Facebook birthday wall posts: one year later

Friends,

You may remember my 3-part series last year on facebook birthday wall posts.  The topic continues to fascinate me, so I thought we could briefly revisit it now that I have more data (i.e. I've depressingly gained another year of age).

Last year the three posts examined when people posted on my wall, exactly who posted, and (most interestingly) what they posted.  This year, I've again tabulated the results, but we're going to focus only on the last category -- the content posted -- because, well, it's the most interesting.

What people posted
and how it compares to last year

If you don't have the time or inclination to visit the above link to "what people posted," I'll summarize to you my methodology.  I place all facebook birthday posts in one of three categories:

1. Standard
This is the worst type.  It containes only the phrase "happy birthday", with a few possible things tacked on at the end-- exclamation marks, "dude", "man", or in my case, "Jon."

2. Standard Plus
Don't let the name fool you into thinking this is a good option.  It's just the standard wall post above with an added platitude, e.g. "hope you have a great day!"

3. Personalized
These are really the only acceptable wall posts, in my opinion.  Whether you personalize the post with an inside joke, memory, poem, or a video of a smiling chimpanzee, these posts actually make the birthday person feel valued.  Now, for some reason last year I split this category up into two subcategories.  But you can mentally group together the green and purple in the graphs below.



2011 birthday wall posts by type



2012 (better) birthday wall posts by type


What we can learn
nothing important, I'm quite sure

The main takeaway here is that -- Yahtzee! -- my facebook wall was noticeably better this year!  Standard Plus stayed where it was, while 12% of my total wall posts shifted from Standard to Personalized!!  Way to go, internet social network.

Why did this change take place?  I have a few ideas.  A. My friends are cooler now than they were last year.  B. I unfriended the lamebrains who posted Standard birthday posts last year.  C. Last year I blogged extensively about birthday wall posting, and approximately 12% of the crappy birthday posters in my social network took it to heart.

But that's just speculation.  Some things we'll never know.

Interesting development(s)
My dream of this blog and the world becoming reflections of each other is finally coming to fruition

My blog was referenced, directly or indirectly, 6 times on my birthday facebook wall.  I'd like to acknowledge the contexts:

My friends bmcnees and Tim vied for supremacy on this blog's MVC page. (For the record, Tim currently sits at #1.)

My friend Beth worried she would be used on here as an example of a bad birthday poster.

My friend Rob randomly brought up last year's posts.

My friend kmech confessed the pressure she felt from last year's posts, then shared an awesomely touching message of missing me and our friendship!

My friend Kendra pulled off the near-impossible-- a Tangent Space(s) reference so amazingly obscure I had to go back and read last year's blog entry to make sure I was remembering it correctly.


We can pick up this conversation again in about a year.

Jon

Coke and Pepsi

Friends,

For as long as I can remember, I've liked Coke more than Pepsi.  In addition, I've liked Cherry Coke more than "Wild" Cherry Pepsi, Vanilla Coke more than Pepsi Vanilla, and, most important to my life recently, Coke Zero more than Pepsi Max. [Note: I cannot and will not compare Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, because they both taste so awful to me.]

I could just leave it at that and call it a day.  But, as per a strange part of the human condition, I'm not satisfied merely stating my opinion; I want to prove it to be objectively true, whether by science, mathematics, or somehow getting every human being to adopt the same opinion.

And so, I hereby plant my flag that in every way, Coke is better than Pepsi.


Coke vs. Pepsi: the definitive comparison
If the chart I threw together on Microsoft Paint doesn't convince you, nothing will

Growing up, I appreciated not only the taste of Coke products, but the perceived creativity and trail-blazing of the whole Coke product line.  Seriously, when I was a teen, I seemed to notice that Coke would release a product, then Pepsi would soon roll out a rival version of that same product.  This happened often enough that I began to view Coca-Cola as a visionary and brilliant company and Pepsi-Cola as a reactionary, copycat group of hacks.

Recently, as I pondered the superiority of Coke, I wondered if this pattern were real or just the illusory perception of a guy who cares too much about cola.  So, I went to the one source that we all know to be unfailingly true (not to mention an old friend of this blog)-- Wikipedia.

Here are my findings:

[Note: It may seem unfair for me to credit Coke with the victory in diet colas based on TaB. The Diet Pepsi Wikipedia page clearly doesn't.  But I think it makes perfect sense, as the existence and early popularity of TaB -- a Coca-Cola product -- appears to be the sole reason that Diet Coke wasn't produced until the 80s.]



Obviously, a clear and decisive victory for the guys in red.  But you might be wondering if I've played some sort of statistics/chart trick on you.  Maybe I've only included those products that would favor Coke?

