My friend Beth, owner of Reware Vintage and member of Handmade Detroit, is now one day past her due date. This is Beth and her husband Dan‘s first child, and their friends (myself included) are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Baby Roy (almost as much as Beth and Dan are!).
I told Beth that I was going to be keeping a close watch on Twitter and our friend Lish is planning on asking Beth every day via Facebook if she’s in labor. Beth made a joke about it being “over internet-ed” – and some of you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking “You all need to get a life.” The fact is, we do have lives – and our lives are intertwined with the internets.
Now, Beth did tell me in person that she was pregnant, and she texted me the sex of the baby after she got done with her ultrasound. There are some moments that you share privately, before you open them up to the world. The fact that Roy was going to exist was one of those moments. But when she and Dan finally announced it and made it public to the world, it was like “Okay – I can now talk about this on Facebook and Twitter! Woo-hoo!”
So why the need to talk about this on social media? We are all busy people and we don’t exactly live next door to each other (we live about an hour apart). And don’t forget about other friends who live outside of Michigan. Like I said – there are a lot of people waiting to meet Baby Roy, and some of these people live far away!
Throughout her pregnancy, Beth has been posting weekly blog updates, so that we can all see what’s happening and see that baby bump, of course! And while I have been there in person to feel Roy kick, I get a total “kick” out of reading this blog posts. It makes me feel like I’m there, even when I’m not.
If Beth and Dan did not document Roy’s arrival via Facebook and Twitter, I would feel left out. And so would all of their other friends.
I say to hell with this being “over internet-ed” – if there was ever an event big enough or important enough to talk about online, the birth of a baby is certainly at the top of the list. I mean, how many times have you talked about a TV show you were watching on Twitter or took a picture of your dinner and posted it on Facebook? (yeah, I’m talking to you – you know you did it!)
Face it – this is the wave of the future. Finding out about stuff online – whether it’s national news or news about your friend going into labor – is just how things work now. And I’m totally okay with that.