High School Reunions — Facebook's Newest Victim? 168
Hugh Pickens writes "For sheer social awkwardness, it's hard to beat finally seeing those people in person that you never liked in high school but are 'friends' with on Facebook. The NY Times reports that both attendance and the number of high school reunions held have dropped in recent years — thanks, some say, to Facebook and similar sites, nobody really has to lose touch anymore. 'There was a Facebook page for my 20-year college reunion, which took place this May,' says Deborah Dietzler. 'I looked at it a couple of times and it didn't seem like anyone I knew would be there, so I lost interest.' 'Social networking has robbed us of our nostalgia,' adds Michael Fox, who attended his 20-year high school reunion in November at a bar in Larchmont, NY to see the adult version of his classmates but was disappointed to find there was little he didn't already know because of Facebook. Others say the familiarity bred by social networking enhance the high school reunion experience.
'It's enticing. It's like a little preview, seeing everyone's life online,'
says Holly Goshin. 'And whether you're happy that someone is not doing as well as you or you're happy that they look amazing, you get to see it all in person. Then you can move on with your life.'"
I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I doubt it (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't go to my high school reunions because the people who are for the most part people I am not interested in meeting again. I went to the first couple and none of the people I had any interest in seeing were there, so I stopped going. I'm not on Facebook (and I am pretty sure that neither are the classmates I would be interested in talking to again).
You're probably very right with your assumption. However, my experience is that people I didn't like have actually changed for the better. The more experienced you get in life the more human interfaces you can support. See it as if your internal algorithm improved so that not all exceptions bring you to a grinding hold. Instead you actually take pleasure in appreciating the awkwardness lying at the source of exceptions.
Having said that, I'd be very selective in going to reunions myself.
Re:I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
You're probably very right with your assumption. However, my experience is that people I didn't like have actually changed for the better.
My experience is that the people I didn't like who I thought have changed for the better haven't changed that much, I'm just more tolerant of their foibles. The people I really hated in high school peaked in high school and they're the same pieces of shit they always were. On the rare occasion I've run into them again they've said something to prove it, without exception.
If you were part of the in-crowd, then surely you can enjoy the popularity contest continuing at your reunion. Otherwise, high school was probably close to hell, and why return? It was a form of slavery and abuse to which I was subjected by legal threat and I'm glad to be shut of it.
Re:I doubt it (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)
If a high school reunion is a good thing for you, by all means, participate. But don't bitch that I don't embrace it, nor complain that I'm ruining *your* reunion by not attending.
Re:I doubt it (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it depends on the jerk.
I've had 2 bullies in school. One was when I was in 7th grade 22 years ago. He was a real snide SOB. Situation got to the point where he attacked me in the locker room, and sometime after that, he ended up going to school somewhere else. A couple of years ago, my sister was teaching school two hours away, and she was having parent-teacher conferences, and this guy is a parent of a kid at her school. Talking to each other, he admitted that he was a real jerk, and he wanted her to let me know that he knows he was in the wrong, and he hoped I could forgive him and know that he wouldn't do it if he could have the second chance.
I have a cousin that I never had a problem with, but has recently admitted that he was a bully to his younger siblings. Is he like that anymore? No.
People do change. I think their are three things that can change those people. One is correct parenting. Considering most individuals don't get a change in parents, this probably doesn't happen much.
The second has to do with getting along in the world that is different than school. In school, all children are equal in status, but different students find ways to be superior in different ways, academically, socially, athletically. Some kids resort to bullying. But when those individuals end up in the real world, and have to get jobs, some realize the error of their ways for different reasons.
For others, it's becoming a parent, and realizing that kids don't deserve to be bullied for things they can't control. I think this especially comes into play when there are multiple children in the family, and parents have to find a balance between the kids. Or a parent that was a bully has a kid that's more likely to be the victim and has to recognize and deal with what it means to be civilized.
