25 Random Things About YOU

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yet another reason I’m glad I’m not on Facebook. This ugly little “Post 25 Random Things About Me” meme has attracted mainstream media attention like any other insidious public infection, such as Ebola, Crotch Rot or Rachael Ray.

The theory behind it is this: you write up a list of, well, 25 things about yourself, and once you’ve published it you “tag” 25 people to let them know you’ve done it, and to pressure them into doing the same, using the subtlety of a snaggletoothed 17th-century Puritan with a fistful of rocks and too many vowels in her name.

The way I see it, this kind of meme can only exist for one of two reasons: first, it’s a clever social engineering experiment by Russian hackers looking to trick the rubes into posting information needed to defeat second factor authentication on banking Web sites.

Second: I don’t need to post random things about me for my friends to read, because they’re my friends. They already know. Hell; my high school buddy Trebuchet knows 25 random facts about me… actually, he knows fifty, but they act as binary compounds: the combination of any two would probably result in my incarceration.

So what this meme really is is a way to write 25 facts about yourself, and “tag” random old acquaintances. But not to get them to write a list, but to get them to read your list to see how wonderful and interesting you are. Which is not only unnecessary (If I cared enough to remain in touch with you, I would already know these things), but desperately narcissistic and attention-seeking. And if that’s the case, I don’t need to see your list, because I already know 25 random things about you:

1. You have forgotten that your constant sharing of tedious personal details is why I didn’t want to hang out with you in high school / college / after work.
2. You mistakenly assume that we want to discuss idiosyncratic details about you before you are dead.
3. You have forgotten that the passing of homemade surveys is something you are supposed to grow out of by eighth grade.
4. Your willingness to admit to an irrational fear of UPS trucks doesn’t make you any less boring.
5. Your willingness to admit to being unable to climax without being lashed by rose thistles while listening to John Tesh in Super CD Dolby 5.1 surround sound doesn’t mean that we don’t already know and giggle about it behind your back.
6. You are making me consider a restraining order.
7. You are long past making me consider the purchase of a firearm.
8. Your secret admission that you hate your children is the only thing that we have in common.
9. Your “tagging” of me is not making me consider secret things about myself to share. It is making me consider ways I can make what happens to you look like an accident.
10. You still make me want to see other people.
11. Your invasion of my peace with this insipid request for personal information makes me want to see other inflatable alternatives to people.
12. Your infuriating yammering about your strength in the face of the adversity that your (Insert piddling, unimportant detail about you that most people either don’t notice or couldn’t care less about, but which makes an infinitesimal percentage of the population mildly uncomfortable HERE) gives you makes gay, black and Hispanic people want to drag you to death behind their cars.
13. You are the only person who cares what you put in your mouth in darkened bedrooms unless you are paired up with someone extraordinarily attractive with large breasts and have video you are willing to provide.
14. Your body image issues are neither misplaced nor the fault of a “perfection obsessed media”. Based on your Facebook headshot, they are potentially life-threatening, and definitely hilarious.
15. Your personal habits are neither “quirky” nor “foibles” if they make me want to stab you.
16. Your relationship with your household pet(s) is only fascinating if it can be turned into an urban legend or a filthy joke.
17. Ditto re: your relationship with Jesus.
18. Your taste in music is not “eclectic”; I believe you have confused the words “eclectic” and “reprehensible”, but only because you can’t possibly be dumb enough to have mistaken it for “sucks”.
19. You say you “wish you could travel”, but you are lying. I know this because I have seen pictures of your spouse. You mean to say you wish you could flee.
20. You are not a perfectionist. You are a cunt.
21. The story you tell people about your first job isn’t the same story I tell people about your first job. My version has a happy ending. For me. But not for your designer jeans.
22. You believe that this list will make you seem mysterious and enigmatic, while completely missing the fact that you would be even more of an enigmatic mystery if you would fuck off and quit bothering me.
23. You don’t seem to understand that “Random’ does not mean “Compelling” or even “Readable”.
24. You think that you are exotic, fascinating, riveting and delightful.
25. You are wrong.

[tags]Facebook, Internet meme, 25 Random Things About Me, dark humor, satire, parody[/tags]