Apropos to my last post, I just today spoke via Facebook with an old friend, Arvi. He had posted a picture of himself and Ije Nwokorie, and then that sent us down an 18 year-old rabbit hole with other friends who all worked together in New York.
Mind blown. This is how social media is supposed to work.
Which it rarely ever does for me. Only when I post a picture of my kids or a video of someone falling down (I think this is the funniest thing ever) do I ever get a shit-ton of likes and comments. But if I post a design- or work-related post, I get crickets.
“I have money to give you! Don’t you want the money? You just have to know something!” Crickets.
When I was in college, we had a very eccentric professor for art history. One morning he told a joke where the punchline was about how dumb artists were. He then said, “You just don’t get too many good art jokes”. That memory sticks vividly in my mind, and I remember and retell the joke even today.
So the conversation on this Facebook picture quickly turned into a “let’s try to find everyone that worked together and do a meet-up”. Now, this idea would normally produce an eye-roll of Liz Lemon proportions from me, but my heart raced, my eyes widened and I immediately jumped on the idea.
Why? I barely know any of these people any more. It’s been years. Years.
So I thought about it, and realized that I want to connect with people from years ago because they don’t know me either, and yet we have shared experiences – not just the ones from years ago – but current, modern experiences. We are parents. We are designers. We are professionals.
And no matter the differences in our lives, we have stories, I’m sure, to share and relate. Even after all this time. And there’s something interesting and melancholy and fun – adult, old-fart kind of fun – about that.
And I bet they would all like the art joke.
