I'm always on the lookout for the latest edge-defining interactive trends, so when I read a blog post that pointed to a tweet referring to a Facebook group that referred to a thing called a "get together," I was intrigued. Apparently this "get together" -- pretty klugey name, they should call it a "tog" for short -- takes place at a physical site called a "brewpub."
"Intriguing!" I thought. "Someone has created a brick-and-mortar establishment for social networking! It's kind of like combining foursquare with Habbo!" Not wanting to live in the distant past like some sort of orkut user, I put on a T-shirt with a square, closely cropped photo of myself on it, and headed out to the brewpub.
My first impression was ... well, let's just say I wasn't looking around for the "Like" button. (Turns out they didn't have one. Nor did they have "Tweet this!" or "Digg this!" buttons. They're really not thinking this through.)
The first thing I noticed is that you can hear everyone's conversation. There's this constant torrent of noise coming from all corners of the site. It's a good thing I wasn't visiting this brewpub at work, or I'd be blasting the ears off my co-workers.
At any rate, I did the normal thing in cases like these, which is to wander from table to table asking people if they'd be my friend. Almost nobody did, which is very odd for a social network. What's the point of interacting with people if you don't acquire as many friends as possible? Even the people who were willing to be my friend weren't willing to tell me the names of friends of theirs that I might want to be friends with.
Finally, I was able to track down the people who gave me an invite to the brewpub in the first place. They shot me some funny looks when I asked them to friend me, but they nodded and I sat down. "I'm sitting in this brewpub!" I announced. My new friends stared at me, then went back to communicating to each other about some movie I haven't seen.
Wanting to avoid spoilers, I looked around the site for another conversation. The first problem was that conversations were organized by physical location, which is just madness. I could hear my new group of friends just fine, but the other two people who friended me were way across the room and I couldn't hear anything they were saying. Meanwhile, the people sitting next to me were discussing something I didn't care about at all, and yet here I was, forced to listen to them. There was no "Block" or "Ignore" option available -- I can only assume this brewpub was still in beta -- so I decided to play a game on my iPhone.
A few minutes later, I stood up and announced, "I just scored 234,420 points in Chuzzle." There was a brief pause and several people gave me dirty looks, which I simply don't understand. Fifty people in my immediate vicinity, talking about their friends and families and other things nobody cares about, and I make one routine announcement about my game score and I'm the bad guy?
Some people just don't understand netiquette.
At this point, I was extremely skeptical about this new form of social networking. It seemed well-intentioned, but way too rough around the edges. The chaos and lack of moderation made Usenet look like The Well. And that's when the ultimate straw fell upon the back of the proverbial camel.
A young lady walked up to me. I asked her if she would be my friend. She said, "Sure, OK!" and then handed me a menu. A menu, specifically, of foods and the prices thereof. This woman just friended me to try to sell me things!
"Spammer!" I shouted. I stood up and yelled, "Moderators! Admins! Block her! She's spamming!" Nobody, not one person on the entire site, supported me in this. Did they like being spammed? Did they not have a problem with shady characters trying to sell them things under the guise of socially networked friendship? Or were they just too stupid to care?
I left, and only partly because by now a very large fellow with a sharp-looking spatula was holding me by the elbow and leading me to the door.
Anyhow, the upshot is, this whole physical social networking space idea is obviously as doomed as Google Buzz. Even if the technology were up to par, which it isn't, the early adopters clearly have no idea how social networks are supposed to work. I'm just happy to be back on Twitter and Facebook, with people who know what real friendship means.
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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a social butterfly, an interpersonal stag beetle and a community stick insect.
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