principal informing Jill and her husband, their middle daughter was being given in-school suspension for creating a Facebook group used to make fun of another student. Called something like, "Eric is a Hairy Beast," the group quickly filled with loads of kids making fun of a quiet Armenian boy, uploading cell phone pictures of him and becoming more brazen by the day.

While this story may seem upsetting, Fosco would like to note that he has actually seen the pictures of Eric the Armenian boy and Eric is indeed a hairy beast (in fact, Fosco has been a member of this group for months).

But seriously, why would supposedly "good kids" do this kind of thing on Facebook? The suggestion is that it has something to do with adolescent brain development, or lack thereof:

Dr. Jay Giedd is the chief of brain imaging in the child psychiatry branch at the National Institute of Mental Health, and an expert in adolescent brain development. His research shows the brain is not fully developed at age 12 as was believed, but reaches full maturity in our mid-twenties. Adolescence is a time of profound brain development, surpassing that of toddlers. The area of the pre-frontal cortex develops last, which is in charge of higher reasoning and understanding consequences. The emotional centers of the brain that control happiness, fear, anger and sadness often over-compensate, and can be 50% stronger during adolescence.

Which means, as anyone who has ever met one knows, teenagers have terrible judgment--all because of their brains. And so, while teenagers certainly have the ability to recognize how repulsively hairy Eric the Armenian Boy is, they tend to lack the ability to understand why it's a bad idea to talk about it on Facebook.

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25 Things About Fosco (Sort Of)

February is the month that the NY Times discovered the "Twenty-Five Things About You" meme that whipped through Facebook during late January. You know, it's that thing where you are tagged by a friend/acquaintance/coworker to post 25 random things about yourself--your choice. Several of Fosco's blogopals, like Jill and Ted, have even relocated this task from Facebook to their blogs.

In one recent piece in the Times, they discuss the ways in which the list can be used (like everything else on Facebook) in the service of self-presentation. So, in the spirit of that Times piece, Fosco offers you his own 25 list today. Note: the Times's recommendations for each number are in brackets and italics. Fosco's actual answers follow the recommendations.

1. [Say that you hate things like this, and are doing it only to get the (oh, so many) friends clamoring for your list off your back.]
   I'm actually not a fan of this kind of thing, but people keep asking me. (Although, the very fact that I blog at all should suggest that I actually don't mind this kind of thing too much.)
   
2. [Describe “embarrassing” high school incident that makes you look cool.]
   I was the valedictorian of my high school, which was pretty embarrassing at the time because our school did not strongly value academics.
   
3. [Confess to crush on a) third-grade teacher b) obscure indie actor or actress c) your significant other, especially if he or she is on Facebook.]
   My third grade teacher was a giant lesbian, so I didn't have a crush on her. I do, however, have a (not exactly sexual) crush on Alan Tudyk.
   
4. [Identify real, but minor, flaw.]
   I noticed last week that, in profile, I have Lincoln's nose.
   
5. [Identify major flaw by suggesting how it may also be major virtue.]
   I have absolutely no control over my book-buying habit. It's a terribly expensive habit for someone with a grad student's income. However, it is very nice to own a large library--especially when much of it is useful for your work.
   
6. [Cite mean nickname you were given as a child.]
   As a tween, I was occasionally called "Spanky."
   
7. [Follow with offhand mention of receipt of high professional honor or athletic or artistic achievement.]
   After graduating from Harvard, I received a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship to study psychology.
   
8. [Describe meeting a celebrity and how it a) disillusioned or b) thrilled you or c) if it’s a really good celebrity just the name will do.]
   I've met Bruce Springsteen and it was a little thrilling.
   
9. [Mention small adversity, like long commute or annoying neighbor, and the unexpected, preferably funny, way you overcome it.]
   I would really love to own a pug dog, but almost all Santa Cruz leases don't allow dogs. So instead, I have bought a Pug-A-Day Calendar the last three years. And every day, I name the pug(s) of the day.
   
10. [Cite an actual random thing that comes to mind while writing this list.]
    John Cameron Mitchell saw my penis once.
    
11. [“Admit” that you always identified with weird ancillary character on popular TV show in 7th grade, as if you didn’t know that everyone in retrospect agrees that was the best character.]
    It doesn't quite fit, but in seventh grade I thought I was Alex P. Keaton of "Family Ties."
    
12. [Expose something genuine and poignant about yourself, such as untimely death of close relative or rare genetic condition.] I have a genetic non-Parkinsonian tremor, which will probably slowly get worse over the rest of my life. Most of the time, people just think I'm very nervous.
    
13. [Express heartfelt thanks to friends or family for helping you through #12, or just for being there, or whatever.]
    My boyfriend Oz has been extremely understanding and supportive about my tremor (and it's potential for future degeneration).
    
14. [Conclude sentimental portion of list by citing the scene in movie X that always makes you cry. Could also be a lyric, or a memory, so long as it involves crying.]
    I always cry during the prom scene in Buffy Season 3.
    
