'25 Random Facts' note continues its unstoppable spread across Facebook

02/18/09 - BY Joshua ArominEntertainment Writer



While Facebook is the addictive networking beast that fosters unproductive behavior around the world, it means a lot of things. For me, it's 257 friends, 12 groups, 155 photos and five event invitations. For many others, it also means 25 Random Facts.

By now, it's inevitable to not have been tagged in at least one friend's note for 25 Random Facts. The viral note of egregious curiosity has become as widely known and accepted as Facebook itself.

And like Facebook, the note has become a living, breathing monster that suddenly causes normal everyday people to dig deep into the depths of their minds to inform us all of their own personal random facts. Some random facts are more unexciting than an 8 a.m. lecture and others reveal more than what an average friend should know.

Whatever it is, people are susceptible to the inescapable idea of blurting out 25 things in a forum. It's a chance to state things that would probably never come up in regular conversation, regardless of whatever context is at hand.

There's no real rhyme or reason as to why we should feel so compelled to have people know scatterbrained facts about us other than the idea that it's simply fun. And aside from the usual personality traits and professional qualities, there are always the quirks and subtleties that introduce us to the aura of a person.

Surely, Facebook can be a not-so-personal system of networking. And while it's a given that Facebook is a wonderful tool to keep people connected, it undoubtedly makes us less personal overall. It has single-handedly created the need to distinguish the difference from real-life friends to "Facebook friends."

And in a way, the 25 Random Facts note is a way to bring back a sense of personality to a place where it's sometimes lost. But at the same time, it reflects on the social dependence we have on Facebook for us to maintain relationships, where old-fashioned communication now takes the backseat.

Whatever its effect is, the 25 Random Facts note is a chance to talk about whatever's on your mind in a way that can be really informative, entertaining, and completely narcissistic all in one little virtual entry published on the Web.

Personally, I have not posted the note myself. I mean, I could write that my first pet was a goldfish named Willy, that I once had an uncontrollable fascination with professional wrestling or that I once met Nancy Kerrigan in an Ann and Hope store, but I won't. In the grand scheme of things, where's the fun in that?

But really, what's better? Getting five minutes of entertainment by reading about a Facebook friend's lifetime of 25 facts, or getting years of it through real-life experience?

I'm not about to delete my Facebook or anything drastic, but to bring some sort of personality to a world that's increasingly impersonal, I'll take the latter.

Sure, it might sound unrealistic to make time to actually get to know a Facebook friend, but we all make time for our favorite TV shows and movies. We all make sure to catch the newest episode of "The Office," "Gossip Girl," "Lost," "24" and the list goes on forever - but sometimes it might be a good idea to take a deep breath and realize that our friends can be pretty entertaining, too.