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I recently read an article on GOOD.is entitled “The Art of the Status Update.” The article was interesting and seemed relevant, in light of a recent post I’d written about the Top Ten Facebook Offenders.

Perhaps I’d been too hard on Facebookers in condemning the “self-indulgence” that users of any social-media outlet are often prone to. I called the worst offenders “oversharers, braggarts and passive-aggressive.” The author of this article, it seems, has an opposite view of Facebook’s notorious “status update.”

Anne Trubek summed up her views in the article’s title. In describing the status update as an “art,” she puts a euphemistic spin on my otherwise negative interpretation of this form of self-expression. The author has divided status updates into four categories:

• The Prosaic, which describes exactly what the author is doing (ie. Amy is watching Top Chef).
• The Informative, in which the author uses the status update as a medium for sharing information (ie. Amy wants you to check out this article on Global Warming).
• The Clever or Funny, which is fairly self-explanatory and might say something like: Amy thinks taco bell slipped a tiny circus, complete with clown car, into her burrito. Ughhh.
• The Nonsensical, in which the author indulges his or her most poetic sensibilities (ie. Amy wishes she could melt away with all the snow).

The author views the status update, with its limited number of characters and strict, uniform structure (status updates, by default, begin with the author’s name) as its own literary form- a kind of craft, like a haiku.

While I think this gives a bit too much credit to those individuals who like to use their status updates as a way to garner sympathy or play passive aggressive games (my boyfriend’s female friend once wrote “Shelley now remembers why it’s useless to be friends with a boy who has a girlfriend”), I must admit this article sparked my interest.

With more and more people engaging in social media every day (hello, we may as well replace “status update” with “twitter” in this article) people who never considered themselves writers, or even creative, are suddenly taking the time to come up with new and unique ways to express themselves.

The idea of something as trivial and mainstream as Facebook entering into the literary world in one way or another is certainly interesting, albeit a little scary. But the truth is, the web is the way of the world these days. My boyfriend likes to pretend it’s not true with comments like, “why are we wasting time talking about Facebook in the real world?” But the truth is, you can learn a lot through Facebook.

And, after all, what’s wrong with a little self-indulgence once in a while? I’m a writer for crying out-loud. What’s more self-indulgent than that?

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