socializing geeks

I'm a geek.

Trivial Pursuit champ. Play on the computer. Read books. Wheeze when I run. Have a favorite Star Trek episode ("Wolf in the Fold"). Know titles of Star Trek episodes.

                                                     Yet, I am not geeky enough.

You see, I don't really understand social computing.

My family thinks I do, because I can open my email, and I have a Facebook page, and a Twitter page, and I write two blogs. They don't know I also use Google Reader, because they don't know what Google Reader is.

Yet I know that I don't actually know what I am doing.

I think I get Facebook. Say what you're doing, try to be funny. Comment on other people's statuses. Link to pictures of funny cat faces. Panic when see "friend request," feel bad when hit ignore. Take quizzes and bore friends with results. Got it.

Twitter? Well... I started by following Barack Obama, Sockington, and Rachel Maddow. Almost all of the people I follow are "famous." I've since added fellow librarians via 100 Best Twitter Feeds for Librarians of the Future (Hey! That's me!). But my tweets? As of this moment, I've done 41! What the heck do I say? No one cares what I think, that's what Meghan McCain's for. So I type things like, "Yea! My turn at the public library to read the latest Sookie Stackhouse!" Woo, who cares. And then there was all the media coverage about how people in Iran were tweeting out and people who saw the plane crash into the Hudson were tweeting out and I don't know how people see all this. There's @ and # and $%&!&#?!, and when people refer to them with words instead of the symbols themselves, I don't know what they mean. Isn't # "the number sign"? But I think people call it a hash mark. When did they learn this, and where was I? It makes me feel like a big buffoon. The media continually says that social computing is a huge part of how news is disseminated. But not to me, because I don't get it! And I feel like I should. I hope other people are faking it, too.

Blogs. Blogs are great for people like me who like to write and like to tinker with HTML. However, there's such a narcissistic component to it that my friends kind of curls up their nose whenever I mention it. Blogs are vaguely embarrassing, yet here I am. And I also feel as though there's something ethereal about blogs, something just out of my grasp. Am I doing them right? Does anybody read them? Do I want them to? If so, why?

I love Google Reader. I find myself ignoring the sites I should read to stay current, like Paul Krugman and Mashable!, and heading right for I Can Has Cheezburger. I love those cats.

As a librarian... OF THE FUTURE!!!, I feel as though I should understand social computing in and out, as opposed to hovering around at the sides and chipping away at it. But that's what geeks do, I guess. Keep at it. 

                                                              Live long and prosper.