But alas, if you look at the column on the left, you'll see I've selected the major cola developments.  Sure, I could have thrown in crazy stuff like Pepsi Clear or Coca-Cola BlaK, but those didn't last and thus don't represent successful steps forward.  The one important type absent from the chart is the "alternative recipe zero-calorie version marketed specifically to males", i.e. Coke Zero and Pepsi Max.  This was just way too difficult to sort out, as Zero predates Max, but Pepsi used to have a completely different ginseng-infused product called "Diet Pepsi Max" and also Pepsi One, which, while featuring different sweeteners and no male-specific marketing, was an alternative diet drink.

So, in the most important areas of cola innovation, Coca-Cola has five times led the way, to Pepsi's one.  But look at it this way, Pepsi fans-- you guys pioneered caffeine-free cola! You know, that drink that's perfect for when you want a non-alcoholic calorie-rich carbonated beverage but still want to be able to fall asleep soon.

Rock-and-roller Cola Wars

To quote Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"

Everyone please chime in:

Do you drink pop? ("Soda", for those of you who grew up with a bleak and miserable childhood.)

If so, what's your cola of choice?

Jon



Fight!

Friends,

One of my favorite topics to ponder is memory.  Our brains have storage capabilities, but they're very mysterious.  I can tell you my multiplication tables or the capital of Florida, but as I attempt to access a memory of an event, things get a little tricky.  The images in our minds are blurry, and we can never be quite sure that things happened exactly as we remember them.

One of my favorite things is when an old pleasant memory has lain dormant for a long time, but someone brings it up or something triggers it, and your eyes widen and you say, "That's right!!  I'd forgotten all about that!"

I recently read through a facebook message conversation from several years ago and had one of those moments.

So, it is with awe toward the fleeting and hazy aspect of memories that I present to you...


The story of when I almost got in a fight
It's almost happened twice in the last 11 years. This one is by far the funnier.

I went to college once-- enough time has passed that the memories are getting harder to grasp, but I know for sure that I went.  While there, I was the president of a Christian student group.  What you may not realize is that sometimes the paid employees of Christian student organizations call upon the student presidents to put out fires.

One rainy day sometime around the middle of last decade, I was called upon to put out one of these fires.  [Note: in neither of the previous uses of the word fires do I mean a literal fire.  I hope that was clear.]  Our group had a listserv ("An electronic mailing list of people who wish to receive specified information from the Internet" - thanks Google) so that each week we could update all interested students about our events, schedule, etc.  The thing about a listserv, though, is that anyone can email it.  All you need is the name of the listserv to email everyone on the list.

The problem was that one student was emailing our listserv to advertise events of a different Christian group, and these events often took place at the same time as our events.  So obviously, blatant misuse of the listserv.  I won't even go into the many reasons this behavior was absurdly wrong (though if I did, the list would include violation of clearly expressed guidelines, extreme inefficiency, inconsiderate spamming of people's inboxes, ignorance of why separate groups exist...).

Needless to say, the fire had to be put out.  Unfortunately, I was the group's student president.

I saw the student (for the sake of the story, we'll call him Jackson, because that's a cool name) as he was leaving the dining hall.  He was carrying a djembe, as was his custom.  I will not attempt to understand or explain this custom.  The following event transpired:

I politely asked Jackson if he would stop using our listserv to promote the other events that were the same time as our events. I told him I understood his heart behind it was for unity, not for the glory of himself or the other group, but that that our listserv was for our events and needs; if we let one other group promote with it, we have to let them all, and soon students will get 3000 emails a day, etc. etc. 

At this point I would have bet money that he'd say, "Ok,I understand," or at the very most, that he'd request to speak about the matter further. Alas, I would have lost money, which is the main reason I'm not a betting man.

Jackson: "That's B.S.!!! People use that thing for selling their geology textbooks! You and your whole group pretend you want Christian unity, but you obviously don't care about it and you're hypocrites!"

[It was true that a student had once used the listserv to try to sell a geology textbook.  But do I look like the kind of guy who's going to accept the logic of "Oh yeah, well someone else did something worse than what I did, so I take no blame"? If anyone reading this doesn't know me, I'll go ahead and fill you in-- I don't look like that kind of guy.]

As I opened my mouth to verbally dispose of this kindergarten logic, he instantly turned and walked into the men's restroom without another word.  I decided I couldn't let him escape this confrontation for any length of time, so I opened the door and proceeded to attempt to reason with him from the doorway.

But Jackson, perhaps feeling that the normal silence in a men's room is covenental and sacred, bullied his way out of my tactic by saying, "I'm trying to piss, Jon.  I'm trying to piss Jon.  I'm trying to piss, Jon." He just kept saying it.

When he and his djembe returned from the loo, I resumed my efforts.  I calmly told him that I understood his point, but that listservs have rules and that we were just kindly, without judgment, asking him to obey them. He replied, "Why you acting pissed off at me? Just cause of a few emails. You shouldn't be pissed off about that!"

