Unfriend - Oxford Word of the Year

(AP) What word sums up the year 2009?

How about "unfriend?"

That's the New Oxford American Dictionary's 2009 Word of the Year. It means to remove someone as a friend on a social networking site such as Facebook. Each year Oxford University Press tracks how the English language is changing and chooses a word that best reflects the mood of the year. Oxford lexicographer Christine Lindberg says "unfriend" has "real lex-appeal."


Finalists for 2009 also included "netbook," a small laptop, and "sexting," the sending of sexually explicit texts and pictures by cell phone.

Me: There was also "intextication" - distracted because of texting on a cell phone while driving a vehicle.
To be honest, I had never heard of the word "unfriend". I would simply refer to the act of deleting someone from my friends' list as...well...deleting. Who is responsible for these words being part of official lexicon though? Is there a committee? Is there a  board that oversees these additions? Or is it just some lazy dude, who once a year, picks a word out of a hat and says "this is the word of the year"? I am confused. And how do I get a word included in the Oxford dictionary? An Avi-ism? I have plenty, some more profane than others, most made up while driving and in the throes of road rage, but who do I speak to to get a bligh? Who is the Oxford Daddy? Do you notice that social media is taking over the way we communicate in every way possible? My God! What's next??

But as we are talking about unfriending people, I have to confess that there are some actions which are quite unfriendly and which would warrant some unfriending if I did not love the people on my friends' list as much as I do. Because in reality, my friends' list is not an honour roll of people whom I would like to know, or who flattered me enough that I felt the burning desire to add them. My friends' list are actually...well...friends. But friends, friends....please don't do this to me.

The mass message/mass threads. You know...when someone sends a video or a link via Facebook message and then everyone replies filling up your inbox with junk. Sorry. Opinions. While this is all well and good that we are sharing and exchanging ideas and thoughts, can we do it somewhere else? Seriously? I have stopped tagging people in notes, except for my Grey's Anatomy notes, because I recognised it was annoying. In fact, this blog should serve as a single forum for things I may want to share and when I have updated, I post the link on MY page and it will end up on friends' feeds for them to do with as they please. If you want to share a video and get my feedback, just post the video and let me come find it. Don't do the mass email thing where all 20 of your other victims...umm...friends comment over and over, on and on, and as soon as I check one, the little number (1) appears next to my Inbox again. Just don't do it.

And because there is no way to unfriend myself from these messages, it persists and I get annoyed and then you ask, why I don't comment or give feedback. Now you know why. I don't want to be part of the spam parade quite frankly.

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Urban voyeurism

September 2009 stats showed that Trinidad and Tobago was ranked #30 on the list of Highest Number of Facebook users per capita globally, with 182,480 persons on the social media site, representing a 13.63% penetration rate...and growing.

And some of the most ridiculous and disturbing content also comes out of the twin-island republic. While social media has its advantages and is fast replacing traditional channels of communication, because of its immediacy, its appeal to a more tech-savvy demographic and its variety of channels, with Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Blogger etc etc etc, it also, like most anything else, can be demonised and used for disseminating the most alarming content.

The most recent of these which I have received is the now viral "Licks on the Promenade" clip, which goes on for over 8 minutes, and shows a young woman and her boyfriend engaged in a most crass argument on the Brian Lara Promenade, complete with profanity, violence and just plain absurdity. I would comment on the woman in question, but all I will say is that she should not show her face anywhere for the rest of her life for acting so stupidly in public. But it was not just for that brief moment, at that location, but with the assistance of the amateur media crew on the scene aka limers with a camera phone, she is now a nationwide, dare I say, global phenomenon.

But as I said in my reply to the stupid video, what was most disturbing to me is the fact that here was a very volatile situation, where someone could have been injured or worse cause tension and anger were escalating by the second, and there was someone with a camera phone, totally exacerbating the situation and in fact making it worse by provoking the couple involved, moreso the female assailant.

This is my problem. Facebook and these sites have now provided idlers with a convenient channel to exploit others and exploit negative situations. Now if in this situation, someone had been stabbed or shot, would Mr Camera Phone have kept shooting his video and worse, would he have posted it online to share with the world? When does the fun end and serious contemplation of decency begin? I saw very limited attempts in this video attempting to defuse the situation, and Part II of the saga (yes, cause Part I was clearly not enough for the masses), shows the young lady attacking the cameraman and yet he keeps filming and laughing and mocking an incensed and emotionally charged woman. If something had happened to HIM, should we have then felt sorry for him? It was clear that this was not the place or time to channel your inner Spielberg. But clearly we have not thought about time and place issues when it comes to the new technologies and people.

