Did it. Did. It. IT. Became culturally relevant. (?) Joined Facebook. I haven't up until now because my youngest daughter just writhed at the idea. Groaning writhing. Moaning bemoaning. But now she's almost 21. Her reaction to my doings? "Creeped out." Like me, Facebook is greying. Face it, kids.
Well, I've not done any poking on Facebook, but I do want to clarify the terminology. The Poke is defined thusly:
The poke feature allows one user to virtually poke another... Some users believe that the poke feature is some sort of Facebook foreplay...while many Facebook users, as intended, use the feature to attract attention or say hello, some users construe it as a sexual advance.
No duh. Well... why wouldn't people think this? Let's go back in time, kiddos. Augustus McCrae paid Lorena, the whore in Lonesome Dove, $50 for a poke, which meant much more than a nudge.
So a poke, at least beginning in 1986, meant a roll in the hay, so to speak, thanks to the Western fictional slang of Larry McMurtry. McMurtry's book, Lonesome Dove, won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and recreated the idea of the West, once again. So pokin' along, instead of meaning ambling, like on horseback, moved into the poke with McMurtry. And, since it ranks as one of my all-time favorite books, I would know these things.
The Lonesome Dove miniseries ran on CBS in 1989, won six Emmys, was nominated for 13 others and rescripted the Western. Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae (Robert Duvall) and Captain Woodrow F. Call (Tommy Lee Jones), play ex-Texas Rangers. Gus is a romantic figure whose happy-go-lucky nature and good fortune with women and prostitutes, especially his favorite poke pal Lorena Wood (Diane Lane), prohibits him from doing much real work around the ranch.
Quote from Lonesome Dove:
Gus McCrae: A man who wouldn't cheat for a poke don't want one bad enough.
Another Lonesome Dove quote:
Woodrow Call: [after handing the gun to Newt] It is better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it.
Facebook should change the poke to kick or nudge. But that would be greying the language and anyway, who cares about history anymore. Besides me. The poke, the thong. Things change, linguistically. Slow poke before 1986 meant a candy chew on a stick. So I'm there, poking about, in spite of the deplorable idea of my daughter: ugh. Mom on facebook. Poking where she shouldn't be. Or should.
Update 3/17: I've now mastered the fb thing. No friending anyone from sophmore in college younger, or so says my oldest daughter, 25. More than 175 million active users on facebook and I am like others -- US women over age 55 using Facebook grew by 175.3% since September 2008, making mature females one of the fastest growing demographic groups on the social network (I'm just barely over 50 but I think this is relevant). There are 45.3 million active US Facebook users. 45% of Facebookâs US audience is now 26 years old or older.