Facebook Party vs. Jane Eyre Introductions

2,000 college kids showed up for a party -- it must be Facebook's fault. The looting during the London riots had a strange, coordinated feel to them -- damn Twitter. People are having fun and I'm not -- there ought to be a law. Shut down the Internet!

To which I say -- man, you're old.

I'm old, too, but I don't blame technology for the fact my life is lame. My life is lame because 20 year olds don't invite me to their beer drenched, t-shirt drenched, vomit drenched parties. And if they did, I probably wouldn't have much fun anyhow -- drunk college kids don't exactly tickle my brain or my libido… Call me old fashioned.

But, of course, people are really old fashioned who complain that kids are talking to each other online. The fuddy duddies want to invite people to a party by sending them a physical invitation, or maybe call them on the phone and find out if they can make it. We're talking Jane Eyre old fashioned here (well, maybe not the phone, but damn close).

'Oh, please arrange an introduction with the dashing gentleman in the corner. We would love to see him at our Fall social.' If you don't come with the engraved card signed by Lord Bumbleshruvotsoluf, well, you simply won't be attending, nor would you be so brash to even show up without such a magical key to entry.

Skip forward a few hundred years and parties have been for all comers for awhile. Chico State had to shut down Pioneer Days in '87 because too many people showed up, got drunk, rioted, and looted the downtown. All without iPhones or Blackberries.

Oh, and then there was this little party called Woodstock where almost half a million people showed up without so much as a lithium ion battery or a laptop.

Sure, give 'em some tools and they'll use them, but if you don't give 'em tools, kids are still going to party. They're going to get smashed and smash things. They're going to annoy old folks who need to get up at 5 in the morning to get ready for that meeting with Accounts.

The reason we call it 'Social Media' is because people use the media to socialize, not because the media makes us social.

Rock on (or whatever the blazes it is you kids listen to today).