Limited Profile

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Facebook website, but it's a nice little site where you can post pictures of yourself, list your interests, favorite movies and books, etc. It's designed to help college buddies stay in touch and to even find folks from high school that you might not have talked to in awhile. A few years ago, I had started a page on MySpace, but it only took a matter of weeks for my mom to snoop around and find it, then I never heard the end of her negative critique of my pictures, what music I listen to, movies I watch, etc. I started a Facebook account because it's only visible to your friends, rather than public.

But... you can never be too careful. A few weeks ago, my brother's fiance invited me to be on her friends list, and I accepted, but then posted a picture of myself (the same one I posted on the blog awhile back) of me flipping the bird at those who would dare to harm innocent folks in my beloved Oklahoma. If mom was going to be spying on me through Facebook, I wanted to know about it. Sure enough, this morning, I got an angry call from mom complaining about the picture, as well as another picture in my friend's album of me hopelessly drunk with my head in the toilet, taken like (notice the lingo, Dean) over three years ago. Curiously, she did not find out from my brother's fiance; rather, she had logged on as my cousin to see a picture of her boyfriend, and I guess found me by accident? Yeah right. She acts like she just stumbled on my profile, but I know better.

My first reaction was to delete anyone who was remotely family as a friend, but then I found out about a curious new feature of Facebook, that being the Limited Profile. You can make a list of people who only see the limited profile and also what portions of your page are available to these people. So, I've invited most of my family members back, but all they can see is my name, schools, and contact information - as well as a now harmless photo of me in my Oklahoma City Memorial shirt and a John Deere cap. Now that I can protect trivial personal information, I don't need to put an offensive picture as my main photo.

So, all's well, and mom will never have to worry about seeing another picture of her boy flipping the bird or throwing up after having a little too much "Captain" in him! It's a shame that it's often your family that seems the least eager to know who you really are.