Do some people stay the way they were when they were younger? Yep. Do others mature and become better people? Yep.
Concerning getting together with those people, I don't know that it provides any real benefit. It probably just feeds some desire for the past, but if I'm not going to make an effort to see these people again next month, is it really beneficial to go out of my way to get together? Probably not. But as a human, I recognize that history is significant, and that not only holds on a tribal level (for us as a country or family), but it also personally does for me. Given the opportunity, I would like to get together to talk to those people who I considered friends then.
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Some of the people who pushed me around in school, because I was a wuss who would let them and they found a boost in popularity handy too, are my friends now. Some of them, I found out later, knew little but aggression at home, and had no idea how else to relate to anyone anyway. So it's not about whether they were a bully... I could frankly tell whether they were going to be a shithead all their lives even back then.
I don't think most people change that much. I think that barring some major event like a ne
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I am pretty sure that neither are the classmates I would be interested in talking to again
See it as if your internal algorithm improved so that not all exceptions bring you to a grinding hold.
Like that one about Facebook membership being a mortal sin... Let's hope no one is still hung up on that...
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The more experienced you get in life the more human interfaces you can support. See it as if your internal algorithm improved so that not all exceptions bring you to a grinding hold. Instead you actually take pleasure in appreciating the awkwardness lying at the source of exceptions.
See...........there's another reason I don't go to them. If someone uttered that in the group I was in I'd sneak away before they figured out I didn't understand WTF they were talking about.
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Only extremely poor metaphors which are much closer to the "borderline autistic" side.
Where it all went wrong is that no one used a car analogy.
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"Interfaces", "support", "algorithm", "exceptions", "source" -- sheesh, how many computer-science concepts can you apply to human interactions in one Slashdot post?
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Re:I doubt it (Score:5, Funny)
I went to my 20th out of morbid curiosity. So did 250 of the 400 in my graduating class as well.
The best story was the two people who had not seen each other in 20 years drunkenly decided to "get nostalgic" in a closet while their respective spouses were still at the bar. Comedic interruption occurs, followed by divorces in the following weeks.
Facebook kept the story alive for all to follow and keep dignity at a minimum.
Thank you Facebook.
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Re:I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't go to my high school reunions because the people who are for the most part people I am not interested in meeting again. I went to the first couple and none of the people I had any interest in seeing were there, so I stopped going.
Probably like many /.ers, I can be very socially awkward and being able to have a few prompts to know what a reunion or social gathering may be like can be really helpful.
Facebook probably has meant I've been more able to enjoy being social when I might otherwise feel uncomfortable.
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Plus, there's some nice conversation starters. Like: "so, you're the guy who's completely obsessed with every *-ville game?" or "what are you, up to ten kids now?"
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Similar here. I don't think there was ANYONE in my grade at my HS that I would go out of my way to see, and very few I wouldn't object to seeing again. The few people I would go out of my way to see, I found on sites like facebook, however, being in different grades, they wouldn't be at my reunion anyway.
Who even gives a shit about high school anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do most people even really "peak" in high school anymore anyway? Most people go onto college now, and that's where you *really* get to have fun and make friends. The only people who still view high school as their glory days are a handful of losers who end up working down to the plant telling everyone for the hundredth time about how they scored that winning touchdown in the big game that no one even remembers.
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I had a similar experience -- college was even worse than high school.
In my case, it was a private Ivy League university where I was supported by a scholarship. I was able to deal with the bullies and cliques in high school, but the level of crushing elitism, sexism, bigotry, and outright racism I encountered in college was something I had never experienced in my entire life. Those people were from a different world of privilege and entitlement.
College was the worst four years of my life, but fortunately
Re:I doubt it (Score:4, Interesting)
It was interesting in that for my high school, a lot of people I knew started growing up near the end of senior year - people I hated for most of my high school career started becoming nice around the end of that time.
