Culture

Facebook Killing the High School Reunion

by DebtFreeDave | January 18, 2009 at 07:49 am

1094 views | 4 Recommendations | 6 comments

Just like video killed the radio star and the DVD killed VHS, Facebook may be on the verge of destroying an institution: high school reunions. Think about it...for many of us, there are only a handful of people that you went to high school with that you would even care to see in the first place. And once you have a few drinks and catch up with them, what else is there? With Facebook, you don't even need to go to a reunion to catch up; just search your high school class and add your friends. Now as a 1984 graduate (as if the video link didn't give away my oldness already), my graduating class only has about 10% of it, but for more recent graduates, it seems like everybody has a Facebook. My nephew and nieces have hundreds of friends each, and they know all of them; my Facebook has about 30 friends, only 1 that I graduated with. How sad...

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Jordan Yerman

at 09:23 on January 18th, 2009

I agree with this: though I missed my high school reunion (a combination of distance and apathy), the instant-gratification of social networking erodes what would be left of my motivation to attend a future event.

In the Facebook link, are you the human, or the giant eagle?

DebtFreeDave

at 09:37 on January 18th, 2009

I am the human, but wishing I were the giant eagle, as I might be headed to Tampa in a couple of weeks for the Super Bowl. Not sure if the mascots go though...

matte

at 18:59 on January 19th, 2009

why would this prevent reunions - people still like to catch up face to face.

Kids with online friends, well they are not friends they are acquaintances at best

Eye Spy U

at 20:50 on January 19th, 2009

The Hoover High School reunion of 1977 brought together hundreds of alumni from the Glendale, CA school. Everyone looked a little older but but like a good wine all present seemed to have aged to with nice results. It was really wonderful speaking with old friends and classmates. While not all were close in high school, the shared experience of growing up in a small community brought a warm feeling of kinship to the group. Unlike high school, talking with people at the reunion came easy and even folks who weren't that close back in high school found common experiences in life to chat about and pass the time as the night wore on. Pictures of children were passed around and laughter was heard often. The best thing about attending the reunion was renewing old friendships and initiating new ones.

Our class had 5 year, 10 Year, 20 Year and 30 year reunions so I guess you could say we are close and enjoy each others company.

Eye Spy U has contributed a photo to this story.

djhostalero

at 23:42 on January 19th, 2009

One...two...three...say cheeze!

This was taken during our high school class reunion ( Our lady of lourdes College, Valenzuela City, Philippines.)

From left to right Rey, Ryan, Ronnie and Richard.

djhostalero has contributed a photo to this story.

livethakly (not verified)

at 07:23 on February 22nd, 2009

I think it will make reunions even better. It'll be easier now to find all those people who may be more out of touch than others. I just found out about my reuinon from Facebook and amthinking of going. I would have known nothing about it. Pretty cool, I say.