Withering Glance: Latest Facebook craze creates snoozefest

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

RN: I suppose I could just check your Facebook page myself, but it's easier to ask you face to face. Have you jumped on this "25 Random Things About Me" phenom?

CP: I'm afraid not. After reading a couple of the neo-chain-letters, I'm mystified by their mega-popularity. For one thing, the compilations are way too long to make for good webby reading.

RN: I know. It seems self-indulgent, even for the me-me-me-ness of Facebook. I mean, I can't imagine that even my own mother would be interested in 25 tidbits about her favorite child. My guess is she'd call it quits out of sheer boredom at about No. 11.

CP: Not if half the items were about your blissful childhood and the enduring values that your dear long-suffering mother taught you.

RN: Careful, or Mom will start referring to you as Eddie Haskell. But work with me here, Claude, and share. Give me a random kernel. Or three. Go.

CP: Let's see. ... I've got bunions. I love Funyuns.

RN: Fascinating!

CP: Well, they're supposed to be little-known things, embarrassing secrets. And it never hurts if you get a rhyme scheme going. What about you?

RN: Fine, I'll play along, but I won't do it in iambic pentameter. I can't imagine life without Mint Milanos. I watch "As the World Turns" on YouTube. I collect postcards of Minnesota landmarks. I consider chain letters to be the work of the devil.

CP: I'm nodding off here. Those are not quirky revelations, but something you could safely "reveal" to your grandmother or to the guy who intros you on "Jeopardy." I'm looking for something less vanilla, like: "Shock therapy finally cured my chronic bed-wetting, but not until I was 17 years old."

RN: I've told you before, I was 15 1/2, and that's a very painful part of my teenager years, OK? Anyway, my point exactly. Here we are, chatting up my favorite subject -- me -- and even I'm bored senseless. And this is the Internet sensation that's sweeping the nation?

CP: Yes. I guess there are millions of notes and tags and winks and doo-hickeys about it at Facebook. Shall we agree to remain disdainful?

RN: Sure. Besides, given how trends fall in and out of favor with ever-increasing speed, I imagine "25 Random Things About Me" will be over and out by the time we wrap up this conversation.

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com