The Eternal Question

**this bdudz for pointing out my amateur mistake. 143aaf**

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Definitions

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Sad, Yet True

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FB Rule #92

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Life's Tough Questions

{nutmeg's blog!}

This Is Why I Blog/Twitter/FB

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'Traci Likes This'

Whether we realize it or not, Facebook has taken over our lives. At a recent reunion with old friends, we were discussing how FB effects how we react in certain situations. For example, if you meet a guy and he tells you to look him up on Facebook, you know you've got some research to do, and everything listed on there will determine if you contact him or not. Does he have a profile picture or is it just a silhouette of Mark Zuckerberg? Does he have favorite books listed, does he know what books are? And if you're a fan of "BOOBS!" a future together does not look likely.

Some FB nerds have taken it upon themselves to delve deeper into the intricacies of FB and how it translates into normal life. Such is that phenomenon called "The Post-Breakup Facebook Effect". How many times have you gone through your news feed only to see that someone is either now "In a Relationship," or "Single." The latter coming up on the news feed is even more horrific [read: entertaining] as people tend to respond to the recent happenings right there on the original poster's wall! Here are some entertaining P-B FB examples, and why I stand by the fact putting any kind of relationship on FB is a recipe for disaster.

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The Leader of the Free World

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Yo Homes, Smell Ya Lata

This really needs to happen on my Facebook. So take note friends, the next time a parent uses their child for a publicity stunt involving a metallic balloon, put your comedic comic parodies on my wall. Thanks.

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An FB Conversation

My friend Molly and I have a serious problem. We sometimes do this thing where we find random people we went to high school with and judge them based on their current life choices. Recently, we came across the fact that one of our former classmates had changed their last name on the FB and their picture was a wedding photo. HOWEVER, the kicker was that Molly went to this girl's wedding a couple years ago TO A DIFFERENT GUY. NOT THE GUY IN THE PICTURE, AND NOT THE LAST NAME SHE NOW HAS. We had to investigate.

We couldn't come up with too much information, because she managed to de-friend us somehow (why on earth would she do that?!), so we decided to put our creative skills to the test. Here's a recent conversation we had about this possible divorce mystery.

Traci:
wow i'm impressed with your research skills, dougherty. let's make up their story until we have the facts.

"Butterball, being a young and naive freshman at Freedom College, met Barb and her husband at a mixer (bible study) on campus in fall of 2007. the three soon became friends, and would reenact scenes from LOtR on the weekends. One night, whilst Mr. St. Cloud was away at ComicCon, Barb and Butterball brushed hands during a routine light saber fight. Their eyes met and they continued to stare into each others' eyes lustfully, until Mr. St. Cloud came home early from ComicCon. Wearing a Captain America costume, Mr. St. Cloud caught Barb and Butterball making lusty eyes at each other and declared divorce upon Barb (kinda like michael scott in this scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuGIgf-ICHM). Barb ran after Mr. St. Cloud and tugged at his cape, begging him to not go. But alas, just like Captain America, Mr. St. Cloud disappeared forever, leaving Barb to commiserate in the arms of Butterball. The rest is history

Molly:

HAHAH! literally laughing out loud! LotR! ComiCon!
And making up a story until you have the facts is actually exactly what lawyers do. F'real.
So, according to FB Mr. Butterball went to HS in Canada. With that in mind, may I present my theory:

With RenFaire season in full swing, Mr. St. Cloud was working overtime in his smelting workshop, the sweat dripping from his brow to his rustic, burlap tunic. It isn't just that this was a big season for medieval-style swords and armor (though it was). Blinded by love, nose weakened by allergies, Mr. St. Cloud had not realized exactly who, or what, he was marrying. Now, he had grown disillusioned. Plaque grew heavy on Barb's gapped, snagly chiclet teeth. Her frizzy curls appeared wet with grease. Cystic acne covered her face, arms, and back. She smelled. St. Cloud dreaded his home life.

In the absence of her husband, Barb became ever-more involved in online roleplaying games. She spent all day looking forward to her chats and warcraft maneuvers with Butterball, a Canadian high school student. St. Cloud knew that, in the eyes of God, he was bound for life. So, he set to ironworking a renaissance style cross for the St. Cloud home. On their anniversary, St. C came home with his gift.

He was shocked to see Barb rocking in the fetal position, wrapped in a Canadian flag, watching Degrassi and rolling an eight-sided die. She would not even respond to St. Cloud. The wedding march blared from Barb's computer. On the monitor stood her WoW persona, Maiden Barb Fuzzybrow, at the altar with Butterballwyn the Brave! "Why can't it be real?" She cried.

St. Cloud threw down the iron cross, tears mingling with his own greasy hair and acne face. Within weeks, Barb was betrothed in both real AND virtual life. Cookie cakes abounded.

St. Cloud cannot hear "O Canada" without flying into a rage.

We're going to hell.

*Any resemblance to real or fictitious names, identities, characters, persons, whether living or dead is purely coincidental and unintentional*

Why I Love My Job

Today i received the following e-mail from work (at the theater):

Hello all,

We will have two special offers going out for S & D today. One is specifically for World Theatre Day and will be $10 tickets for Friday’s performance, side sections only, with the code: LMAO. The other offer will be for the run of S & D and will be $25 tickets for Wednesdays and Thursdays, side sections only with the code: ROFL. These will both go out today on Facebook.

