hal tweets ·7:42 AM
A short piece I wrote for AOLnews about why Peep culture trumps privacy online. http://bit.ly/bQECsC
2008,
14:48 GMT
Hal in the New York Times Magazine
Posted by: Hal
Hi everyone…I’ve got a piece in the New York Times Magazine that comes out tomorrow. It’s already online here. It’s my formal write-up of the Failed Facebook Party. Give it a read and let me know what you think! Best, Hal.
ps – pick up the Sunday Times on your way to Canzine, and you can tell me what you think in person! I’ll be there all day, from 1-7.
2008,
14:58 GMT
Who Will Be Hal's 1000th Friend?
Posted by: Hal
So, okay, here’s the deal. Since my article in the New York Times Magazine came out about my failed Facebook Friends party, I’ve received hundreds of messages and friend requests. People have commiserated with me, shared their own tales of failed social events, and told me their philosophy of Facebook Friend adding/deleting/refusing. They’ve promised that if I’m ever in San Antonio or Palo Alto or Sudbury, they’ll buy me a beer. They are kind and, since most of them liked my piece, they seem smart too.
I still believe in the value of making “friends” online through Facebook or other social networks. Obviously I’m now far more skeptical of the possibility that one might take some of those virtual online friendships (which are more like connections, acquaintances, handshakes) and turn them into ongoing real life friendship. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop using Facebook or stop accepting friend requests from people I don’t personally know.
So, with all that said, I’m on the cusp of having 1,000 friends. I am, to be precise, now at 959 friends. And I have 53 friend requests. This means that somewhere amidst all those friend requests is my 1000th friend. Who will it be? Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to take my 1000th friend out to lunch. (If they are anywhere near Toronto, that is…if they’re somewhere else I’ll send them flowers and we’ll do a virtual lunch.) I’m going to find out all about them. I’m going to report back to you about my 1000th Facebook friend. Who are they? Will they have lunch with me? Will they want to be my “real” friend?
Sometime tonight or tomorrow I’ll be going through those 53 friend requests and adding them. I accept all comers so I won’t be picking and choosing…it will be a totally random in-order-of-friend-request process by which I arrive at friend one thousand.
Stay tuned…
2008,
13:15 GMT
My 1000th Friend!
Posted by: Hal
Okay, just added 50 or so new friends. I kept a careful tally as I made my way up to 1000. I didn’t want to misscount. It wasn’t the guy from Bangladesh or the girl from China writing a thesis on Facebook. It was almost my high school friend’s mom (sorry marjorie..you were 2 away). It wasn’t woody allen (or the person claiming to be woody allen) who added me as a friend this morning. (I am not making that up. How could you make that up?) The winner of the Hal’s 1000th Friend Contest is…drum roll…
MARIE ANGELL from Houston, Texas.
Good going Marie!
I’ve messaged Marie and am anxiously waiting to hear back from her. Since she’s in Texas and I’m in Toronto, I think I’ll send her flowers. Then we can chat online and I’ll find out all about her and if she’s okay to have me post what I find online, I’ll certainly do so. For now, all I can tell you is that she is a musician in a band and she seems like a pretty cool, fun person. Check out her band The Snake Charmers.
Thanks for being my 1000th Facebook pal Marie!
Hal.
2008,
19:56 GMT
Report on My 1000th Friend
Posted by: Hal
Last week I added my 1000th friend to Facebook, a move tinged with equal amounts of irony, optimism, skepticism and pragmatism. But let’s save that for another time. Right now, I want to report on my conversation with my new friend.
As you may recall, I promised to get in touch with my 1000th friend and take him or her out to lunch. Alas, my 1000th friend turned out to live in Baytown, Texas, not far from Houston. So instead I called up Marie Angell and we got to know each other over the phone. And instead of buying her lunch, I’m going to send her a tailor made gift package.
I really enjoyed talking to Marie and getting to know her. We had much more in common than I might have imagined, given the random circumstances of our acquaintance. A bit on those random circumstances: Marie became my friend after reading an article I wrote about a failed Facebook party. She looked me up on FB and sent me a message and added me. I asked her: “Did you think I would write you back when you messaged me?” “No,” she admitted. “So why did you bother?” “I’m a ham,” she told me. “I like to express my opinions.” I like her already!
Marie is a parent. She’s got a 16 year old daughter and an 11 year old son, as well as a grown up 22 year old stepson who plays drums in her band. Marie home schools the kids, so the first present I’m going to include is for the kids – a copy of my book for teens, The Big Book of Pop Culture: A How-To Guide for Young Artists. I asked Marie about home schooling and she told me she basically practiced “child led learning”. They don’t have a fixed schedule or tests, though she says she’s making sure that they learn “the basics.”
