Will Facebook ruin secondary school reunions
Facebook almost wiped out Emilee Schmur's high school reunion.
The San francisco bay area resident and 2001 graduate student of Aptos High was likely to go to her 10 year reunion this month. Instead, this got postponed due to small ticket sales (a cosmetics date is pending).
"I undoubtedly think (Facebook) made it a tautology," Schmur says. "I've had a couple classmates tell me they didn't invest in tickets to ours because they feel like they already know what most people are doing."
The ways outdated friends reconnect and stay in touch has changed dramatically in the past few years, thanks to social media sites. So will high school reunions go the way of postal mail and singing telegrams? Not necessarily. You can get two schools of thought. The first states Facebook has made reunions out of date, since it's now so easy to take care of old schoolmates and organize much less formal (and costly) get togethers.
However others say Facebook is usually a boon to the time honored convention. Facebook helps you find old friends and classmates, thus you want to see them. Also, quite a few high school reunions are better gone to now than when planners had to rely on phone flowers and word Oakley Holbrook Motogp of mouth.
Either way, highschool reunions aren't what they used to be.
"Facebook has made conversations at the school reunions a great deal easier, especially since by the point we attend, we are previously aware of most everything that other people are doing, who they are married so that you can, what their kids are like, and so on.," says Jeff Ziegler, a new Danville resident who this thirty days is attending the gathering of his 1986 Acalanes High School group from Lafayette. "We can network and chat rather than deal with tough small talk."Of course, the actual financial climate is having its unique impact. Tight budgets tend not to always allow for reunion seat tickets, not to mention travel expenses intended for alumni who moved out of the area. Factoring in that have real profit keep in touch at the click of your mouse can make a reunion a challenging sell.
Debbie Fitzgerald didn't have the posh of using Facebook to contact close friends when organizing her initial few class reunions. Now, the lady says, the site makes it easier to arrive at people but perhaps trickier to convince them to are available. "For our 25th, it was distinct. I believe the company we accustomed to help us on the 20th failed. I made a point in this messaging to encourage friends to truly attend it because I imagine meeting in person is 10 x more exciting than just connecting on Facebook.
"I literally felt I had to say that so people might consider attending versus just feeling satisfied with Facebook."
No interest
Kristi Yen gave up planning a 15 year get together for her 1995 class of Amador Valley High in Pleasanton. She tried using any reunion company but could not muster enough interest to meet up with the firm's minimum volume of attendees, meaning that she would pay for the difference.
"I wasn't prepared to come out of pocket for $1,500," she says. Oakleys Australia But she's not soured on web 2 . 0. "I think Facebook is a good method to at least get in touch with a mass amount of people," she says. "You can collect e mail addresses intended for future reunions."
Larry Webb, the regional manager of effective Reunions Inc., says a reunion business has taken winner of late, with membership within the National Association of Gathering Managers dwindling from Fortyfive to 15 in just two years.
"It's twofold," says Webb, who breaks down to of his San Jose home. "One, Facebook or myspace really started taking hold comparable time the economy started off taking a dump. We're carrying out less reunion business for the reason that committees are saying 'The economy is bad, so we'll do the planning.'"
The actual down-side
Webb says Facebook's biggest impact has been on 10 year reunions, since the majority of people in that age bracket currently have stayed in touch online. "Ten a long time ago, 10 year reunions were our biggest business. Now it's absolutely in the tank."
Is it doesn't older demographic, people investigating their 40 and 50 yr reunions, that are keeping reunion companies in business, says Webb, who estimates "probably 10 to Thirty percent of those people are on Facebook."
There are other Discount Oakleys Australia reasons reunion committees might not exactly like Facebook.
"A few years before, through Facebook, I rejoined with Cheap Polo Ralph Lauren Online almost everyone I've ever satisfied in my life," suggests Staci Garcia, a social media specialist along with vice president of public relations for a Florida media company. "My Thirty year reunion came up last year, and we all knew who has been going and were fairly excited about seeing everyone in the flesh. However, one drawback ended up being that no one wanted to pay the $200 plus for the hotel ball room event when we could only organize our own get together with the hotel bar."
Necessity for change
And that's exactly what a lot of people did, once the idea got out on Facebook. And the get together company running the event wasn't pleased, even though organizers at some point let everyone that did not shell out inside.
"I would imagine that (reunion companies) either need to transform their billing structure to include Facebook events and invitations or they are going to go out of business," Garcia said.
But while Zynga poses a challenge to the gathering business model, many say it tends to make the actual event a lot more pleasant.
"You may have actually built a few friendships via Facebook that you simply didn't have in high school,In Cheap Nike High Heels Wholesale says Concord resident Dude Romano, who graduated from De La Salle with Concord in 1983. "Plus, it takes the pressure off of wondering what you are going to talk about with people.Inch But he hopes social websites doesn't make Polo Ralph Lauren Usa actual meeting new people obsolete.
"Personally," he says, "I imagine it's kind of fun for you to hook up with people in person, notice who still looks excellent and who's a practice wreck.".
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