Chapter CXV: Graffitti

Image of the Day: Woofles, drawn using Graffitti (flash applet on Facebook.com)

In a simpler era, you would just slap someone in the face with a white leather glove when you felt he had personally affronted you. Years later, with the invention of the telephone, you gained the option of hanging up on him, mid-speech.

Today, however, the number of ways to indicate displeasure with someone has proliferated like rabbits hopped up on Viagra. In the digital age, there are a million ways to communicate with people, and therefore at least a million ways to tell them to fuck off.

The difficulty arises when I, as the offending party, am supposed to figure out the severity of the censure. Is it more serious to be 'warned' on AOL Instant Messenger than it is to be 'blocked' on MSN Messenger? Likewise, to be unfriended on MySpace, Facebook, or Friendster?

There are arguments for each. To be unfriended on Friendster, whose very name includes the word 'friend,' seems like a particularly direct message. On the other hand, MySpace has a relatively complicated unfriending process (like everything on MySpace), so to be unfriended there implies a high degree of effort. On the other, other hand, it is nearly unheard of to be unfriended on Facebook, although this might not mean much because it is also unheard of to deny a friend request in the first place.

Why can't we just have pistol duels anymore?

More Graffittis by me: