Do I really need to be in touch with everyone I’ve ever met in my entire life?
Music, Photography Add commentsThat’s what Facebook is turning into. It’s cool to catch up with people, but sometimes it’s just so weird. Maybe because they’re all in the same place. People I know from church, from high school, from music web forums, family, from teenage friendship books…it’s just weird.
When my older brother and I were teenagers, we were really into music. And not too many people we knew in real life were into the same music we were. Underground stuff—4AD, industrial (back when industrial meant banging on sheet metal with chains and not Nine Inch Nails disco), punk, new wave, Some Bizarre, batcave, goth, etc.
There were teen music mags in the 80s you could get at the grocery store that had personal ads in the back. Kids would advertise for penpals in them. At least, that’s how I remember it—maybe my brother will correct me. But we would write to other kids from those magazines. And once you had one or two penpals, you didn’t need the magazines anymore to find new ones—we’d make friendship books, or FBs, instead.
We’d take some paper and cut it to about index card size, or smaller, and staple it together. Decorate the front however we wanted. Then decorate the first page inside with our name, address, bands we liked, whatever, and send it to a penpal. They’d do the same thing to the next page, then send it on to a different penpal. It’d get sent around until whoever filled in the last page was supposed to return it to the creator. And you’d have a friendship book full of potential new penpals.
There’s some groups on Facebook now for people who participated in friendship books in the 80s. It’s such a trip—people still have some of them and are posting pictures. People got really creative with decorating their FBs.
Kids also got creative with mailing labels. You know how you can order address labels? Kids would order them and have pictures of bands and lyrics put on them, rather than an address. Then use them in friendship books. All of the pics above of friendship book pages have mailing labels on them.
Since the labels cost money and most of us were broke teenagers, usually people would go halfsies. Here’s one my brother and I had:
The band was the Chameleons. Still one of my favorite bands today…
People used pen names, too. Bugle Boy was one my brother used. I honestly can’t remember if I used a pen name. Just seeing these friendship books and mailing labels is kinda freaking me out. So weird to see it, when I’d completely forgotten about it, after all these years.
People used to decorate their envelopes too. My brother had some penpals who were amazingly gifted at it. Always used to wonder what the mail man thought of the mail art he was passing around. And it really was art.
– OK I’m out of here until Monday! Laterz skaterz.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Yes, it is weird. Sometimes I’ll see someone I know and think, “Should I send them a friend request? Do they want a friend request from me? Will they take it out of obligation? Maybe they’re waiting for me to send them one because they think I would accept theirs out of obligation?”
February 26th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Yeah I never have that kind of filter going on. I’ll just start impulsively adding people all at once. And then wonder what I was thinking a week later.
I hope this doesn’t sound mean. It is fun to catch up with people I used to know. It’s just weird.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
I am a big FB loser. The whole concept of these people dropping back into my life freaks me out to a degree that I have to pull back from it quite a bit or I would end up in therapy.
Cool books though; I’ve never seen anything like that before.
February 26th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
No, it doesn’t sound mean at all. Some people you drift away from for a reason and once you let them back in, it’s hard to go back. Real life is different. You move away, have a family, life gets busy, but to purposely remove someone from your friend list is something that would be hard to do (easier not to add them in the first place). I had to decide what kind of experience I wanted it to be. Did I want to befriend every single person I’ve ever known, or did I want to strengthen relationships? People I talk to all the time, I don’t feel like I really need to blab with them on Facebook when I know we’ll cover all of that over the phone, in person, e-mail, etc. (some I have on there, but others I think will get offended if I don’t acknowledge their existence with every status update) I have cousins on there I’ve never even met and a lot that I haven’t seen in many years. We’re all over the place.
Also, I didn’t make my maiden name searchable because I don’t want ex-boyfriends finding me. I have no interest in talking to them.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Yeah, I’m making the rounds now, deleting the impulse people. It’s just needed…
February 27th, 2009 at 8:58 am
I’m not using the name I used in high school, yet everyone seems to find me or know me. Maybe because I got married right out of high school to someone from high school, and a lot of people seem to know that. Mainly because my husband’s always generated a rumor mill wherever he goes. Just one of those people that others talk about.
March 3rd, 2009 at 11:56 am
friendship books : the analog myspace of yesteryear
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
So true! Sometimes I think Facebook is a lot like passing notes in high school!
March 5th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I felt really guilty about being your friend on facebook when I saw this til I remembered that you friended me, and we’ve never met.
March 5th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I wondered if I was going to offend someone! It’s just weird to have all my different worlds colliding on there is really what I meant.
March 11th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Not offended at all. Amused.
March 14th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
i’m catching up on your blog. too many great posts that i’ve missed!
i’m getting to the point where i’m not surprised at who adds me anymore. of course i’m friends with my college roommate’s cousin who used to take us to food4less. of course i’m friends with the girl i sat by in choir in 8th grade.
i’m feeling really burnt out on fb right now, but i still check it almost every day. it’s so amazing to get back in touch with some people and so weird about others. there’s no one i would de-friend, and even the weird ones are interesting in some sort of way. it’s kinda cool to see where people are now, but also a little depressing, too.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Chameleons & FB
Nice post. I saw the Chameleons in Long Beach at Fenders back in the day. They were a favorite. Someone from FB tagged me in one of their shirts from way back. Full circle.
March 19th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Awesome. I saw them in Seattle in the 80s.