Know Thyselfie

Somewhere during my career as a writer (if, indeed, having a couple of blogs and a few minor published works can actually be considered a “career”), I missed the part where you learn to write posts or columns or anything under 500 words. Brevity, concision, or succinctness — whatever it is, I don’t have it…heck even at the beginning of this sentence I used three fancy words where one normal word probably would’ve sufficed. I think the two reasons for this are that 1) I really only write things that I am passionate about, and am therefore more likely to have lengthy, thought-out opinions on; and 2) I am constantly anxious about being misinterpreted in my writings —especially on the internet — so I go out of my way to add clarity even if it means being superfluously descriptive.

But I digress.

So anyway what’s the deal with the selfie? Is there anything more simultaneously loved and loathed than the selfie?

classic selfie example

 

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The Advent of @ocdustino: A History

the face of @ocdustino…look how pretty he is when he’s not talking.

People  almost never  always ask me about my preferred social media handle — which is @ocdustino for those of you who neglected to read the title of this post — where it came from, what it means, why I have it tattooed on my left ass cheek, etc. And with it being my twitterversary week (yes, that’s a thing; no, I’m not dating anyone. I fail to see the connection) it seemed like a good time to explore the legend of @ocdustino. Buckle in, cadets, you’re in for the sort of history lesson they don’t give you in school. Except maybe homeschool if I homeschool my future kids and I’m really hungover/scrambling for some filler topics that day.

The year was 1867, I was a freshman in college, and the lightbulb had just recently been invented, which meant that we could use our computers indoors, any time of the day or night! This quickly led to the invention of something called AOL Instant Messenger (or AIM for short, because you know if your acronym needs an acronym, you’re doing it right). AIM was primarily invented as a means for people to post their favorite Brand New/Something Corporate lyrics or disparaging passive-aggressive comments about their boy/girlfriend, but quickly evolved into a sort of instant messaging service that was kind of like a two-person internet chatroom, but somehow not as creepy as an actual internet chatroom. Meeting and then getting captured/raped/killed by strangers from the internet wasn’t a thing at the time (craigslist hadn’t been invented yet), but because superheroes/secret identities were still really popular (our Batman was Michael Keaton — ha! Can you believe that? Michael Keaton!) everyone used pseudonyms (known as “screen names”) to effectively hide their true identities from strangers, while also expressing their interests to those same strangers. Screen names like “CheerKick44”, “Platypussy02”, “ExtraExtraSloppy”, “GoldfishDanzer”, “Star19Catcher”, “DivaQueen02” were the norm (fun fact: I only made two of those up). Pretty rad nicknames right? Your screen name said a lot about who you were, and you wanted it to be cool, concise, and clever. With some numbers at the end like the year you graduated or your jersey number from high school athletics because someone probably already had the version of the screen name you wanted that didn’t have numbers.

Vine Time!

Social networks are like a box of chocolates: I don’t have a second part for that analogy because I haven’t eaten yet and I can’t think clearly on an empty stomach.

Vine is the latest offering in social media, and follows all the traditional steps of major social networks: simple design, decent funding, and early adoption by Mark Hoppus. The basic idea is that by using your smartphone’s camera, you create 4-6 second videos that you then share with the other 19 people who are on Vine. It’s like instagram but for videos, much in the same way instagram was like twitter but for pictures and twitter was like facebook but without everyone getting engaged all the damn time. Everyone wants to have the hot new social media service, but does Vine have what it takes to be the next big thing — or at least avoid the same fate as Path? I have no idea, but here’s a few things I noticed after a couple weeks of usage.

How I Lost All My Followers

Special disclaimer for attractive girls: good news, none of what I’m about to say applies to you, so you can just skip ahead to the end or read another of my posts or go back to taking selfies or whatever it is you do between getting hit on and tanning.

Everyone else, buckle in, because you need to hear this. I might’ve just unfollowed you on Twitter or Instagram or Google+ (ha just kidding about that last one, I don’t even know how to activate Google+…unless wait, is this it? Are we on Google+ right now? Is me typing this going to be in one of their sad commercials?).

I love you.

(I figure if they do use this in a Google+ commercial, me typing “I love you” is the part they’ll wanna use, for the strong emotional context it provides. I don’t really love you, but I do like you, and I’m glad we’re friends. Unless we’re strangers, but that’s cool too because it’s the internet and nothing bad ever happens from meeting strangers on the internet)

But I digress.