From the St. Petersburg TimesIt's bigger than MySpace. A guiltier indulgence than "American Idol." And sometimes scarier than a Lindsay Lohan-Sam Ronson pillow fight.
It's
Facebook, and if you're not using it by now ... well, then that means you have time to mow your lawn and write a book. (The rest of us are too busy taking the "How well do you know Tony Soprano" quiz.)
The site, where people can post their own profiles, favorite Web links and "status updates" and then link to friends' profiles, claims more than 250 million active users. In May, traffic on Facebook was strong enough for it to pass its older, social-networking cousin, MySpace.com, and make it the most popular site in the United States, according to PCMag.com. With its popularity comes a whole new language of mangled words that hard-core fans and critics alike use to describe, honor and frankly mock their latest addiction.
Forget about "friending" (adding someone as a friend on Facebook), "tagging" (identifying a person in photo) and "getting walled" (posting a public message on a person's profile page). Here are some trendier Facebook-friendly terms we really love:
Face-Brag: To use Facebook only as a way to brag about your great new job, hot date last weekend, brilliant child or fancy sports car. You're awesome, OK? That rattling sound you now hear is our eyes rolling back in our skulls.
Face-Goggles: Necessary for people who post very misleading profile photos of themselves on Facebook. ("What's everyone laughing at? I do look just like John Cusack!")
Face-Woe: The opposite of Face-brag. This is the dark habit of only updating your Facebook status area with sad or depressing news -- "Larry is crying. R.I.P. Jinxy -- greatest cat ever" -- in an effort to get 458 comments of support from your friends.
Face-Booze: Getting drunk while Facebooking -- bad idea? But that's what happens after too much Face-woe, we guess.
Face-Crack: Ah, the phenomenon of being addicted to Facebook. You're just dying to log on now and take another quiz or send another beer to a friend or tag another photo from your high school reunion, aren't you? Just say no!
And then there's
Twitter: Facebook isn't the only social-media phenomenon that is magically coining a new language. Look no further than its evil cousin, Twitter, for a whole new set of fun words, including these.
Twitface: A term of contempt for those who synch Twitter and Facebook and then constantly update both throughout the day.
Tweaser: A Twitter user who refers to something juicy in a tweet -- like a scandalous celeb pic -- but then posts no link.
Tweetwalking: Twittering while asleep. (Seriously, stop going to bed with your Blackberry!)
Twidiot: Any Twitter user who can't string together a grammatically correct sentence in 140 characters. Oh, the shame!
Copyright (c) 2009 Scripps Howard News Service
