Women Facebook and Fine Wine: Better With Age?

I am basically the epitome of what people are talking about when they refer to the "facebook generation." A good portion of my social interactions occur on the social networking site. This includes messaging my friends, inviting people and being invited to events, posting and viewing photos, and sharing information about my boring day-to-day life. In fact, when I am finished writing this blog, I will post a link to it on my wall in hopes that some of my facebook friends might enjoy it.

I don't have a problem with any of this. Facebook has been a constant and evolving part of my adult life since I left home in August of 2004. (Facebook was launched in February of the same year.) One could even say that facebook and I have grown and matured together.

When I reached Tulane University in the fall of 2004, facebook was still a new, uncertain, moderately well developed networking site for college students at select universities ONLY. This meant that there was a limited pool of users and that these users were essentially all my age. Facebook basically functioned as a collection of those white boards that people hang on their dorm room doors for others to write messages on. Sometimes, friends leave important messages, but mostly people just get drunk and draw dicks all over everyone's doors. God, it was fun.

In September of 2005, facebook became available to students with valid high school e-mails, which creator Mark Zuckerberg considered the next logical step. It wasn't until September of 2006 that the network was opened to anyone 13 and older with an e-mail address. Even then, it took some time for facebook to become the cushy, parent-friendly place it is today.

I have developed a sort of timeline that demonstrates how my use of facebook has changed as the site has become less college-centric and as I myself have aged and matured. I don't claim to fully understand whether my newfound maturity or the diversification of facebook membership has done more to temper my online activity. Let's just assume it was a combination of the two.

The Timeline:
Fall 2004: I drunkenly browse through Tulane student profiles one night after returning from the bar. Upon finding a guy who looks cute in his profile picture, I send him a message saying something like, "This is creepy, but you're a hottie!" This is before the advent of photo tagging and thus my nighttime stalking ends there.
Later, the mystery man and I run into each other at Jimmy's, recognize each other from facebook, and make out for a few minutes. We part ways and have not spoken since.

Fall 2005: Desperately missing my bff Heather during the Katrina break, I either initiate or continue (probably the latter) a rather filthy string of back-and-forth wall comments. This battle reaches its apex when I graphically describe a scene in a pornographic film and indicate that Heather reminds me of one of the less savory participants.
All is well as only college students and a few, bold high schoolers are currently members of the facebook community. That is, until Heather's mother discovers her open facebook and reads the comments. Brief, alternating periods of shame and hysterical laughter ensue.

Fall 2006: While pre-gaming a FIJI frat party in Maddy's dorm room, an impromptu photo shoot breaks out. At one point, I am standing over Heather and Andre as I photograph them on the floor, "looking like they are standing on the wall." (?)
Anyway, an up-skirt photo of me somehow results and we all laugh about posting it on facebook, which we do not hesitate to do. The photo is not graphic or vulgar, but it is not exactly classy or professional, either.

Winter 2006: Apparently nobody is friends with their parents or bosses yet, because a particularly hilarious, pterodactyl-themed porn clip makes its rounds on the walls of many of my friends. We all laugh.

Spring 2007: I post a note containing an instant messaging conversation I had with a friend whom I have not seen since middle school. In it, while discussing sexual ethics, I argue the hypothetical value of raunchy, porno-style sexual relations. The level of filth gradually escalates until my friend abruptly ends the conversation. It is one of the funnier things I have ever experienced.

Summer 2008: I edit my profile to make it acceptable to judgmental and concerned adults and untag any blatantly inappropriate pictures.

Winter 2008: I am home for Christmas break and left with some spare time. I use this time to go through all of my own posted photos and remove anything that may be viewed unfavorably. I also view hundreds of tagged photos of myself, imagining the impression I would get if I were a stranger, and untag any photos that give me a bad fake first impression.

Summer 2009-present: I untag obviously drunk or unsavory photos as they are posted. I often use symbols in place of expletives and staunchly avoid sexual innuendo. I (rarely) remove comments and wall posts from my friends that reflect poorly on me or the company I keep.

