Na zdravie! Cin cin! La Chaim!
I have been known to indulge in adult beverages on rare occasions—ahem—and like most people, I don’t like drinking alone.
Well, now the good folks at Budweiser (the sole reason for the continued existence of St. Louis) have made it possible to drink with all of your bestest buddies, even those you don’t know yet, every time you raise your glasses in a toast.
Introducing the Buddy Glass, the world’s first social networking pint glass! Hooray?
The idea behind this bizarre use of “because-we-can” technology, is that when you clink glasses, you automatically connect with others doing the same thing on Facebook. This is accomplished via a chip embedded in the glass.
Okay, it’s an advertising gimmick, I get it. But really, who thought this was a neat idea? When I toast my reflection in the mirror behind the bar—I mean my friends, I’m engaging in an ancient act of hospitality. Clinking glasses, especially with the intent of splashing the contents from one glass to the other, was a sign that I’m not trying to poison you, so it’s okay to share a drink with me. We’re sharing the same cup of life so to speak. The symbolism in sharing food and drink with others and the real ties it creates between people, if only temporarily, is a good and wholesome thing.
But this?
Like everything Facebook does, this thing creates false connections between people. It affords anonymity while hiding behind a curtain of electrons, creating virtual human intercourse rather than the real thing. Our life has become too virtual as it is. We live in isolation, shutting out the world and preferring to live in the comfortable glow of our iPad, iPhone, or big-screen TV rather than interacting with our fellow humans in any personal and real way. A friend of mine once said, “We emerge from our boxes in the morning, get in a box to drive to work, where we sit in a box until it’s time to return to our box.”
I couldn’t have said it any better.
Real interaction is face to face where I can see you and you can see me. Where you can see that the real me isn’t the charming pictures I post on FB, but the balding, slightly paunchy, worried, middle-aged wreck that I am. [And yes, I realize the irony of ranting about this on a blog. Shut-up.]
No thanks Budweiser. I’d rather tattoo a portrait of Duffman on my butt than have pseudo-drinks with total strangers!
If anybody wants me, I’ll be at Moe’s.