Apparently they are trying to reach a younger demographic. I cannot WAIT to hear some 80 year olds try to pronounce "LMAO" over the phone.

Twitter is Another Word For ...

So after about a year and a half of the pressure to join Twitter, I've finally decided to conform to the Twitter society.

For those of you who don't know what it is, think of Twitter as one single site to update your Facebook status. Except it's your Twitter status. You can "Follow" anyone you want, and anyone can follow you. Everyone from college students to CEOs to celebrities can update what they're doing or what they've found on the internetz. You can even take a pic or video from your phone and send it directly to your Twitter to give a complete visual of your life at that very moment.

Now I know it sounds like a stupid idea. Why does anyone need to know exactly what you're doing every single minute of the day? "Traci is brushing her teeth with Colgate Total and will be rinsing out with some tasty tap water." Honestly, NO ONE needs to know that. I thought these exact thoughts when I first heard of Twitter from a friend who also happened to be a Marketing major like me. I told her that it was the dumbest thing I've ever heard of in my life. She said "no, it's actually really addicting." I didn't believe her at the time.

Anecdote: Senior year, I arrived at my Entertainment Marketing class right when it was slated to start, and about half of the class was not present, including our professor. Come to find out 15 minutes later that he had cancelled class because he was sick (very frustrating for people who only had that one class that day). But my aforementioned friend had TWITTER, which our professor was also on, and he had put in his Twitter that morning that he was cancelling all his classes that day because he wasn't feeling well. She got the message, and didn't even go into school because she got his Twitter. UGH, right?!

For the sake of argument, you have to understand (if you were not a marketing major, or not into the latest social media trends) that Twitter is actually a very important platform for the marketing/advertising/business industry. A lot of CEOs and business professionals use Twitter to update their Followers on the latest trends, what's hot, what's not, etc. Yesterday I even saw someone post a job opening at the company they work for. So for these guys, Twitter is a big deal.

Then there are those who I think fall into one of three categories:
1) The vain, narcissistic type that want everyone to know what they're doing because they need attention.
2) Those who are too lazy to write a full out blog, and a 140 character post will do just as good.
3) Celebrities/companies that are a mix of the two previous types, and in addition want to reach out to their fans/customers.

To be completely honest, the only reason I finally caved was that so I could Follow the Backstreet Boys. Seriously. They're on tour in South America right now and they update every day as to where they are, personal pix, and show the INSANE fans down there. I've also taken to following other celebs, such as Diddy (who twittered DURING his 48 hour tantric sex session), Lily Allen (who eats ribs in her hotel bed, apparently), and Shaq (who is arguably the most entertaining, and even gives away free tix to his games via Twitter). For some reason though, Twitter has become even more popular as of late and even made its way into an article today on Yahoo News, giving a spotlight to MC Hammer who doesn't give up the chance to plug his current ventures on his Twitter. I guess that's the best thing about Twitter, is that the Tweets (?) from these celebs and companies come directly from them, and the news wasn't filtered through the media.

I still admit though a fairly unnecessary site, Twitter is the next big thing in social media, whether you think it's dumb or not. I'm sure people thought Facebook was a dumb idea when it first came out. But in all honesty, I think there is a little part of us that wants to know what their friends and celebrity friends are doing and thinking throughout the day. It's why we stalk Facebook pictures. It's why we flip through the latest People magazine. It's why when we're driving on a highway and there is traffic and when it finally starts to clear up you realized that everyone was slowing down to stare down the car accident on the side of the road. As human beings, we can't help but be slightly interested in other people's business [see: The Hills/ALL REALITY TV]. And right now, I can't help but refresh my Twitter to see what movie Demi and Ashton are watching together, or look at pix of John Mayer's version of 'interior decorating' because I'm just that addicted. Tweet ya later.



ps: my twitter name is tracileigh27, so follow me if you so choose.

If Only Anna's Taqueria Did This, Half of My Friends Would Be Dunzo.

I'd like to think that I actually got something out of Emerson College. More specifically, I would like to think that I got something out of my Marketing Communications - Concentration in Public Relations degree. Throughout my time at Emerson, I wrote a critical analysis on "The OC," did a final project discussing the stereotypes in the casts of "The Real World," and created an entire media relations plan on the launch of Disney Channel's DCOM, "Camp Rock." Four years later, I finally earned my well deserved degree, but there is absolutely nothing I learned that could possibly come up with a BRILLIANT marketing tactic such as this.

This is called "Whopper Sacrifice." It's an advertising campaign by Burger King, where you, the Facebook user, adds the Whopper Sacrifice application to your profile. Then you select ten friends whom you would like to delete from your friends list. Once you have deleted them, you receive a coupon for a FREE Whopper at any participating BK locations.


Now I myself find this to be just plain smart. Advertisers are using social networking sites more than ever to get their point across to their desired demographic. Here, BK is not only utilizing FB, but it poses a challenge to its customers to see what they are willing to give up just to get a free charbroiled hamburger.

The inner marketing major in me would really like to see the evaluation of this campaign and how well it fared, how many people did it, how many Whoppers were given away, how many licks it takes to get to the center of the tootsie roll pop, etc. But based on their site, it looks like a lot of people are willing to delete their "friends" off FB. Me? I didn't do it. Not really in to Whoppers. Plus if I deleted 10 friends, I would be down to 505 friends, and that's just unacceptable. I can't afford to lose any friends. Whether they're real or not.