I love my mom. She’s great. And, while I love spending time with her during the holidays and occasionally talking on the phone, the concept of hanging out with my mom at a bar just isn’t my idea of fun.
Think about when you were a kid, didn’t you push to have your mom drop you off at the mall instead of hanging out with you and your friends at the mall? When you went to college, wouldn’t you have been mortified if your mom showed up at a kegger or frat party? Again, there are just some places where you and your mom shouldn’t be hanging out.
In many respects we’ve always thought of our parents as one step behind. Music and fashion are great examples. It’s rare for parents and their kids (regardless of age) to sync on clothes and musicians. Do you remember the Hammer Pants phase? I do; sadly, I owned a few pairs. Could you imagine if your mom embraced Hammer Pants and decided to wear them? The minute she put the pants on that style would no longer be “cool” in your eyes. After all, we spent a good portion of our adolescence trying to be different than our parents.
OK, so what happens when your mom and dad join Facebook? Do you really want your parents to write on your wall? Do you want them to see the photos from last night’s drunken escapades? Of course not. I see more and more parents joining Facebook. Some are joining to keep tabs on their kids. Some are joining to reconnect with old friends. If Facebook was a popular night club that you frequented and all of a sudden you saw your mom at the bar drinking a gin and tonic, wouldn’t you shudder just a little bit? Wouldn’t you rethink coming back to the club? Would you wonder if the club had peaked and was no longer trendy?
In a lot of ways this is what’s happening to Facebook. Now that our/your parents are on Facebook does it mean Facebook has peaked? This is a serious question. For a while we had MySpace all to ourselves. Then we had to move to Facebook. I know there are many other players out there, but those are the big two. Perhaps the reason there are so many other social networking sites is because despite how much we talk about wanting to be connected with the world we really just want to hang out with our own click.
Ning, the site that lets you create your own social network, has continued to grow very quickly. Ditto for Twitter. It’s safe to say that Ning and Twitter, despite their growth, are still not household everyday names. If you will, our parents still don’t know what they are. Could it be that people are flocking to Ning, Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed, and others because Facebook just isn’t cool anymore? When our parents start finding the cool clubs we hang out at is the club still cool? More importantly, do we want to hang out at the club if our parents are there with us? I don’t have the answers, yet, but I’m willing to ask the questions.
Mom, I love you, but please don’t join Facebook. If you do, I might have to reject your friend request.
Head of Social Media at Walgreens. Interactive marketer, innovator, boat rocker, continuous learner, movie lover, risk taker, dad and all around good guy. I'm always up for a spirited conversation. These are my thoughts and ramblings, not those of my employer.