I was looking forward to my reunion to see how people had changed over the years - most of those whom I was friends with I have kept in touch with, but at my high school's 12-year reunion ("Better late than another 8" was the motto), a few close friends I hadn't seen in a long time were present, and a lot of people whom I didn't get along with that well back then had changed and became great people, and I've kept in touch since then.
Facebook was not in any way detrimental to our reunion. Apparently tradition is that the senior class president is supposed to do reunions, but ours wanted no part of it. As a result, when our 10th rolled around, people were asking "Hey, is there a reunion? What's the deal?" - The interesting thing was, people were asking on Facebook. The year of our 10th is when many people from my graduating class started joining Facebook and friending each other, even creating a group for our high school class.
Planning for our 11th (a year late) commenced on Facebook, although unfortunately the woman who had the lead role in that received a marriage proposal and had to change focus to wedding planning, the reunion for that year kind of fizzled.
The next year, another alumni decided that there WAS going to be a reunion for our 12th year, and she was going to do whatever it took to make it happen. Again - planning commenced on Facebook and thanks to her leadership we had an excellent 12-year reunion.
Without Facebook, that reunion never would have happened.
I double-doubt it (Score:2)
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I was excited about my HS reunion...they I joined their facebook group and quickly decided I really didn't want to spend a few hours with those people.
'Social networking has robbed us of our nostalgia (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's also bonus points when the thing that's changed was only something Baby Boomers really experienced
The geek has no sense of time
and, arguably, no social instincts whatever.
But there are things in this world best experienced off-line.
We have scrapbooks and photographs of family reunions and other gatherings that reach back deep into the nineteeth century
I am quite certain that with a bit of effort we could find some many earlier examples.
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One thing we agree on. My account there is basically vestigial at this point, used only to communicate with people who don't know me on Twitter or Google Plus and I don't feel like texting.
That said, the first half of your post has nothing to do with the last half. I get that reuniting with someone after a long way away is a nice feeling, but, in terms specifically of high school Reunions, is largely a fake feeling. It's not "Oh, here's my long lost aunt/niece/brother/friend I h
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"Oh, here's a bunch of people who happened to be born around the same time as me, most of whom I don't care about."
In other words, its like being excited about moving into a nursing home. Or a cemetery?
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Reunions, of any sort, be they class or long lost family members or a friend you lost touch with and didn't see for decades, are part of the human experience.
"The human experience"? You sound like you're trying to sell something. It's one possible part of the human experience, but it isn't needed to make you a human.
I just don't need ONE more account to check, password to remember, privacy settings to manage
So instead of having one more account to check that does everything, you have to make 15 phone calls or type 15 texts, or tell the same story 15 times. Sounds like an efficient use of time to me..
Facebook isn't preferred for one on one communications, but it is a great way to organise group meet ups without any hassle or phone/texts costs. For me and
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Of the ten or so ways you listed for people to contact you, how did you decide that number is the sweet spot and one more is redundant? Or is it simply not wanting to use Facebook, because the way you stated it you'll not be able to have another e-mail address, phone number, etc. Also, if you want to make a point that people on Facebook are childish, I suggest you not start your post with "No, you're just a douche."
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Re: 'Social networking has robbed us of our nostal (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, but the spectacle of what we call a High School/College reunion now is largely a product of the Boomers.
Don't tell that to my parents. They were their HS class president and secretary, and organized their 5th reunion, then skipped it until their 50th. Now, it is every year (mind you, at this point it is just a large table at a restaurant, but...).
Baby boomers pioneered nothing but snorting coke at reunions, rather than drinking rum and coke, the use of non-medical marijuana, and the Beatles and Stones playing rather than Perry Como or Frank Sinatra (or Artie Shaw and Glen Miller, in parents' case).
Nostalgia is over-rated (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't believe in High School reunions nor to I subscribe to Facebook. If I liked a person from school, I'd still be in touch with them and if we lost touch, then it was time to move on. Facebook is the same thing. I hear about all these people "Friend" each other on Facebook only to "Unfriend" each other because either they realize they still don't like each other or there is nothing in common.