[You might be wondering why he kept saying I was mad when, to this point, I had been perfectly calm.  I was wondering this too.  Looking back on it now, I think maybe he was projecting his own anger onto me, or else was just really paranoid.  Or else he misread that whole bathroom strategy.]

"Jackson, I'm not pissed off about your emails. That's why I've been calm and rational. What I'm pissed off about is your disrespectful attitude toward me during this discussion."

Now, I didn't think that was too bad. Jackson thought otherwise.

He set down his djembe drum and spread out his arms, swinging his fingers in the classic, beckoning "come fight me" gesture!

By the grace of God, I've barely been exaggerating the whole calmness thing.  I really was feeling pretty chill throughout this, so I was able to respond to this ludicrous, hostile stance with-- "Jackson, why did you put down your drum? Pick it up. I'm talking to you about a few emails, man, come on."

He picked up his huge drum and stormed off.  Perhaps he went somewhere to play a tribal song of anger.  But he never emailed our listserv again, not even to issue a formal challenge to our group to choose a champion for a 1-on-1 drum-off.


Them's fightin' words
I'm a blogger, not a fighter

Did you ever get in a fight about something stupid? Or just a strong disagreement?  Maybe gave someone a funny look?

Jon

Semantics and religion

Friends,

For some reason, back in November I thought I would get back into the rhythm of regular blogging.  I apparently wasn't looking at my calendar when I said that.  Three holidays and two conferences later, I think I'm finally ready to make good on that intention.


Semantics
"What's in a name?", it turns out, is a pretty huge question

I'm not sure what your background is with the idea or word "semantics".  Sometime in my past, probably in high school when I was at an all-time high in smarminess, I learned the word had something to do with splitting hairs over the meaning of a word. 

So, whenever I found myself in an argument with someone about the meaning of a word or phrase, I would go through this quick mental flowchart:

[Tangent-within-a-tangent: Whenever I cringe about how annoying or mean I was as a kid, my mom says I'm being hard on my former self and that all little boys are annoying and mean.  This may be true; the only evidence of boy-me I really have is family videos, and little boys do seem generally monstrous.  But when it comes to High School Jonathan, my memory still serves pretty well.  Trust me when I say I cared more about being right than I did about your feelings.  Praise God for transformation.]

And with that backdrop, let's proceed to a discussion in which I actually do want to argue semantics, whether I "win" or not.


Christianity: religion or relationship?
Is it either/or? Can we just say "religionship"?

A popular mantra for commending Christianity is that "it's not a religion, it's a relationship."  I get why people say it, I know what they're trying to communicate, but...

...is it true?

Google's awesome definition feature defines religion as "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods".  Most longer dictionaries add further definitions to include the rituals and practices that align with those beliefs.

Sounds a lot like Christianity to me.

I think rather than saying the above cliche, or other variations of it (e.g. "religion is about what we can do to get to God, while the gospel is about what God has done to get to us"), we should communicate in a way that is semantically true.  For example:

Christianity is unique among religions in that, while the others are about doing enough rituals or good deeds to please God, Christianity merely calls us to respond to what God has already done to initiate a relationship with us.

You might think that I'm communicating the exactly same thing as the thousands of relationship-mongers, but A. I'm not sure I am, and B. at least I'm doing it in a way that respects the actual meaning of the word "religion".  You might also think that said respect to a word is unimportant, but I think respecting the word "religion" is important for a few reasons:

1. It's hard not to sound super-condescending to adherents of other religions if they overhear you laugh and say, "Oh no, I'm not part of a religion!! Those are for unevolved pagans.  I'm part of a relationship. Huge difference.  Way better."

2. It's not full of integrity.  The reason we shy away from the word "religion" is that we don't want people to write us off due to their preconceived notions of religion -- that they'll have to be burdened by going to church, reading the Bible, avoiding pleasurable sins, etc.  And it's true that they don't have to do these things to earn God's love or forgiveness.  But come on -- as soon as the person converts, we're teaching them to go to church, read the Bible, and avoid sin.

3. It sets a weird precedent for casting off unpleasant words.  For almost 2000 years, Christianity has been known to everyone as a religion.  Suddenly that word gains a negative stigma, and we're kicking it to the curb.  I know these aren't the same, but will we one day be saying, "Jesus wasn't a deity, he was a superevolved being; the Bible isn't authoritative, it's directive; heaven isn't future and literal and eternal, it's now and progressive and mystical." 

Now, I understand that the meanings and connotations of words change over time, but I don't think the meaning of religion has changed appreciably.  If the connotation has changed, I think we only have ourselves to blame for letting Christianity become a parody of itself.  The solution has to be to change Christianity, not the word we use to label it.


Join the peaceful, non-argumentative discussion
Please, don't be mean.  Or smarmy.

Religion? Relationship?

Or am I just splitting hairs?

Your religious friend,
Jon