Another Birthday, Another Batch of Birthday Spam

It’s that time of year again. The big old 3 0, or however old I am. And the first where I’ve really felt the power of social networks. Not in a good sense, though. Sure, it’s been nice to get some greetings from ‘loose ties’ in my online world who spotted, in one social network or another, that today is my birthday. Thanks, Graham and co. Really.

But all the other stuff? From websites I signed up for and, in a moment of madness, entered my real birthday (tho usually, the wrong year: 1900. That should mess up their stats.) There’s something rather sad about finding yourself getting more email greetings from services you’ve signed up for than from real people. How pathetic is that?

And not just for my own miserable existence. How is it that companies think that folk like me either a) enjoy being wished a happy birthday by some automated computer script, or b) are ready to believe that employees at the company involved sat around and thought “Oo! It’s Jeremy’s birthday today! We should send him something!” Either way I come across as pretty stupid.

Which I’m not necessarily disagreeing with. Hey, I’d rather get birthday spam than nothing at all. And when you get to my age either your friends have long given up on you or think you’re too old to get real birthday cards with little badges stuck on them you can wear. Message to friends and Auntie Mildred: You’re never too old to get cards with badges on. Never.

Of course, social networks aren’t all bad. At least with services like Facebook you can send birthday greetings and be reasonably sure they actually arrive. Which is more than you can say for those e-cards. Those silly email services where you choose the least lame ‘card’ from a very lame selection and whisk it off, feeling you’ve done the best you can for your buddy/spouse/mother. Awful. Thankfully, no-one sends those anymore, knowing that either they’re so lame they were losing friends/spouses/mothers or that most of them wouldn’t get through spam filters.

Anyway, we should be smarter than this by now. I’d love to see social networking tools used better to celebrate birthdays. We all know we don’t actually remember people’s birthdays; we remember to put them into some diary or calendar so it reminds us. Preferably before the day itself. Technology has just made that more efficient. But it’s lame to then just turn what is supposed to be a very personal experience into a generic one by automating birthday greetings. Who (besides me) wants one of those?

Social networking tools should offer users the chance to opt out of receiving birthday greetings, or to receive them only from insanely attractive members of the desired gender, or automate a quick whipround so the birthday person gets a free year’s subscription or a real g-string or something. I don’t want to sound venal, but whoever enjoyed a birthday made up of only greetings cards or their online equivalent? Where, in short, is the loot?

Why can’t, for example, a mall recognize someone with a birthday has entered the building and offer them freebies and piped ‘happy birthday’ music through the tannoy system? Or car-parks offer free parking? Or banks extra credit? If these companies were sincere about wishing us a happy birthday, shouldn’t they put their money where their mouths are?

And, finally, a thought. Why, if I registered my year of birth as 1900 for these services, aren’t the companies either awarding me ‘oldest living customer’ badges, or sending someone round on my birthday to check I’m ok/still alive, or something? If they really cared, wouldn’t they make more of a fuss of their 107 year old customer?