Like most parents, I want only what’s best for my daughter. As such, since my daughter has been born into an exciting new world of dynamic online social media, it has been imperative for me to introduce her to as much social marketing as is possible right off the bat. Sure, most parents would probably wait until their children had fingers big enough to operate a keyboard, let alone the cognitive mental functions required for engaging in online conversation, but I figure why wait. Besides, based on most of what I’ve seen on the Internet, cognitive mental functions are mostly overrated.

So here’s how the experiment’s been going, broken down by each site.

Twitter – For those of you unaware of what a Twitter is, it happens to be the new online trend from last year that middle-aged Americans have just latched onto now in a desperate bid for relevancy. It’s also a micro-blogging site. So basically it’s what I do here, except limited to only 140 characters. So go back to where this post started and stop reading after the word “social.” I’ll wait.

That’s Twitter!

I myself have been Twittering for roughly two months, and only have about 40 followers so far, which averages out to about two followers a day. But let’s face facts, I only have so much time left before I either succumb to the swine flu or my fingers get too arthritic to handle the physical strain of tweeting. Not so with my daughter, who as a newborn still has a good seventy to eighty years to amass followers. At the same rate that I’m currently maintaining, my daughter can have up to 14,600 followers by the time she’s eighty, which would, I believe, make her the most popular person of all time. Bearing that in mind, I shoved my cell phone into my daughter’s waiting hands the minute she first emerged from the womb. After the doctors finished yelling at me, here’s a transcript of her first tweets of life.

ErikHagensKid What just happened?
1:35PM March 11th from TwitterFon

ErikHagensKid Where am I? Why is it so cold? I can feel it in my lungs! I hate it so much!
1:36PM March 11th from TwitterFon

ErikHagensKid Wait a minute. What are my lungs? GYAAAAAA!
1:37PM March 11th from TwitterFon

ErikHagensKid No one here understands my existential crisis. I’ve seen things no one can possibly understand. I scream and scream and no one hears me. Why is this happening?
1:39PM March 11th from TwitterFon

ErikHagensKid Mmm. Milk!
1:45PM March 11th from TwitterFon

There’s more, but she kind of only did it for a few days and then came to a sudden realization that the whole thing was kinda narcissistic and a complete waste of time. Smart kid.

Facebook – Facebook is like Twitter except with a lot of online quizzes and games of Scrabble tacked on top of the narcissism and wasting of time. But again, this is the first chance I have right off the bat to make my kid popular as soon as possible, so I added her the day after she was born.

Wikipedia – In the immortal words of Michael Scott, “Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the best possible information.” Here’s my entry for my daughter that I submitted.

Izabel Anne Hagen (born March 11, 2009) is history’s most adorable infant [citation needed] and the future first female President of the United States [citation extremely needed]. She was born to famous Internet blogger Erik Hagen and his wife in 2009. Following that, she (to be filled in later -ed.)

Wikipedia hasn’t gotten back to me as to when my article will be published. I assume they’re busy.

LinkedIn – LinkedIn is kind of like Facebook for business professionals, meaning it’s Facebook with buzzwords and “corporate synergy.” So far, my daughter has LinkedIn contacts with me, a copy editor at the Sheboygan Press newspaper, a temp secretary in Delaware, what appears to be a squirrel wearing a necktie, and a Nigerian prince attempting to move his vast financial assets into America banks as soon as possible. I’m getting a good feeling about that last guy.

Livejournal – It’s my personal opinion that all Internet fads are cyclical, so Livejournal is bound for a comeback any day now. I’m also looking into Friendster, ICQ, Napster and Geocities. Hey, or HamsterDance! Anyone else remember HampsterDance?

So there’s my progress to this point, and my kid is no more popular on the web than I am. But like the delusional, slightly misguided galoot that I am, I’m gonna keep on plugging away at this for however long it takes. It’s a big new world of social networking out there, and it’s way past time that my newborn daughter became a part of it. Meet your new best friend, Internet! My sire!

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