Next we talked about Marie’s band. Check out The Snake Charmers here. It’s a blues band and it’s a family affair since her husband is the bassist and her stepson is the drummer. There’s also a guitarist they met through Meetup.com. Marie is the singer, keyboardist and wrote all the band’s songs for their upcoming release, which she hopes will be ready in December. I’m planning on buying a copy for sure. I asked Marie how the rest of the band felt about her being the only lyricist and she told me that, “My husband has an engineering background and our guitar player Larry is a chemist so he’s not a word guy either. Eric our drummer is a word guy but his words are psychedelic 60s lyrics that make no sense. So somebody has to put the words there.”
I think, though, that Marie’s being too modest. She is, after all, a published writer. Another point of connection between us is that she writes short short stories also known as flash fiction. She says it’s a hobby and that once she won $20 and another time she got her hands on a $10 Amazon gift certificate. She sent me two of her stories and I think they’re pretty good — they showcase her keen sense of humour and her charmingly understated irony. I’ll include one at the end of this post.
Finally, I asked Marie about the US election. She didn’t vote for Obama because she always votes Libertarian. I looked it up and saw that their candidate for president got 56,398 votes. I asked her how she felt voting Libertarian in a state that always goes Republican. “I’m so accustomed to always losing,” she told me, “I don’t think about it anymore.” Love it! I’m also an optimistic pessimist with a stubborn streak.
Anyway, I was really surprised by how much we had to talk about and how well we got along. Marie is just a really cool person. For all the skepticism I have about FB and social networks, the one fundamental fact is that they bring you in contact with people you would otherwise never have had the chance to meet. We ended our talk agreeing that we were both Internet addicts, and promising to keep in touch. She said that if I ever make it to Houston she’ll buy me lunch, but as far as I’m concerned, I still owe her. In the meantime, since she likes flash fiction I’m going to send her my book of short stories (which is mostly short shorts). Since she’s into music I’m going to make her a mix CD of my favourite Canadian bands and performers. And since she’s a libertarian with an alternative streak, I’m also going to include the last 5 issues of my magazine Broken Pencil, the guide to zines and independent culture. Enjoy all that stuff Marie and thanks for being my 1000th friend!
2008,
15:19 GMT
Facebook Obsession and Indie Writers Deathmatch
Posted by: Hal
Okay it’s time to admit that I’m currently obsessed with Facebook. I’m spending way too much time on good old FB. What am I doing on there? Nothing of consequence whatsoever. Adding then deleting applications. Looking at random people’s pictures. Answering my FB messages. (A young woman today sent me a message through FB saying that she just wrote a 2 hour exam based on my article about my failed FB party.) I’m also chatting using that annoying pop up chat thing. I’ll chat with anyone! I’m a chat slut! It’s got to stop, but will it?
In order to justify my obsession with FB, I decided to try out their advertising feature so I could pretend I was doing business. I created an ad for Broken Pencil Magazine’s short story contest Indie Writers Deathmatch. It was actually quite interesting. You can target by age, country, education and interests. The ad is currently aimed at Canadians ages 16-45 who indicate writing and creative writing as interests or hobbies on their profile. I created the ad last night and so far today there’s been 12,029 impressions, and 11 clicks. I’ve spent $3.77 of BP’s money for those 11 clicks, an average of 31 cents a click. (I’ve capped it at $10 a day.)
As a advertiser, I like how targeted I can get. And as a consumer I think it’s also valuable – you’re a creative writer, so you get an ad for a creative writing contest. At the same time, there are drawbacks both practical and philisophical. On the practical side, clicking the ad takes you to the Facebook group. You then have to go from there to the actual contest page in order to find out all the details and enter your short story. So that’s one extra step which is a drawback (unlike, say, a Google Ad which would take you directly to the page you want people to go to). I have no way of knowing, ultimately, how many people actually go from the FB group to the Broken Pencil Death Match page.
More abstractly, this kind of advertising simply enhances what we already know but often chose to ignore: that the stuff we put up there to tell our FB friends about our lives can be used by just about anyone as marketing fodder. Even your social decisions – for instance if you say you are “attending” the Deathmatch – could be incorporated into the ad. (The ad is designed to have a headline above it that says “Hal Niedzviecki is attending the Indie Deathmatch”.) So all this integrates your social life into commercial life and makes me slightly queasy, slightly fascinated, and, as someone who’s trying to reach a very particular cohort of potential creative writers, slightly fascinated. If anything else comes to mind about this, I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, I really need to write a blog post about something other than FB. Get out of the house. Do something with my life.
Hal.
ps – and do consider entering the Deathmatch. It’s a really fun contest and a great opportunity for an emerging writer. I’ll be one of the initial judges to see what stories go on to get voted on. If you’re not a short story writer, please pass the link on to someone who is!
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
A short piece I wrote for AOLnews about why Peep culture trumps privacy online. http://bit.ly/bQECsC
New content on the Broken Pencil website! Short fiction: Shack the Clam Girl + How to Make Your Own Game Cabinet http://bit.ly/b6CHLP
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