It's all a waste of time.
Stop looking into the past. Leave Facebook behind and go make new friends that know you for who you are today, not who you were yesterday.
Re:Nostalgia is over-rated (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, nostalgia is over-rated these days, but it didn't used to be this way. I remember when nostalgia was the ideal way to think about the past. Things were so much better back then.
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This is rated +2 Informative?
Swoosh, moderators.
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Well, before Facebook and everyone went into broadcast mode I didn't have a clue how 90% of the people from school ended up, so I did attend a reunion some years back and I think at least 2/3rds of my class was there. Just call it simple curiosity, what do they look like now, what did they end up doing, they pulled up old pictures of us, quoted some old school books and it was just fun comparing who we were then and who are we now and we chatted about old times over beers. I wasn't going to rekindle some lo
Re:Nostalgia is over-rated (Score:5, Funny)
Getting a second chance to bone that cute chick from history class is anything but a waste of time. Sure, you could have sex with anyone, but she's been in your spank bank for 20 years.
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Then you can move on with your life.
I agree with you and add this point: Since when are reunions about moving on with your life? At best you're reuniting with the people who knew you before you became who you are, at worst you're trying to use other people to feel better about where you are in life.
I suppose it is true that you can do both on facebook now. You can even get drunk and hit on that girl who turned you down that now has three kids, you just don't have to wait for some arbitrary multiple of five years to do i
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Stop looking into the past. Leave Facebook behind and go make new friends that know you for who you are today, not who you were yesterday.
Vengeance is mine sayeth http://reunion.com/ [reunion.com]
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Something being meaningless to you does not make it automatically meaningless to everyone else on the planet. Nor does it give you the right to pontificate that others should follow your lead.
You have no need for Facebook or high school reunions. Fine. You have no sentiment. So be it. Don't be a killjoy and tell others they're inferior to you because they do find pleasure in those diversions.
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I'm not surprised that most of the "insightful" comments on this article basically say how pointless and stupid high school reunions / and or facebook is. The majority of the people on
can't blame what preceded it... (Score:5, Funny)
I stopped going to school reunions long before facebook existed. And by stopped, I mean never went.
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I suspect so do many people: they go to a first couple and then stop. That effected existed before facebook. Article claims decline for which the factor your mentioned is irrelevant.
That refers also to many other overrated comments: people are describing irrelevant personal experience.
What changed in the same time period as appearance of Facebook that can alternatively explain the decline?
Sometimes /. feels like reddit.
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Yup. I went to my five-year. Hardly anyone there and only one person I was on social terms with. Didn't bother going to the ten-year and probably won't do others.
I might be more interested in going if I'd see people from a year or two ahead and behind me as well, because there are more of them I want to see again, but that doesn't seem to be easily done.
No real surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No real surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
When my wife brought up the idea of going to her 10 year reunion a few years back, I asked her what she was going to learn at said reunion that she doesn't already know from her Facebook news feed.
I went to my last reunion and had a great time hanging out in real life with friends I rarely get to see in person. Spending time with people you enjoy isn't about updating news items. It's about having fun conversations, laughing, and being connected to humanity. Facebook doesn't do that stuff.
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You're probably right and that's too bad. I didn't spend much time with the jocks at the reunion, but really enjoyed catching up with the other geeky kids I ran around with. I see those same people on Facebook, but that has nothing with a welcoming hug or slap on the back and genuine smiles all around.
And as someone else pointed out, a lot of the high school jerks mellowed out into perfectly decent people. I can think of a few people I couldn't stand back then who were friendly, pleasant, and chatty at the
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... and a chance to shag those you were too frightened to talk to in your youth (only to find they've aged really really badly!).
