In general, it seems that most people on Facebook try to keep it light – giving the highlights – most of the good stuff and not a lot of the bad. When they talk about the past, it’s usually to recount a funny story or post an old photo. And, as one might imagine, many of the bad experiences tend to fade away and become distant memories, while the happier memories stay top of mind.

But, once in awhile, someone posts something that is so personal, so emotional, and so specific that it causes you to think more deeply about the past and also consider the larger implications of all this online sharing.

Recently, on our Facebook high school class group, a former classmate revealed that he had been bullied day in and day out for years. The experience was so traumatic, that it defined his entire life and led him to make specific choices about his career, and to get his kids into martial arts. Across multiple posts, he gave a pretty good picture of what it was like to basically live in fear, every day, never knowing when the next attack might be.

I didn’t know this guy, but I really feel for him, and I’m sorry that he had that experience. I think it’s brave to share that level of detail with the world. However, it was kind of a shocker to read this on Facebook. What happened to the kumbaya moment we were having, the warm fuzzy? It’s clear from some of the subsequent comments that his posts made a few people uncomfortable. After all, who wants to remember the bad stuff?

However, what it does reinforce is the notion that Facebook is real — very real. Yes, you can post funny stuff, poke people, give virtual gifts and see how your movie selections compare with others, but at a fundamental level – it’s really not about that. It’s a narrative of you and your life. Depending on the extent to which you are willing to share, this narrative may include some not so nice memories.  Naturally, the more you share, the more you get out of it.  The bottom line is that it’s quite simple — it’s real people connecting online – you can really only be yourself, so you might as well do just that, even if it means sharing the good, the bad and the ugly.

Hey, I’ve been a bit busy lately trying to be maverick in my everyday life.  So, I hope you social media types don’t try to pin me down with any gotcha questions about why I haven’t been blogging lately.  I’ll tell ya right off the bat that I won’t answer yer questions directly. I’ll just change the subject. After all, I’m not accountable to nobody. No siree. It’s my blog. So there.

Before I forget, I’d like to give a shout out to the all the social media hockey moms and joe sixpacks out there.  I feel your pain. It’s difficult to find enough hours in the day to take advantage of all the social media out there, and even more difficult to find something that doesn’t smack of that there pompous elitist attitude that seems to permeate throughout that there blogosphere.  Even mainstream users need reliable, affordable social networking. And, gosh darn it, you should not have to apologize to A-list bloggers for liking lowest common denominator social media. Geez, why raise the bar so high and make things so difficult? Not everyone wants to be smart, ya hear?

And, while I’m on the topic, I’d just like to say that I’m concerned, concerned about Twitter. They lured us in and now we’re hooked. And, when that there big bad whale rears its head and flies onto our computer screen…and, yea, and what about Facebook. I mean, golly, they have changed their user interface. What a bunch of flip floppers!  I think we need to band together and say never again. Never again to being exploited and taken advantage of by Twitter and Facebook. 

Well, hey, gotta run…I got some maverickin’ to do.

Have you heard of these sites? Twistori, We Feel Fine and Summize? I just found out about them and all of the sudden felt compelled to share.  These sites are small in terms of users, but worth checking out.

First off, this Twitter search site Summize reminds me a little of Terraminds (now defunct?) but seemingly much better with more flexibility.

But what brought me to Summize was this: Twistori

I like the touchy-feely stuff. I’m a fan of PostSecret and I’m a qualitative researcher/ethnographer by trade, so, I’m intrigued by what Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs are doing with Twistori.  From what I can tell they are aggregating feelings from Twitter and bucketing them into 6 groups:

• love
• hate
• think
• believe
• feel
• wish

Click on one of the category links, wait a few secs and then the tweets start to scroll on your screen.  Some are funny, some sad, but the poignancy can’t be denied. It’s a quirky mirror into the souls of Twitter users and, by extension (alright well maybe, just perhaps), into the world at large.

Twistori is inspired by We Feel Fine.  Run by two interesting entrepreneurs - Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, We Feel Fine has been “harvesting human emotions from a large number of weblogs.”

Sound interesting?

Well, take a tour of the site when you’ve got a chunk of time.  I say this because there is a lot of information in there, and it’s not all immediately obvious. Figuring it out might take some time.  I’ll be doing that sometime soon, and perhaps writing about it more in this space.

Basically We Feel Fine is “coding” feelings and summarizing them into statistics like the happiest and saddest cities, and more.  After reading about the mission and methodology, select the ”Open We Feel Fine” link from the top navigation, that’s where the action is. It’ll search for feelings from the last few hours and then load them. Watch the bubbles/confetti on the screen, point your cursor and see where you end up. Then try it again. Click on the links at the bottom left to see information in different views, including images and summary statistics.

Ever wonder what people are thinking about? Well, here are a few ways to find out.

Quick Update: I forgot to mention that what led me to all of this was a tweet from @driveafastercar. I went to check out the pictures from ROFLcon at Laughing Squid (nice suit, BTW), and found a post on Twistori.