A birthday MIRACLE! (and giveaway)

The days of social media have brought us a totally new social convention that some people consider annoying.

The Facebook Happy Birthday

Back in the day (i.e. pre-2002), times were different. Only close friends and family remembered your birthday (if you were lucky!). Nowadays, because of facebook, your birthday, if you choose to post it there, is visible to everyone on your friends list. Friends, family, acquaintances, exes, and anyone else who can see your status updates on facebook will know that it’s your birthday. Even better, they’ll get a fancy notification about it in the upper right of their screen, and facebook opens up a portal for them to easily wish you a happy birthday without even needing to visit your profile (or timeline). If they’re like me, they probably feel obligated to wish you a happy birthday even though they barely talk to you.

As you may know (especially if we’re facebook friends), this Friday is my birthday!

Of course, I have lots of big things planned, including a special birthday cake that you won’t believe when you see it, and a tasting dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in the area.

But I want to have some more fun with my birthday this year. And I want to break open the tradition of the “Facebook Happy Birthday.”

For that, I’m doing a giveaway!

That’s right, I’m giving something away on my birthday.

I actually think it’s a really nice thing to hear from people I don’t have constant contact with; I don’t find it annoying at all, except that there’s usually an alert for each one.

So if I’m going to get an alert every so often, let’s make it interesting. I want to reward creativity.

To be considered in the running for the prize, all you have to do is wish me a happy birthday in a unique and creative way. The person who comes up with my favorite birthday wishes based on a set of completely random and ambiguous criteria that will only be known to me will win something.

I haven’t decided what the prize will be yet, but I’ll say right now that it’ll depend on how good the wishes are.

So, stating the obvious, in order to be considered, we need to be facebook friends (I want to be friends with anyone who’s willing to read the blog anyway!). You get one shot at it, so please don’t keep trying.

I imagine this will start many fights, especially when people who may not even read the blog become eligible for an undisclosed prize. I love starting fights.

I’ll announce the winning birthday wishes and the prize next Monday, after all of the festivities have concluded and after all of the fights have been resolved.

Good luck! Lets have some fun with The Facebook Birthday!