Customize your own free digital invitation

Facebook

For those of you who don't know, Dad has signed up for a facebook account, I found out when I logged into my email recently and found an email notifying me my father had "friend requested" me. Many children have been experiencing this phenomenon and faced with the tough "to friend or not to friend" decision. I've recently seen that the fastest growing demographic on facebook is actually people over 35. Well I have to admit the first thing that went through my head were thoughts of those weird parental postings that you always see and hear about on websites like myparentsjoinedfacebook.com, in fact the week after Dad joined facebook I got a newsletter email with this story; "My friend's mom was making some inappropriate comments on Facebook. It was well out of her character, so I thought maybe her account had been hacked. Turns out that her account wasn't hacked; it's just that she's under the impression that 'LOL' stands for 'Lots of Love,' and not 'Laughing out Loud' as the rest of the world knows it. It leads to posts like, "Sorry you lost your job :( LOL," or "Missing you, LOL." Then again, maybe at her core she actually does know that it means 'Laughing out Loud,' and this is her way of passive-aggressively telling the world that she's really a mean person at heart." This story reminded me of two things; first, a hilarious quote from the TV show modern family;

"I'm the cool dad. That's my thang. I'm hip. I surf the Web. I text. LOL: laughing out loud. OMG: Oh my Gosh. WTF: Why the face?"

and second, that parents can bring a hysterical new twist to things that we as the younger generation should appreciate.  I for one was getting sick of facebook (the privacy issues, the take this quiz to find out which twilight character you are, the mafia wars requests) and I think parents may just make it all fun (or funny) again.

For the record the only funny thing that has happened with Dad on facebook was my own doing, and I don't even know if he noticed. I had a party and I thought it would be funny to send him an invitation on facebook. I had asked someone else to make the event invitation on facebook and she thought it would be funny to classify it under erotic party. Well I didn't realize that until later, I thought my dad might not appreciate my friends' sense of humor and I promptly uninvited him (sorry Dad) even as I write this post I'm not sure he knows. So this may be how he finds out (I still invited him, just in person).
So welcome to facebook Dad, and all you other parents and thanks for making it fun again.