15. [Something about drugs.]
    I think cocaine is much more interesting and useful than marijuana. I'm not really into drugs, but if I were, it would be coke all the way.
    
16. [Tell a story of how you stood up to authority. Dwelling on descriptive details can help it not seem like you are making yourself out to be a hero even though you are.]
    When I was an announcer for a classical music station, I once chose to play a piece that contained the full text of Allen Ginsberg's Howl as the libretto, insisting that the station's obscenity policy could not apply to art. I was wrong. All of the announcers had to take obscenity training because of me. They weren't thrilled.
    
17. [Recount a dramatic moment, like having your heart broken or getting arrested, but withhold details, forcing readers to ask for them in your "comments" section. In case you didn’t know, comments equate to status on Facebook even more than number of friends.]
    I once failed a field sobriety test when I was completely sober.
    
18. [Make one up.]
    I've appeared on "Card Sharks."
    
19. [Say “one of these is completely made up.”]
    One of these is completely made up.
    
20. [If you have kids, a) cite weird names you wanted for them and how your more rational, if less creative, spouse rescued them from a lifetime of torture,]
    I don't have kids, nor do I want kids. But if I accidentally ended up with three kids, I would probably name them Foucault (boy), Derrida (girl), and Dickens (either). Luckily, Oz wouldn't let these names happen (because he hates creative names).
    
21. [and/or b) relate story that appears to expose your inept parenting while in fact highlighting their precocious brilliance. If you don’t have kids, relate a cute anecdote from your early life to show everyone that you’re still a kid at heart.]
    When I was six, I was in an art class at the local nature center. I made a model that I called the "Hall of Justice." The teacher was so impressed with my precocity until the mother of one of my friends/rivals explained to her that the "Hall of Justice" was the headquarters of the Super Friends.
    
22. [If you have a pet, you have one item only through which to convey its superlative nature. If you don’t have a pet, talk about how much you yearn for an obscure breed of cat/dog/reptile or, alternatively, how much you hate animals and the people who love them.]
    Oz and I have a cat named Isis who loves to play "fetch" with her catnip-stuffed fish (named "Tina Tuna").
    
23. [Something about parents.]
    My mother is a distant relative of Abraham Lincoln. My father is a distant relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
    
24. [Name skill that you are proud of by recounting unexpected way you acquired it.]
    I learned to smoke a pipe while I was (briefly, in college) a member of a shadowy conservative organization. College was a very confusing and awkward time for me.
    
25. [Close with the unusual: a) recount a genuinely traumatic event you witnessed or b) name an exotic location that is your favorite place on earth or c) cite a dubious world record that you performed.]
    I love Reykjavik, Iceland and have been there twice. It's one of my favorite cities in the world.
    

You Should Superpoke Lindsay Lohan (If You Know What I Mean)

When Lindsay Lohan recognizes that a trend is over, that trend is, like, so over. And so, it is time for all of us to delete our MySpace pages and switch over completely to Facebook.

Sadly, however, Firecrotch's foray into the Facebook was not without incident: apparently, Facebook administrators thought her new profile was a fake and disabled it. Apparently, there are just oodles of people who want to register on FB as "Lindsay Lohan." Read about her harrowing experience (as per a posting on her MySpace page):

wow! i was in shock...here i am loving facebook (as well as myspace-hehe) but going on facebook to talk to some of my friends and they are thinking that I AM THE "FAKE" OF MYSELF!!! hahahahahaha.. at first i laughed, and then i got angry. angry because, with ALL the people that PRETEND to be me on facebook, they decide to say I AM THE FAKE- of myself.

Now on first glance this tirade may seem to be borderline literate; however, Fosco would like to suggest there are some serious philosophical questions in play here. Really! Think about it: how can you prove that you are not the fake of yourself? Or, to put it in Lohanese, who decides that YOU ARE THE FAKE- of yourself?

So why are all the redheaded rats leaving the sinking MySpace ship? Some insight today from an interview with Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff (Murdoch's NewsCorp owns MySpace):

if you’re on MySpace now, you’re a [expletive] cretin. And you’re not only a [expletive] cretin, but you’re poor. Nobody who has beyond an 8th grade level of education is on MySpace. It is for backwards people.

Classy! Fosco at least tried to sugarcoat the same observation when he pithily noted (in this post) that "Facebook is the Target to MySpace's WalMart."

But because Michael Wolff wants to make sure you really get his point, he will even put it in advertising-speak!:

That is one of the interesting points of Murdoch. He wants to make money off of what he rightly saw as a rising lower class. He came to this country and he sees, that’s just not really true. No one really identifies with being lower class [in the US]. As soon as it comes to you—‘I am lower class’--you run, and you have to rehabilitate all of your aspirational identifiers.

Yes, MySpace users, it's true: you have to rehabilitate your aspirational identifiers.