Facebook isn't as fun anymore.

I know that my use of the site probably would have changed as I aged, anyway, but I can't help being bitter at all the adults and kids who have invaded what was once a really enjoyable playground for those in their early twenties. I understand that the logical steps for the company were to further expand the network and involve over 500,000,000 individuals worldwide. For the most part, I like the changes they have made. Still, every once in a while, I just want to go back to the days where a facebook wall was like a college white board, gloriously full of sloppily drawn penises, endlessly abused, and so full of youthful promise.

Gross Human Rights Violations in Harry Potter's World

I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. I have read every book in the series numerous times, and I'm the kind of person who gets really upset when people ask stupid questions or discredit the story after only having seen the movies.

Currently, I am in the process of reading the entire series to my unborn child with the hopes that he will be born already loving Harry and the entire cast of wizard characters. Right now, we are partway through "The Goblet of Fire," and I've noticed a few things this time around that I had never really thought about before.

For example, why didn't witches and wizards simply apparate away from the dangers presented by the Death Eaters when Lord Voldemort was at large? How was Hermione allowed to have a time turner in order to get to all of her lessons in "The Prisoner of Azkaban" without Professor Snape being aware of the situation? (If Snape had known, he would have known for sure that Hermione and Harry had had something to do with Sirius Black's escape, rather than simply suspecting them.) Why, if Harry is inextricably linked to Voldemort, does he sometimes see Voldemort's actions in his dreams, but from the point of view of a third party?

All of these questions are unanswerable and not particularly important. However, there is one thing that really bothers me. We all know that the Wizarding World is not always the most progressive or fair place. It's a terrible place for good hearted werewolves like Remus Lupin, Mud Bloods are often discriminated against, and society is constantly on the brink of civil war due to the potential rise of Voldemort. However, even in a flawed society such as this one, how the fuck is a terrible place like Azkaban allowed to be the ONLY wizarding prison?

For those who are not familiar with Azkaban Prison, allow me to briefly explain. Azkaban is where literally every wizard or witch convicted of any crime, regardless of severity, is sent. This prison is guarded by creatures called dementors who feed off of the happiness of human beings and make it really cold all the time. When they are around, nobody is capable of feeling happy. After even a short amount of time, the vast majority of prisoners is driven certifiably insane by the dementors' presence. Even wrongly convicted wizards often loose their will to live while in Azkaban.

Oh, and if they get pissed off or if you do something really bad, they suck the soul out of your body and leave you, a miserable meat shell, to live out the rest of your life without really living.

This shit would never fly in any developed country in the Muggle World. First of all, America is the only first world country that even allows capital punishment anymore. So you'd better bet that England, where Harry Potter is set, would have a serious problem with this whole soul-sucking scenario. Even in America, where frying up and lethally injecting murderers is quite popular in some places, safe guards are put in place in order to protect prisoners from terrible things like dementors.

The eighth amendment to the American constitution forbids what is termed "cruel and unusual punishment" for convicted criminals. There has been extensive debate since the drafting of this amendment as to what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, as one might expect. However, psychological punishment is fairly widely considered to fall into the category of constitutionally prohibited.

In fact, on several occasions judges have ruled against allowing capital punishment convictions to stand on the grounds that housing a prisoner while he knows that the time of his death is quickly approaching can be considered cruel and/or unusual. How much worse is allowing prisoners to be stored in a place where they are incapable of having happy feelings? Where it is always cold? Where they are constantly being emotionally drained by the creatures guarding them while all the while living in fear of literally losing their souls?

And the Wizarding World does not reserve this punishment for the worst criminals. As far as one can tell from the content of the seven books in the Harry Potter series, all convicted criminals are stored in Azkaban. Hagrid, an innocent man, was sent to Azkaban for a time in "The Chamber of Secrets" after it was wrongly assumed that he had opened the Chamber. As far as I can tell, he didn't even stand trial! The wizarding justice system is allowing the psychological torture of prisoners to the point of insanity without even giving them due process first.