This comes on the heels of videos of female students fighting in the street with their skirts being ripped off and the fight continuing with them in just their panties. No matter what one may think of these girls and their behaviour, the reality is they were still minors, so did we need to videotape them in their underwear and post it online? YouTube eventaully saw fit to take the videos down since it breached their policies, but do we need someone else to tell us what we should know already?

Where do we draw the line? When do we realise that everything out there is not for cyberspace? Because if this is not the case, then anything can be found on Facebook in the future Anything. As one person said, you could simply tell someone off for poor customer service and then find yourself as the star of a viral video the next morning. Or you could be on Maracas in your swimsuit, sleeping under the Caribbean sun, and some joker could make you part of a sordid video, without you even knowing it.

Where do we say, okay...maybe this is not the place for this. But it goes back to basic "broughtupsy", and while we will ALWAYS have those who have no sense or propriety and will always find some insane new way to publicly humiliate themselves, do we need to help them along? Because then what does it say about you, the camera man or woman, who may coax them along for a "better" video. For more hits. For a popular video that everyone shares with their friends.

Society has long devolved into one where few people do anything to stop criminal activity, or to think "How can I stop this?" and some of us still have to come to terms with this. But are we also standing by, doing nothing, with our flip cams, our camera phones,  promoting negative elements via social media?

Someone stood by on the promenade for 8 minutes videotaping, what should have been an otherwise private event anyway. But seeing that the woman and her man put themselves out there anyway, does that still mean we have a right to just broadcast the nonsense. When do we stop and say, "Enough of this".

Enough of this.

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Keyboard gangstas and social media suicides

I remember one morning, while having a cuppa, idling on Facebook and coming across a profile, on which the status was a bit shocking. I had to read and re-read to make sure I was seeing this correctly. Now, to each his own, but telling the entire cyberworld what intimate, physical act you were thinking of, in graphic detail, was not something I could have seen myself doing or ever doing. There it was - a digital signature, which would be there for the next few days, and beyond.

Because let's face it, what we put out there on these social media sites more or less stays out there. It's not like a fete where you may act a fool and a couple dozen people may see you, talk about you and then forget about you come next fete. Your digital footprint lingers much longer and can become viral if one is not careful. Look at how quickly a certain illicit video of a former beauty queen spread not just here, but across the world last week? Sure she may get some new fans on her fan page, but is this kind of fame she was looking for?

What you say or do, post or share with others, can ultimately, depending on the subject, hurt, maim or kill one's reputation. There are people out there who do and say some things and post some types of photos which beg the question, "Are these rational minded persons? Do they think before the do these things on the internet?"

I am sure you have seen some profile photos that leave LITTLE to the imagination or read some notes or updates that are so TMI that you cringe.The global community is no longer that small, because of ICT and how communications has transformed lives. The evolution has thus made our own personal universe much smaller as well. So this R-rated profile, shared with so many people, could have eventually made its way to a coworker, a boss, a future employer. And while one's personal life is one's own business, it should be just that. Personal. I don't need to know every whaznat of your life. My own Facebook updates often poke fun at myself and the anonymous, random characters I encounter daily (gas station man yesterday), but let's leave it at that. If you want to know more, I will tell you, in a message, or on the phone. My goodness. I mean, what would my co-workers think if I posted some McNasty images or McSexy status updates and shared it, Tweeted it with all unsundry. I have a "no-co-worker" rule when it comes to my Facebook page as it is, but does that mean I can just go bananas and post photos of myself in my underwear or go on some sort of keyboard gangsta rampage? If you're looking for that, peeps, sorry.

At the conference I went to the other day, one presenter introduced this example of when netiquette should be seriously considered. I have to agree that tweeting about miscarrying while in a meeting is a bit off, by any standards, no matter how hard you try to rationalise it. And people do try to rationalise their digital behaviour, with "It's my business, I can do what I want with it" etc etc. But what one must remember, the new technologies open you up to a whole bunch of people, people who may not have normally have had access to you as they do now. People you may not sit down and have a coffee with and discuss your marriage, your physical ailments/bodily functions, your sex life with.

I think where people lose focus is that with social media, though it may seem like you're communicating in a vacuum, you're not. Social media is real. You're dealing with real people in a very unique way and having unique, yet very real interaction and relationships. So what you say or do...well, it's pretty damn real. The question is, do you want to be REAL distasteful, negative and hurtful, to yourself or others?

Ask yourself, do you really REALLY want to be THAT open with so many people?

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