Social Media Intimacy?

Something about the story of the guy, Chip Zdarsky, who developed a relationship with the Barrie, Ontario Applebee’s over Facebook has stuck with me over the last week.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/man-develops-hilarious-sweet-friendship-applebees-facebook-page-154871

I have been trying to identify what it is about the exchanges that have taken up so much headspace over the last several days, (and I’m still not certain this is it) but I think it might be the very strange version of intimacy. The back and forth wasn’t necessarily intimate, per se, but there was a certain friendliness and committed earnestness (feigned or otherwise) that somehow came off as sweet.

One of the things I loved the most was when Zdarsky engaged his Uncle Melvin in one of the conversations/postings. Zdarsky may have initially been making fun of Applebee’s, but it seems to me the exchanges evolved from making fun to something a bit more…not a lot more, but it didn’t seem malicious.

This got me to thinking about intimacy on social media. What does true intimacy in this medium look like? Does it look like posting about a recently lost loved one? Does it look like those postings where you read about good people performing random acts of kindness? Does it look like that heart-rending story of the loyal dog that wouldn’t leave the side of a fallen soldiers casket? I would argue not. I feel like these things are all meant by the person posting to convince others how good they would like you to believe they are.

The intimate moments to me are things like Uncle Melvin’s post. (Below)

Uncle Melvin clearly doesn’t care much for “ethnic” (ITALIAN) or “weird” hamburgers with noodles and avocados and apples for toppings. Pure gold.

Though I criticized this in my previous post, the intimate moments to me are things like the "email" exchange between my mother and mother-in-law on Facebook.

These real, unscripted moments that are sometimes captured online are the real gems to me.