I hope you caught the oddball element--the gratuitous and colloquial use of the word "wicked", which I am certain my 61-year-old father would never use audibly.
While I realize that the walls have been scaled by baby boomers and middle school kids alike, and Facebook is now a watered-down and universalized version of its previous university-elitist empire, interacting with my parents via Facebook is still vaguely creepy, like running into them at a party after my second drink. I now know how my parents present themselves, and likewise, they know how I choose to display myself. I know that one of my dad's favorite quotes is from "Saving Private Ryan" (the other is from "Shakespeare in Love", apparently) and that my mom, given the chance, will flood those personal boxes with information about herself. (One of her interests is "heated discussions about God and the state of the World" and in the favorite quotes section--I love this--she has written, "be the change you want to see in the world (or something like that) by Gandhi I think.")
Now, using the parameters I drew up long, long ago (think: age 15) to judge people via the internet, I am faced with the ability to label my parents with specialty labels normally reserved for the guy from my biology class (i.e. "Oh my god, he lists Nickelback in his favorite music?" or [true story] "Ew, he's a Republican.")
Now, of course I know my parents better and in a completely different context than the guy from biology. But really, isn't so much of the information in the way people choose to display themselves, in the in-between stuff, rather than the facts? One of my "friends" updates her status bar hourly after each break up, to let the world know how crappy she feels. I know very little about her, but I do know that she's something of an exhibitionist. I can also identify several narcissists, who happily spend hours photographing themselves in slightly varied positions in front of their closet door, or some other mundane space, in order to post all 57 on Facebook and wait in the glow of the screen for the hoped-for compliments.
OK, so I sound a little judgmental, but don't we all have new ideas of people due to the wily internet and the opportunity it gives people to package themselves? It's this realm that creates a new, weird social space. My mom now calls me to tell me she read the link or watched the video I posted to Facebook. That's not bad. It's just weird.
It's particularly curious for me to watch all of these adults represent themselves in such a clunky way. Being "friends" with more than my parents has given me a decent sample size, and a lot of adults just can't seem to adapt. Their messages and updates are rife with spelling and grammatical errors. Is the internet bringing baby boomer stupidity to the forefront, or are older adults just really lazy and clumsy?* (Bonus question: are younger people growing up and expressing themselves in writing likely to be better spellers?)
*Aside: I don't claim that young people are somehow more intelligent or better educated.. maybe more are just familiar with spell check.
My thoughts are that basically, we have a younger population that "gets" the internet, and an older population that doesn't. Some things--memes, pervasive irony, evolving netspeak ("zomg"), themed blogs--are more intuitive than anything, a sort of dog whistle separating those who understand this part of pop culture from those that don't.
What I find interesting is that older people are taking so long to learn. Maybe they just don't care?
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