True Friendship Always

Defining true friendship is a modern problem. For some people. It seems that technology has made idiots of us all when it comes to knowing who our true friends are. At least this is what some dude named Simon Sinek says.

But he also says that he cries a lot. That’s right, I say HE cries a lot. Don’t even get me started on the failure of masculinity in the new millennium. Anyhoo, he says we need to cry together on couches to be true friends, I say this is quite good enough :(. Or I would if I could stomach emoticons.

Facebook gets blamed for watering down relationships. Apparently true friends are only those people you have a deep trust with. Who knew? I’ll tell you who, everyone who is not emotionally confused. And anyway, I say that digitally sharing a photo album with questionable photos of yourself is just the same. Mine include me drinking various types of dubious alcohol. LOOK AT THEM! Now we are friends.

The crying man is also worried that putting our personal information on display confuses people and makes them think they know us. Much like how reading a celebrity blog makes you think you and Brad Pitt are pals. To be honest, I did fall victim to this once. It was while working at the CBC. I was screening and cataloguing a show from the 70s called Take 30. Hana Gartner was one of the hosts at that time. Hana still worked at the CBC so I would occasionally run into her on an elevator. It would be just me in her in there and my first instinct was to blurt something out as if we were friends. But seriously it was just a momentary relapse, I didn’t actually think we were bros. Hana, if you’re reading this, can you please return my calls? Thanks.

In the context of Facebook. what is true friendship, friends? It’s the same as in real life. In the network of people you have met in person, some are acquaintances and some are true friends. If you are savvy, you know the difference. On Facebook this community just gets disproportionately magnified, your friends remain the same, your acquaintances grow to ridiculous numbers.

Sinek says about friendship: ‘you can’t request it’. True, when you friend request someone and they accept that does not immediately mean you are friends, but it can mean you like that person enough to try. There will always be people who request your FB friendship then disappear once you accept, to these people friendship is merely a numbers game. They define their social status by quantity and not quality. Poor dears.

I have proof that Facebook can help turn a stranger into a friend, her name is Kaggers and she is my pal. Our friendship was formed with the help of Facebook. Deal with it.

Are we alone together?

Look you guys, I don’t want to alarm you but the robots are coming! Also, it seems that some people think that while technology tries to connect us, it is actually driving us apart. And by some people I mean MIT professor of the social studies of science and technology, Sherry Turkle. Her new book, Alone Together, examines the way people interact with technology in our highly connected world. What a waste of time! She could have just come and talked to Kaggers and I. We have developed the ideal way to balance technology with the real world. It’s just a little something we call living life.

I wasn’t kidding with you about the robots. According to Turkle we are experiencing “the robotic moment”. WHAT THE FACEBOOK?! Don't panic, that just means we don’t have robots but we are getting philosophically prepared for them. Kaggers, I want you to know something, I would never replace you with a friendbot. Sure a robot would never talk back and would be okay with doing my laundry for me but wherefore the banter? Wherefore the humanity? Plus I hear robots make shitty co-blog writers.

You see the thing is, pals, we just have to learn how to use technology to our social advantage. We have to remember to keep one foot in the real world as we tweet toward tomorrow. Jonah Lehrer’s New York Times review of Turkle’s book draws the same conclusion: “In the end, it’s just another tool, an accessory that allows us to do what we’ve always done: interact with one other”. I could not have said that better myself, no wait I already did.

The human tendency to pun is carved in stone

The title of this post comes from The Pun's Story, a recent book review on the history and significance of punning.

The review likens the 34,000 year old art of punning to modern day communication technologies: “Sumerian scribes began using pictographs...the result…was comparable to a modern text message…”; and, "the pun was humanity’s first hyperlink, a way to identify and articulate potential connections that aren’t necessarily or immediately apparent.”

Technology and punnery go hand in hand. On one hand, email can be open to misinterpretation with the reader potentially misreading the sender’s tone and intent of their email. On the other, to make a purposeful play on words in an email forces the punnee to decipher the double entendre of the punner’s email.

The first is an unintentionally ambiguous email which makes you crazy trying to figure out its meaning. The other is an intentionally ambiguous email which makes you crazy trying to figure out its meaning. Crazy with laughter!

Rachel Kagan March 16 at 4:12pm
Where did that sudden burst of delusional confidence come from? It must be my new glasses. It’s weird to call them ‘new’ when they are wood. Do you think that the first glasses ever were made of stone? Who could be able to rock that look?

Kathryn Rawson March 16, 2011 at 5:18pm
I like your new glasses! I have no idea who would be able to rock the stone look but it would have to be someone with the strength of marble. The quality of my stone-related joke is questionable, I am aware of this.

Rachel Kagan March 17 at 9:29am
The quality of your joke is not questionable. In fact, I think it really represents the cornerstone of the whole bit.

Kathryn Rawson March 17, 2011 at 10:30am
It's true, my joke is basically the Plymouth Rock of our times.

Rachel Kagan March 17 at 1:40pm
You have facilitated the bedrock that is this joke.

Kathryn Rawson March 17 at 2:21pm
I guess you could say I really boulder-d you over with my joke.

Rachel Kagan March 17 at 3:23pm
Yes, I would say that you did boulder-d me over, so much so that my laughter turned into lava. I think I just turned this joke into rubble.

Kathryn Rawson March 17 at 5:31pm
This joke is so dead it should have its own tombstone.

Rachel Kagan March 18 at 12:09pm
We just need to medicate this joke to bring it back to life. So we need to get it stoned.

Kathryn Rawson March 18 at 12:53pm
We are like the master masons of rock jokes.