Earlier this summer, Google launched its answer to the latest thing in social networking: Google+. The launch was a little like getting on the backstage VIP list for a Lady Gaga concert: trendy, exclusive and strange. At first, somebody could only participate in Google+ after receiving an invite from another individual who is regarded as a “Google Top Contributor” (which I’m still not completely sure what one has to do to gain such status), and on the first day, closed down after a few hours due to what Google called “insanely high” demand.
Because I feel I am obviously special, I received an invite from a friend who is fairly connected in the social media world. I then felt doubly superior when I was able to pass along invites to people who are also connected in the computer world. Then my Google+ just sat there, doing nothing.
Fast forward to now and after using Google+ for a couple of months, I still feel like it’s a party where a couple of guests have arrived, but are mostly just sitting around eating crackers and staring at each other while making awkward conversation until someone spikes the punch and does a pool cannonball in their underwear. I guess that so far my Google+ experience teleports me back to my youth, when my mom rented a VCR with a VHS tape of “The Dark Crystal” for my first-grade birthday party and the only three friends who showed up (we won’t say how many were actually invited) were weirder, geekier and more self-conscious than me. Ultimately, I am having a difficult time just wrapping my brain around the whole idea of Google+ circles.
Circles within Google+ act like a sort of “Dante’s Social Networking for Dummies,” allowing you to sort your news stream with generic categories like Friends, Family and Acquaintances, to name a few that Google+ provides. By organizing your followers into these various views, you can effectively filter content to an appropriate (or inappropriate, depending on how your weekends go) level of sharing – an act that is trickier when using other social networking sites.
In theory, the ability to filter is fantastic when you stop to think about a possible upcoming job interview or ordainment as a weekend wedding officiant. In reality, I have learned that the suggested Google+ circles are the thong underwear of social networking – giant holes that don’t provide as much full coverage as I would prefer.
After trying a few different categorizations for my Google+ account, I have come up with some alternative circle names that have made it easier for me to keep my private stuff private. Here are some suggestions that I feel make Google+ circles a bit more useful:
- Grandma – Remember that one Halloween where you ran into your ex at a party and then spent the rest of the night poised over the toilet in your skanky Leprechaun costume vomiting the fifth of blueberry vodka you shame-drank? Oh! And as luck would have it, your ex’s new flame snapped some pictures at the exact moment you were gripping the sides of the bowl promising to the universe that you were never imbibing again. With some social networking sites, that vindictive new partner of your ex can “tag” you to their heart’s content and until you “untag” yourself, so it’s out there for the world and Grandma, to see. With Google+, Grandma can exist virtually in her own circle so that any photos posted contain Matlock, kittens and “Photoshopped” images of your charity work washing hobos’ feet. In this case, Google+ provides the kind of peace of mind that Grandma won’t see photos of you barfing.
Also good for: The sinister uncle whose only human interaction, now that he lives on the secluded mountain ranch, is quoting Bible verses via status updates.
- Morbid Curiosity – An unfortunate feature of Google+ is that anybody out there in cyberspace with a gmail account can add you to their circles even when you haven’t sought them out. Subsequently, you get notifications telling you that some random creeper wants to get all up in your business. You could block this individual, but Creeper also tends to post some mildly humorous content at which you’ve chuckled a couple of times here and there. Also, Creeper’s life seems so horribly odd when ranting about his latest convenience store shift that you can’t look away from the train wreck that is Creeper’s life.
Add Creeper to the “Morbid Curiosity” category and you’ve got more than enough content for those times when you need a little ego boost (i.e., there are people out there crazier, uglier and with a crappier job than you).
Also good for: Stalking people you’ve once dated to see the dogface they’re currently with. Again, ego boost.
- What Was I Thinking?! – This category is perfect for someone you met on Match.com, went out with one time and then drank a few too many martinis with in hopes of elevating the entertainment level of the conversation. Since that little episode, this person won’t quit commenting on everything you post, sending you “funny” email spam and generally making you feel like you’re going to come home one day to find them on your porch waiting to sew your skin into a shiny new pair of pants.
A “What Was I Thinking?!” Google+ circle takes the foolishness of youth and tucks it away into a little box fit for dark secrets like dating mistakes or a propensity for staying at home on a Friday night to eat a tub of Betty Crocker frosting while watching old episodes of the New Kids on the Block animated cartoon.
Also good for: Grandma.
Without getting too deep, the more I think about it, I’m going to rename my Google+ circles into one easy-to-swallow, amuse-boushe category: “Dante’s Ninth Circle,” symbolizing treachery, look it up. Let’s just say it deals with betrayal of family and community ties and such, and isn’t that what we’re really doing here with all of this social media stuff?
Holly Braithwaite is the Communication Director at Utah System of Higher Education. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her miniature pinscher, Rico Tubbs.