Or I suppose you can at least gloat at just how revoltingly wrinkled, fat, stupid and ugly Mary Jane Hotty-Cheerleader - the girl that you blistered your palms and wrote bad poetry hopelessly lusting after at 16yo - turned out to be post-40. Or that she's alone, been divorced twice and struggles in a disgusting job with three horrific teenage brats on crack or in jail. You, who works out five times per week, is gloriously free of encumberments, and makes close to a 6-figure income, would never so much sp
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... and a chance to shag those you were too frightened to talk to in your youth (only to find they've aged really really badly!).
Or I suppose you can at least gloat at just how revoltingly wrinkled, fat, stupid and ugly Mary Jane Hotty-Cheerleader - the girl that you blistered your palms and wrote bad poetry hopelessly lusting after at 16yo - turned out to be post-40. Or that she's alone, been divorced twice and struggles in a disgusting job with three horrific teenage brats on crack or in jail. You, who works out five times per week, is gloriously free of encumberments, and makes close to a 6-figure income, would never so much spit in her fatty wrinkled direction now. Ah! Schadenfreude may be a shallow and short lived pleasure but isn't it nice when geeks triumph over cheerleader/jock types with age.
You don't have to wait until you're 40+... I had similar weird experiences as a mere lad of 25 or so. Good job, great pay, going to night school to get even more money, new car, great apartment... I had some weird meetings with former hotties and former football players at insurance offices, supermarket cashiers, read about their jail sentence in the paper, gas station clerks, groundskeepers... if you stay and live where you grew up, you tend to run into people a lot more often than if you jet across the c
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Don't forget the exaggerated stories about shit that seemed *really* important at the time, but means jackshit today. Oh, the stories!
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Incomplete story. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) High school HOSTED reunions are becoming every day less because people are more likely to relocate these days, making it harder for schools to locate them and let them know about it.
2) In my experience, Facebook has actually increased high school reunions, without the need of the school inviting anyone back. Classmates just find eachother and plan their own reunions these days.
3) Reconnecting with classmates I dont ever want to see again was the reason I finally deleted my facebook account. There is a reason I never kept contact with them in the first place.
4) If your only reason to go to a school reunion is to be shocked at how the pretty girl is now fat and the sports guy is now a loser that just got off jail.... I think you belong in there because you didnt turn out too well either.
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WEll facebook has advantages.
Showing me that now 20 years later that hot girl I was lusting after is now a hag, and I dodged the bullet with the girlfriends I had, Two of them I though were nuts, were in fact, completely nuts. the other two turned into bull dykes later in life.
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WEll facebook has advantages.
Showing me that now 20 years later that hot girl I was lusting after is now a hag, and I dodged the bullet with the girlfriends I had, Two of them I though were nuts, were in fact, completely nuts. the other two turned into bull dykes later in life.
Dude, all chick are crazy, you just have to find one who's craziness doesn't set yours off.
I think they call that love, but i'm not sure.
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WEll facebook has advantages.
Showing me that now 20 years later that hot girl I was lusting after is now a hag, and I dodged the bullet with the girlfriends I had, Two of them I though were nuts, were in fact, completely nuts. the other two turned into bull dykes later in life.
Dude, all chick are crazy, you just have to find one who's craziness doesn't set yours off.
I think they call that love, but i'm not sure.
Love, co-dependence, whatever. It's all about the same when the restraining order gets issued.
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No it doesn't That would be why they are Ex girlfriends and not Ex Wives. It did teach me that going after "hotties" is pure stupidity. I learned that a woman who's interests match Mine is the best match, only fools go for that "opposites" crap.
Re:Incomplete story. (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree on number 2 - my high school class' 12-year reunion (long story, but let's just say that around when the 10th was due to happen was when most of my class were just discovering Facebook and friending each other) would not have happened without Facebook. The school itself had ZERO role in planning any reunion, and didn't even seem to make an attempt. One of our alumni planned the whole thing with help from other classmates on Facebook, held at a local golf course, and it was a resounding success.
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> making it harder for schools to locate them and let them know about it.
