My nephew, the groupie

My nephew is 12 years old, unless you believe his Facebook profile; in which case, he turns 21 this year.

And with all due respect to all of my other Facebook friends, I always look forward to his status updates. My nephew, you see, is a 'man' on a mission - to join as many Facebook groups as possible.

Last I looked, he had topped 2700 and was showing no signs of slowing down.

Some of these 'pledges' of allegiance are understandable. Someone, I suppose, has to support the group 'Nottingham Forest FC'. Equally, you could have anticipated that 'Come on England!' would spark a healthy degree of interest amongst certain sections of the English population earlier on this summer.

Like millions of other Facebook users, however, it appears that my nephew isn't content simply clustering up in traditional formation against the backdrop of a local football team or national flag. Not at all. In fact, many of the 'groups' out there are no longer delineated by race or cultural interest. Rather, they appear to be more like flags, attaching themselves to fragments of universal wisdom that spark moments of recognition in those of us who happen upon them. Facebook simply provides us with an opportunity to stop for a moment and stand alongside hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of other people and declare “that’s so true!”.

Sometimes these moments are sombre; sometimes frivolous; sometimes on the border of what is acceptable - but always, like modern day proverbs, they call out for our allegiance.

From his list of 2700, here are just a few of my favourites.

'There should be a 99p coin.'

'I hate it when the teacher erases everything off a board except a little mark.'

'Hey, McDonalds, may I have some Coke with my ice!'

'My bed is so much more comfy on a school day.'

'Stabbing the s**t out of a microwave meal, when it says "pierce several times."'

'He's already ruined your mascara. Don't let him ruin your life.'

Moments of recognition. Shallow truths around which to cluster and smile before moving on.

Of course, social psychologists used to tell us that 150 meaningful connections was about as much as any of us could cope with. Social media, though, continues to challenge this wisdom. The more the merrier, it declares, with only half an eye on distinguishing between those affiliations that define us completely over a lifetime, and those that are on the outer edges of our self-created personal networks.

The only limiting factor, it seems, whether we're Facebook fans or preferring of the Twitter tweet deck, is how to keep the pace.

I'm guessing, though, at least as far as my young nephew is concerned, that with 2700 groups, he's happy just going with the flow.

But be careful. This is not the same as saying that these groups don't matter and have no connection to our everyday lives. Apparently, the threat to world peace that arose this week as a US pastor threatened to burn copies of the Koran itself began as a Facebook group.

Thankfully, though, this was one group my nephew chose to ignore.

Comments

[olga guy]

For me, the most phenomenal in the phenomenon of facebook is that people, not all but almost, are completely confident in this online friend, they are with him and for him what they would never 'be' and 'do' in their 'real' life with 'real' people around that is very understandable, natural and even justified sometimes …
The human nature is a complete enigma, once again, for us the most real thing in life was, is, and will always be the imagination, and facebook is just a proof of it

ps
I discover that till now, without any reason at all, just by distraction, I didn’t sign yet as a 'fun' for your ‘fragments’, so I repair this fault now