ALEX CANTATORE
“Oh, you don’t know about that because you’re not on Facebook.”
It’s become a wildly common turn of phrase amongst the world’s twenty-somethings. A constant refrain among my particular group of college friends as we admonish the last few holdouts, those who-for some unknown reason-have decided against making every detail of their daily life available to complete strangers.
I understand; it’s a lot to ask of a person. But, as we all know, you’re only going to get what you give, and the rewards of Facebook membership far outweigh the occasional threat of an overly interested Internet stalker.
Let me give you an example.
If you manage to look past the stunningly handsome gentleman’s face above, bespectacled and blazered, you’ll notice my name, “Alex Cantatore.”
In fact, that’s a bit of an abbreviation. My full name is Alessandro Sergio Cantatore, a name so long that the doctor told my mother I’d never learn how to spell it when I was born.
As you may have guessed from that mouthful of a name, I come from an Italian family. Like any other Italian family mine is, of course, ridiculously large.
A casual occasion like, say, a birthday, first communion, or Tuesday afternoon instantly involves 40 people. And, like any good Italian gathering, there must be enough food to feed 80.
Since getting the Cantatore clan all in one place is a bit of a struggle, to say the least, it’s difficult to keep in touch with everyone. My personal situation is made even more difficult, as nine-tenths of my family lives in the Bay Area.
About a year ago, though, one of my cousins befriended me on Facebook. In the few months since, just about every one of my family members from age 13 to 50 has joined the social networking site, posting status updates to keep everyone apprised of their life.
When we all saw each other last Saturday, we Facebookers in the family instantly had things to talk about despite the time and distance. I asked a cousin about her new job, I asked another about his speeding ticket, and I had several people ask me about the rear window of my RSX that was smashed in front of my house a few weeks ago.
Even though we hadn’t seen each other in a month or so, we all felt at least peripherally involved in one another’s lives. Less time was wasted on small talk and we managed to make our conversations just that much more personal.
As a reporter here at the Turlock Journal, I see our paper as serving a role similar to that of a friend or family member. We’re here to tell you stories about the things we’ve heard about around town.
Unfortunately, as a reader, you rarely get a chance to interrupt the stories you dislike, to ask questions to learn more, or to tell us stories of your own. Sure, we have letters to the editor, but the space is admittedly limited.
We’d like to see that change here at the Journal. We’d like to build a closer relationship with our readers, and hopefully allow for our discourse to become a bit more personalized as a result of that.
In short, we want to be your friends. And what better place to make friends than Facebook and Twitter?
Invite Turlock Journal to be your friend on Facebook, and follow @turlockjournal on Twitter. That way, even if you don’t run into a Journal reporter about town you can still keep tabs on our work and offer your own opinions.
And, of course, we’ll be sure to keep an eye on what you’re up to as well, just as any good friend would. After all, we’d hate to not know about something because we’re not on Facebook.
To contact Alex Cantatore, e-mail acantatore@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2005.
Originally published in the Turlock Journal 2/25/2009.
Retrieved from the Turlock Journal Web site.