"Favorite" is a Verb?

To see what all the buzz is about, I recently joined a couple of 'social networking' sites, MySpaceBookFace and Twitcher, or something like that. I was amazed at the number of subscribers (I call them the SocNets), and the amount of first-hand, third-rate, second-by-second information they all feel driven to share.

You can instantly communicate with your friends, and let them know what you're doing, or wish you were doing, or are about to be doing, or just finished doing, or what you think they ought to be doing. Of course, the simple concept of "friends" isn't enough, so you can also share your intimate metabolic updates with communities, interest groups, corkboard watchers, wall-writers, flair-share gangs, communal fan societies, imaginary characters, dead people, etc.

The SocNets are, naturally, generating their own jargon, and re-generating it daily. So we now have new, ear-grinding argot like "Please friend me" and "I favorited her yesterday." Now, I understand that ours is an evolving language, and that change is inevitable, but I wrong this.

The interface offers a little box, and you're urged to type what you're doing at that exact moment in time. And I mean to tell you that these entries are of the "earth-shattering breaking news" category. I certainly will sleep better, knowing that TornJeans is "about to have some soup YUM" or that TeethSpackle is "almost home."

The little box, trying to be helpful, always prepends your pending update with your username and the word is (ex: Barry is...), so the SocNet need waste no time and can simply start typing their critical personal update.

But most SocNets are in such a hurry to keep their friends up-to-date on the current state of their endocrine system, they haven't figured out that the "is" can be replaced with a more accurate tense, or different verb, or none at all. So we end up reading updates like "Buckfuller Minster is now I'm really mad" and "RabidSocks is are you coming or not?"

The interface even tags each SocNet's update with a "last updated" bit - last updated 4 seconds ago, 2 hours ago, yesterday, last week, during the Pre-Cambrian, etc. That way, enterprising criminals can easily synchronize their home invasions, simply by calculating how long ago CuteSingleUnarmedBitsy "is going to bed now."

Here's a representative sample of 5 minutes with the SocNets:
* Lisa is going to sleep!
* Cagney is has to work today. :-0
* Shmel is working.
* Cagney is my emoticon just grew a moustache!!! :-(0
* PaulPot is having a cup of coffee!
* Neurosa is are you a fan of the Monkees!
* Merla is nite nite!
* NoMeasurableEEG likes this post.
* Lambskin is inhaling. (4 minutes ago)
* ShepherdFilth likes this post.
* Lambskin is exhaling. (1 minutes ago)
* Lambskin is unconscious!!!
* Perky is INVITES YOU TO BE AGAINST CANCER!
* MayoClinicNurse likes this post.
* Moira is pick up Little Al from soccer practice!!!
* ClamNeck is INVITES YOU TO BE AGAINST PERKY!
* Lorgnette is on a conference call!!
* Virgin Tanktop is thinking!
* Bebe is Go Tigers.
* Snordner is ROTFLMAO!
* NormanBates is murdering his mother!

Okay, I'm un-logging on now. If you need me again, fax my iPhone's twitter address at the facebook phone number listed on my gmail wall avatar's alternate screenshot. And leave a message at the sound of the picture.