There are gross violations of basic human rights going on in Harry Potter's world. Sometimes I wish I lived there so I could play quidditch and use magic to do my chores, but I'm not sure I feel that way anymore. Who wants to live in a world where, the next time they get busted for disorderly conduct, they have to go through holding in a place where the prison guards might suck our their soul? Not me. Not Anymore.

The 2010 VMAs and I Think I'm Too Old to Get This Bullshit Anymore

Last night, I watched the 2010 VMAs mostly because I was having back problems and couldn't think of a better stationary activity. (I had forgotten about the Dallas/Washington Sunday Night Football game, for which I am kicking myself now.) I never go into the VMAs with particularly high expectations, as it is an opportunity for MTV to shamelessly self-promote while entertaining some amount of their tween audience, simply disguised as an awards show. Even so, I was particularly disappointed by some elements of last night's show:

1. Rihanna NOT condemning domestic violence- LIVE!
I think everyone was a little bit confused and surprised when Rihanna released a collaboration with Eminem in which he raps about physically abusing his girlfriend in a fairly neutral tone. While all women should be vehemently against any kind of domestic abuse, one would expect an active stance from Rihanna, whose household name stems largely from the fact that she had the crap beaten out of her by then-boyfriend Chris Brown before the 2009 Grammys.

While hearing her voice on the radio was somewhat confusing, seeing her standing on stage singing calmly that she "like[s] the way it hurts," was surreal. I would expect more from someone who should rightfully be a poster child for a zero tolerance policy on girlfriend battering, whether she asked for that job or not.

2. Justin Bieber's Lipsyncing
Justin Bieber is a child who first garnered a degree of fame by posting videos of himself singing on youtube. At some point, the powers that be in the music industry picked up on his star potential, and shortly thereafter Usher somehow became Justin's mentor. I'm not privy to all of the details. The point is, the kid can legitimately sing. I understand that his stage show now features young Timberlake-esque dance routines and that singing and dancing at the same time is hard. Still, it disappoints me to see Bieber being played out like some no-talent kid who was taught to dance, kind of. Let him sing.

3. The Resolution to the Taylor/Kanye Debacle
Both Taylor Swift and Kanye West gave performances addressing Kanye's extreme rudeness at last year's VMAs. While Taylor's performance rang soft and anti-climatic, Kanye's was pure self indulgence at it's finest.

Someone needs to inform Kanye that you can't make up for acting like a douche bag by being even more of a douche bag by glorifying the fact that you are, in fact, a gigantic douche bag. Let me explain.

Kanyes performance began with a not particularly impressive demonstration of his mad one-man production skills, in which he created a beat, step by step, on stage. Ok, self indulgent, but at least somewhat interesting and original. Then, he proceeded to perform a song in which he calls for a toast to the douche bags and assholes out there, clearly referring to himself. He even managed to slip in the adjective "brilliant" when referring to his ability to find fault in his life. This is a man who honestly thinks he is constantly redefining music and culture. I would be willing to argue that he's a pretty good producer and a sub-par lyricist, but I can't stand writing about this douche bag anymore.

4. Lady Gaga's... fashion?
We get it, Gaga, you're wacky. Some of the stuff you wear is cool, original, and interesting. However, after a year where pop music was almost entirely shit, you should have been prepared to take home a couple VMAs. Maybe you should have planned the trip from your seat to the stage a little bit better. Multiple outfits that require assistants in order for you to get up and walk the two rows to the stage are a little out of line. You had the right idea with the meat dress, even though it was disgusting. Also, stop crying.


5. Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj is a less talented, less original, more annoying, watered down version of little Kim. I hate her and wish she would drop off the planet. Also, when do rappers EVER lipsync? Apparently she did during the pre-show. That is beyond whack.

6. Chelesea Handler
She's so old and gross and not funny. That is all.