High school reunions are organized by the officers of the high school class; the school is usually happy to help, of course, but does not take the lead.
Trust me, I know from my parents, who were two of their HS class officers, and have to do this every year. They were too busy to organize their 5th, did the 10th, and then just dropped the ball until their 50th or so. No one from their high school administration ever sent any mail o
Really Michael Fox? (Score:3)
So Facebook robbed us of our nostalgia?
Not, say, that time machine you keep riding around in?
I mean, why resort to renunions when you can actually go back and watch the actual high school prom in person?
Relieved (Score:2)
Yes, blame Facebook. (Score:2)
It probably has nothing to do with the cost of travel increasing while people have less disposable income available. It must be Facebook's fault.
(disclaimer: I've never gone to a high school reunion, but I thought about going to the 15th, mostly for networking as I had been fired a few months earlier ... but they canceled that one)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nope.
First off these are /.ers and they're probably still living in their parents basement. :-)
Secondly, as long as they're spending their money in country, and spending as much as possible, its a good thing because the money they're spending becomes somebody's salary that they can then spend to pay yet another person.
In a poor economy spending is actually a good way to help it. Just don't bankrupt your ass.
Self-fulfilling prophecy? A more general effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
"I looked at it a couple of times and it didn't seem like anyone I knew would be there, so I lost interest."
Maybe that's the real issue? Everyone can check the RSVP list and see that nobody's really going, so nobody RSVPs, and so when people check the RSVP list it seems that nobody's going to go, and eventually everyone decides to just stay at home. In days of old you just gambled that there'd be enough people there for it to be worth your while. Maybe this is a more global effect of Facebook on event planning beyond reunions.
Pointless "tech" spin on a "social" trend. (Score:5, Interesting)
Its a social trend, not a tech trend.
Seems the cultural goal is to hang out with the last group of people you went to school with.
Maybe 50 years ago, for the majority of americans, that was high school.
Currently, for the majority of americans, the last group of people they went to school with would have been dropping out of freshman year of college. And the "reunion-industrial complex" is not offering "freshman year reunions".
The other cultural/social trend is class mixing was cool 20 years ago when I was wasting time in high school. So my gym classes were just whatever random bunch of frosh thru seniors showed up that hour. We were required to take 4 years of English class and the electives were whatever random bunch of juniors or seniors showed up for sci fi class, etc. First and second year chem and physics (and bio, although I never took bio) were just whatever random bunch of sophmore to senior kids who showed up. Art elective was photography, again, whatever freshman thru senior kids felt like signing up... I think the only "all senior" class I ever took in my senior year, was calculus. Sooo one of my best school friends was my physics lab partner, and he was a year older than I am. I met a girlfriend a year younger than me, in english class in my sophomore year. The kids who graduated the year I did, who were a tiny subset of the kids I went to school with? By and large, don't much care. They only made up 1/3 to 1/4 the students in my classes so they only made up 1/3 to 1/4 of my school friends.
What about the kids I hung out with? Well back before the illegal alien invasion (this was decades ago) teenagers could get jobs. And it seems I worked with mostly kids from the school across town. Weirdly enough, after graduating I noticed I dated more girls from the "other school" than from my own school, because I hung out with them at work, leading to after work dates, you get the idea... I was entering the .mil and 4 local schools funneled into one recruitment center and we had monthly get together social club type activities. I was friends with three future marines, an air force wanna be, and a navy dude, none of which graduated with me at my school the same year.
At least WRT "twentieth year reunions" or so, there is just no social point anymore. Thats why they're going away.
Trying to spin a social trend into a "tech story" just looks stupid.
Haven't went, never will. (Score:2)
Honestly, I have no desire to see any of those jerkoffs. I am friends with my real friends, not the fake ones that later in life forgot how much of Dushanbe bags they were.
I think a lot of other people are the same way, Highschool was NOT the best part of life, why return to see people from a time in your life that does not matter?
