Status isn't everything: Why it's OK to bore me on Facebook

I have two absolute favorite pastimes. The first is that I like to pick my husband’s brain to get his honest-to-goodness opinion on major life puzzlers such as, “If you could take either of our cats out for a beer, whom would you pick?” and “Which cat do you think would’ve gotten into Harvard early admission were he a human?”

Usually my husband responds by quietly saying, “Please don’t ever ask me that again.” Other times he’ll turn up the radio and pretend he didn’t hear me at all. Eventually, though, when my relentless staring and prodding get to be too much for him, he’ll indulge me. “Fine! I would take Dignan to a bar. And Ollie would’ve gotten into Harvard. But I have no idea which cat would get married first, which would look better in jeans or who would make us dinner if he could.”

Incidentally, my second absolute favorite pastime is sorting my meds by shape, size and color.

Just kidding. My real second favorite pastime is slightly more random than that: I recently realized that I spend most of my non-talking, non-working, non-reading, non-cat-scenario-thinking time wondering how other people live.

How do they make their money? What do they spend it on? What are they having for dinner tonight? Do they use coupons? Do they wash their car weekly? Do they leave stuff in their backseat or bring everything into the house at night? Do their bathroom towels match? Will they make their lunches tonight or in the morning? Do they fall asleep in front of the TV? Will they wake up before their alarm? What are THEY thinking right now?

Working for a newspaper means I’m paid to spend my days reading about people who, at least theoretically, are worth writing about. These are people who have done something significant, have had something significant done to them or even have something significant to say about something that is, of course, very significant indeed. Never is it “Man changes sheets on Wednesdays,” “Woman eats black cherry ice cream because it’s her favorite” or “Couple argue (yet again) over money spent on adorable cat outfits.”

See, to me, it’s the mundane details about how we all tackle our day-to-day lives that are the most fascinating — which is why Facebook status messages are so wonderful.

I could happily spend the rest of my life reading that someone bought a new white shirt today because his only other white shirt has ketchup on it. I salivate at the thought of a person taking the time to let her friends know that tonight she will eat tacos and watch the “Golden Girls” marathon. And who doesn’t want to hear when a pal takes a Facebook quiz that shows she can correctly identify 65 percent of babies as being either fake or real? Or that your cousin filled out a “Which dead celebrity are you?” questionnaire that ended up telling him he’s Anna Nicole Smith?

It’s OK. I already know you don’t agree with me on any of this. In fact, I’ve just read two “Stop boring us with your awful status messages” columns in the past week written by people who, I’m guessing from their tone, are much smarter and more important than me.

But here’s the thing: Boring Facebook status messages, inane Twitter tweets and mind-numbing personal blog entries are the best things to happen to the Internet.

Don’t you see, society? This drivel has finally taken the pressure off of us. We no longer have to imagine that we’re somehow less exciting than the average person or that our existences are less meaningful in any way. We now know that 99 percent of people spend 99 percent of their time doing painfully ordinary and torturously insignificant things. And, to me, that is real news.

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