America's Profile Picture.

Generations choose their monikers like dinosaurs chose to depart prematurely. The "Greatest" Generation isn't complaining too loudly, or ever. Likewise, Generation-X'rs are occasionally considered pioneers in the field of complaining, but rarely level their considerable talents against the appellation "Generation-X". My own generation has proved more resistant to being labelled and filed away for the judgement and tsk-tsk-tsk'ing of posterity.

Here are some duds you may remember helping along to the cultural boneyard...

Generation neXt? No, that smacks of another forgettable salvo in the Soda Wars (For the thirst of a furious teXter...Pepsi, the only beverage for a Generation neXter).

Generation Me? What? Generation Us was too hopeful?

The Net Generation? Please, unless you're referring to Dead Sea fisherman, 1992 called on a shoebox sized Nokia, it misses you. (i.e. Sandra Bullock's cutting edge techno-thriller 'The Net' cc. 1995).

Three swings, three misses. Is there a catchy little title that's on your tongue? Me too.

The Facebook Generation. 


Say it with gusto. Say it like a voodoo incantation to ward off the finer points of human interaction, because it did.

Once, young men had only foggy hypotheses of a romantic interests' hobbies and activities. Such theories would, at best, be batted around over Budweisers until, at last, a courtship strategy cobbled itself together. This isn't to say that knowing in advance that someone thinks Garfunkel was the talented one, or is from Tallahassee was a momentous paradigm shift. Not really, but it definitely dulled the blade of the occasional social-seppuku via faux-pas, and diluted the elixir of Risk.

I don't know how our generation becomes so easily drunk on the wine Facebook-exegesis. Here I am doing it, and barely noticed.. Somehow, if you use Facebook...well, okay. But if you don't, you are obviously a time travelling android whose era-briefing-chip on 21st Century culture lacked the Facebook segment. Really, have you noticed? The claim "I don't have a Facebook" is immediately given the following considerations;

1. The choice was deliberate, given the ubiquitous availability of the internet. Why?
2. Are you some sort socially stunted shut-in recluse?
3. Are you socially self-sufficient, passing evenings in Humphry-Bogart-Cool, uber-mysterious sessions of Bhagavad Gita readings and whiskey-fueled poetry jams?
4. Have you heard of Facebook?


We may have to re-think Rome Being Built In A Day. Facebook was built in a veritable day, and a generation-uniting, despot-toppling, world-linking empire inhabited its bustling blue and white avenues in just about as long. That's pretty cool.


We are, all of us, drawn into the silken harem of Muse Facebook. Fortunately, my abysmally feeble attempts to translate my consumption of 3 Cherry Cokes while also sucking down one season of Mad Men into publishable news have kept my relationship with Facebook chilly and distant. I completed this assignment by doing absolutely nothing. Vigorously.