College Alumni and Fraternity gatherings? sure. Hgihschool? Why waste time and air fare?
Facebook destroys everything that is not Facebook (Score:5, Interesting)
The word "victim" in the title is correct, though. Facebook destroys everything that is not Facebook. Small community web sites, forums, blogs, etc. and now things like high school reunions, local clubs and organizations, people going outside and looking up from their screens once in a while
I do hope this changes sometime soon.
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It's hard for people to tear themselves away from Facebook even though everyone hates Facebook. As a blogger once commented -- when push comes to shove -- EVERYONE hates Facebook:
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Complete bullsheet.
" They say they are checking FB, and they get particularly peeved if anyone dares to mention how rude it is for them to be doing FB"
that because THEY are assholes, not because FB is doing anything.
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Have you actually thought about what you posted? any thought at all?
" Small community web sites,"
why is moving to facebook bad? Ignoring the fact that there are still plenty of these.
"forums"
Why is facebook worse then forums
"blogs"
Because there aren't any? what?
" people going outside"
People use FB to organize event outside all the time. from meeting at pubs, to geocaching, to well, everything outside.
FB is just a tool. How people leverage it can be different.
" anymore is fuck around on Facebook."
Man, you RE
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So it's the Walmart of the Internet.
In other words, avoid at all costs?
Does it really matter? (Score:2)
I graduated from high school in 1988, went away to college and have pretty much been away from my home town since then. I kept up with some of my high school friends for a few years, but I've made new and better friends since then. I got back in touch with a few high school friends on Facebook and we communicate from time to time and that's just perfect. I didn't go to either of my reunions (10 or 20 year) simply because I had no interest in going. It might have been nice to go out of morbid curiosity,
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oops ... forgot to add this comment to my initial post. I grew up in a rural area near a small town. There were 100 people in my high school graduating class. I had known more than half of them since kindergarten ... so by the time I had graduated, I was pretty much ready to leave them behind and meet some new and interesting people. I'm sure many of them think/thought the same thing about me also, hahaha, but that does not matter to me at all.
Had the Opposite Effect in My Case (Score:2)
Just have my 20th last month. First one I even bothered going to because I was constantly reminded of the invite list, and as more people signed up, more people wanted to. Everyone could message other people on the invite list and goad them into coming. I can't imagine that they would have even found a way to contact me otherwise. I can't see how Facebook is not good for reunions.
Reunions only work on TV (Score:3)
There is a cliche film/tv reunion where where everyone is vital, pretty, socially able and remembers lots of amusing stories about the "best time of their life" at school or university.
In practice the interesting people are too busy being interesting to attend, the "hot" people you remember from when they were 17 or 18 have now gained 30kg (4+ stone) and only want to talk about their children, or their problems, or their scumbag ex-partner. Even worse, the events themselves are frequently thinly-veiled fundraisers for the school/university to support causes that didn't exist when you were there, and don't care about since you moved away - a long, long way away.
So if FB has managed to start killing off reonions, then at least it's performing one social good.
Breaking news--Reality is not like the movies (Score:2)
First of all, the article doesn't seem to have anything to back it up except a few anecdotes. Second, the author's perception of high school reunions seems to be based, to a large degree, on fictional ones. The gist of the article is that classmates who have been in touch through Facebook are less likely to have "dramatic" reunions like the ones in the movies (Peggy Sue, Romy & Michelle). It might come as a shock to a writer, but reunions never have been like the ones in fiction.
My hometown cohorts r
Awkward reunions replaced by awkward friend reques (Score:5, Insightful)
The big thing I've noticed is that, once one person from high school finds you on Facebook, the rest will soon follow. I've had practically zero contact with the folks I went to high school with in the past 23 years after graduation, and I'm inclined to keep it that way. But then someone found me and friended me, and I foolishly accepted, probably because that person was someone I didn't despise. Then more showed up...and more...and more. Then I was getting friend requests from people who I really didn't like too much. Those are sitting out there in friend request limbo, where I plan on leaving them until the day I finally quit Facebook, which, given this whole Timeline thing, may be coming soon.
