Marla tries not to be skim milk, though she's often cheese.

Here's the thing about Facebook:

It's all about the status updates. Much like in life.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, or for those of you who haven't registered on it yet despite the loud, often belligerent efforts of your nearest and dearest to peer-pressure you into posting a profile onto yet-one-more social networking site, Facebook is, essentially, electronic ice cream. Hear me out:

There's a hierarchy, if you will, of social networking sites, which I liken to dairy products:

TIER 3: Friendster
Skim milk
Friendster is functional enough: It covers the basics of where you work, what kind of music you like, what your relationship status is, when your birthday is, those kinds of things. But then, after its initial use, it gets boring, and then it begins to curdle, because it doesn't take long to realize that the sunny packaging is shrouding a bland product that ultimately is laden with seemingly good features that turn out to be bad features. For example, you can make the choice to see who has viewed your profile, but you can only enable that function if you're willing to let others see if you've viewed their profiles. It's horrible for stealthily searching for exes. As users get older and more lactose-intolerant, they inevitably move on from Friendster, which ceases to hold interest as well as sit comfortably in the stomach. I had an ex-of-sorts who said, once he saw that I drank skim milk, "Your milk is grey! Milk isn't supposed to be grey!" Friendster is grey milk: pretty harmless and serves its purpose, but there are better options out there. (Incidentally, that ex was on Friendster, but I wouldn't look at his profile because I didn't want to have to change all my settings to remain hidden. Annoying. Luckily, he's heavily Google-able, and the stuff I found on Google is far more hilarious than anything I'd find in his Friendster profile. If you're going to succumb to Friendster, trade it in for Google, which is far more entertaining and informative.) For the record, I no longer drink skim milk; I drink freakin' rice milk because I can't handle milk at all — not even soy milk. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

TIER 2: MySpace
Brie cheese
MySpace is a crowd-pleasing snack that appears exotic but has become mainstream. It's still tasty though rather busy (what does one do with the extra rind of excessive design?). I confess I've never used MySpace, though many of my coworkers have been forced to dive into it because so many celebrities and bands have pages. It's a good source for music, and as such, it's a nice addition to the party watercooler — a cheese-and-cracker tray of sorts. Even so, it makes my friends feel old, and they yearn for something more substantial to whet their palates.

TIER 1: Facebook
Ice cream
The perfect all-weather snack that never gets boring even when it's been sitting out for a little while, and the more chunks and sprinkles you add to it, the more enjoyable it is. Delicious and refreshing!

Never mind that it's easy to use — it's easy to upload photos, it's easy to add friends (though a bit complicated to search for them), it's easy to read, it's easy to edit your information, it's easy to e-mail people. Never mind that there are lots of fun applications to add to your profile — More Cowbell! maps of the world so you can click on the places you've been! Scrabulous or however you spell it! — and that it's also easy to ignore all the applications people send to you so you don't clutter your profile. Never mind all of that.

It's the status updates.

Facebook has a widget, appearing right after your name, that allows you to say, well, pretty much everything. For the longest time, there was an automatic is, so you'd add your state of being. Marla is regretting her shoes. They've since dismantled the is, and now you can do anything as far as verbs are concerned. And when you want to change it, you just click on your current status, a cursor appears, and you change it. And many of us, especially my friends at work, change it over and over again all day long — though I haven't changed mine since the Oscars, so it still says Marla would like for Renée Zellweger to eat a small country, please.

The status function is the entire purpose for the existence of social networking sites, and Facebook is the first one to just call it like it is: You want people to know how you are, so just tell them.

We go onto these sites because, yes, we want to reconnect with people. We want to find the people who made us feel best during the times of our lives we remember the most fondly. We want to know how they are, we want to know that they're happy. But more than that, we want everyone to know how we are. That we're better than we were then. That we're more focused and educated and well traveled and experienced and better at being ourselves now than we were then and less of a loser than we were then. (But of course we are! That was then! If I'm the same now as I was when I was 16, jebus help us all.)

And a status change is immediate. So if your mood changes? If you come up with a better idea of who you are than you did five minutes ago? Fix it. Fix it and become more appealing than you seemed eight seconds ago. See? I just changed my status: Marla is much more appealing now than she was five minutes ago. If I had the ability to literally change my status, change my mood at whim, would high school have been completely different? Do I really feel more appealing now than I was five minutes ago? Probably not. I mean, look at my hair right now. Maybe I should change my status again: Marla has put her status into perspective.

Much like the Dairy Striations of the Internets, there seem to be three forms of status update:

1. The Status Status:
Bob is at home.
Bob is at work.
Bob is in Topeka.
Bob got a great deal on a cardigan at Fashion Bug.

2. The Sensory Status
Bob wonders if it's all worth it.
Bob is excited to see Clay Aiken tonight at Ethel's Beef 'n' Stuff.
Bob needs to rethink his life.
Bob worries about his dog's limp.

3. The Snark Status
Bob thinks Hillary Clinton's pantsuits are extremely fashionable.
Bob is admiring you from afar.
Bob is my rock and roll fantasy.
Bob would rather knead the dough than need the dough.

Guess which one I employ.

The one that I'm most afraid of, and am left most uncomfortable by, and am most aware of, is the Sensory Status. Because that's how people really feel. If someone is undergoing a complete life evaluation, it often shows up in their status updates. If someone is struggling, it's there. It's brave, as most venting devices are. It makes me wonder what they're going through, but I don't know that it's my place to ask. When it's clearly a response to adversity, it often reads as a cry for help, which is a bit too personal for my eyes, I think.

I love reading them. I love seeing how my friends feel. Lisa is always a godmother, never a god. Sometimes they're just hilarious, and they serve no other purpose than to just be funny or cheeky or testy. And often it's where these people let us know, briefly, that they're traveling or they're pregnant or they've bought a house or they're getting married or they got a new job. The things they post are the answers to the very first things people ask when they see each other, or when they run into mutual friends and ask how everyone they know is. The status updates answer, blatantly, what people want to know when they seek ... a status update.

Genius. No bullshit. No small talk. No niceties. Just tell me. Just let me tell you.

Blunt.

Marla thanks you for your bluntness.