Count me among the growing number of so-called older Facebook fans reported on in the broadcast and print press this week. I’ve been persuaded by my younger and smarter friends and family members to hop aboard, presumably to promote my work and stay connected.
In a few short weeks, Facebook did that and more for me. It is definitely social, like being at a party. It’s a great medium for keeping abreast of what the younger folks (and now older folks) are doing and thinking. As a networking tool, its extent is far reaching, and the type of information exchanged is surprising and intimate.
If you’re beginning to feel a little behind the times, just take a leap of faith and get on FB. You’ll be up to date in no time.
THE COUSINS
One of my initial objectives was to keep up with my younger relatives. I asked Miss Marvelous’s mom to tutor me in Facebook. Then with a curious interest I “friended” my first cousins, and my first cousins once- and twice-removed online. And I’m not speaking of email. The medium of FB itself is friendly and as private as you wish, with encouragement to not just connect, but to interact too.
It’s plain to see through the conversation threads these features:
How well one can build and maintain a fan and fund base if you are a professional entertainer or filmmaker, as my cousins Sunway and Titus do day and night.
Parents use FB as another way to “talk” to their kids, and vice versa, about subjects they may not be able to discuss face to face, i.e., subjects they are likely to read on FB and not hear in person. 😉
Many of my FB friends appreciate fine food, posting photos and details of their most recent culinary adventure. Could be we’re friends because of our similar tastes!
My cousins on FB were the subjects of “The Cousins,” a collection of fresh stick figure drawings by cousin Toy. I scored an adorable caricature of “Artist Cousin” for my profile photo on my fan page. I think Toy, encouraged by the positive feedback from her relatives online, might pursue her art further.
FB is immediate, so you can get the news headlines before the paper publishes it tomorrow morning.
The words and images some people choose to share are fill in the blank .
For many people FB is the communications medium of choice or necessity. I re-connected with a young friend now a medic deployed to Afghanistan, and I was alerted via FB’s chat feature by my hanai sister who didn’t have my phone number handy that she fell with her horse and was in the hospital.
THE COUSINS GATHERING
Facebook is immediate and in real time. Not wanting to wait for the next big family reunion of the sort that takes months of planning, I wanted to get to know my younger cousins who already formed a network on FB. They comment on anything and everything and with everyone. I thought, too, it might be nice for them to get to know each other in a different venue. What kind of experience would it be to have them meet and converse in person?
I sent an evite to the cousins who lived on the island, (and who used email — duh), to an informal get-together at the studio, saying, “Log off the computer, it’s time to party!”
Surprisingly to me, while the conversations on FB are very chummy, Sunday’s “Cousins Gathering in the Country” was the first time several of the cousins met each other face to face!
With three generations of adult cousins present, we oldsters realize it’s time to tell the “kids” who’s who in our genealogy.
I brought out the silver gelatin prints that our late cousin Anson made in the 1950s (I inherited them from his widow Ann), and invited my cousins to have the images that had meaning for them. At the end of the evening most of the photos were on their way to new scrapbook albums. Some have already been posted to FB by cousin Tim, I see, and tagged (identified). Imagine having a photo of your great-great-grandmother for the first time!
Cousin Titus brought the short film “Lychee Thieves” (written & directed by Kathleen Man), that he co-produced, about the cast of characters’ individual desires for lychee from a certain tree and the conflicts that ensue. We all concurred, well done!
We talked, ate potluck, cracked jokes, just got to know each other a little better, and everyone went home with some of this season’s three-pound avocados that they watched us pick. It was fun!
Facebook remains a most intriguing social media. I find it enhances the times when you can still pick up the phone to hear your friend’s voice or meet and see your friend in person.
THE WONDER
My teacher AliceAnne Parker said the internet is just practice for what we all will be able to do eventually with our psychic ability. As the Light grid around our planet becomes stronger we will just know. Everything. I wonder if eventually is now. I wonder if Facebook is a means to understanding Oneness. We are One.
Did I say “leap of faith?”
Rebekah’s Studio 
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