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I went through a short phase where I added a bunch of people I vaguely remembered from High School. Then I went through the phase where I started muting them all because they just talk too damn much. Then I came to my senses and just unfriended them. Now my friends are just that. Or at least people who WERE friends, and I'd be happy to interact with, but while they're on Facebook, they don't use it.
I like it for what I use it for, a way to share a few things (mostly pictures) with a small group of friends
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once one person from high school finds you on Facebook, the rest will soon follow
So don't publish details of where you went to school. It's not compulsory and if you don't want people from your old school finding you, then seriously: don't say where you were at school.
It's not as if you're the only person with your particular name in the whole world and even if you have posted photos of yourself it's easy to either ignore the requests or reply "no you must be mistaken". If you post your personal information, people are going to find it. You can't complain that the "wrong people" find i
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It's not as if you're the only person with your particular name in the whole world
Yeah pretty easy for a guy apparently named "Peter" to say that.
I am quite certain I'm the only guy in the history of humanity with my name, at least according to my genealogical research. I went out with a really hot chick named Evenstar or something like that once when we were about 19, can't be many of her around. Some of my younger co workers have names that are bizarrely intentionally misspelled to make them unique, oh it sure does that, all right. Then there's certain ethnic groups that use names t
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Oh the inhumanity of it all! I used to have a group for people I decided to allow requests from but didn't want seeing everything I do. Now I use the acquaintances and don't share posts with them instead. Facebook is a tool and has plenty of flexibility. If yo
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I had exactly that experience with Friends Reunited 10 years ago. If I actually like someone then it's worth spending the token half hour every six months sending them an email and staying in touch. If I don't even care about them enough to do that, then there's no reason for using a social networking system to stay in touch with them. We're not friends, and we don't gain anything from pretending to be. Remembering that experience, I opted out of the current social networking bubble.
It's okay to lose
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I agree with you completely, and I'll add that I think, with elementary and high school, you don't really get to choose your friends, especially at a smaller school. You're sort of thrown into this group of people who you have to see every day, whether you like it or not. Sort of like work, except that, with work, at least most folks have developed the maturity level not to be complete assholes most of the time
Not at all true (Score:3)
my class lost interest in reunions by mid 90s (Score:2)
Not facebook, Baby Boomers (Score:2)
HS Reunion is very much a baby boomer event. Baby boomers are dying or getting too old to bother.
Facebook actually helps... (Score:2)
We just did our 20th and FB actually helps promote the event and track folks down.
Yes, you already know a lot about what is going on if you follow the FB stream. So I knew more about a lot of folks that I never really socialized in HS with. But I also knew what my circle of friends had been up to, so we did not have to spend so much time catching up on "trivialities" so much.
Plus, I used FB to specifically target and encourage the folks I wanted to see IRL to be there. And it worked, a lot of them showed
Not everyone is on Facebook... (Score:2)
Facebook is, or rather people who use only Facebook are, nearly robbing me of my next high school reunion. I am not on Facebook and my reunion "committee" is solely using Facebook to disseminate information on the reunion, actually actively resisting other methods.
Ah, well, nice to see how little things change. Adult life is just as click-y as high school.
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"Is there a remedy against Facebook taking over the lion's part of what many people consider as "social life" ? Can we bring Facebook down ?"
Great idea! You should Tweet about it!
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Is there a remedy against Facebook taking over the lion's part of what many people consider as "social life" ? Can we bring Facebook down ?
Google+ ? Alternately, wait until no one goes there because it is too crowded (as Yogi Berra put it).
Neither solves the real problem that there are no general stores for people to sit around the cracker barrel and discuss what the upcoming weather was going to be and how it would affect the crops, and Prohibition killed the saloon.
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