There are 1,000,000,000 reasons I dislike Facebook.
It’s a time suck.
It gets very negative.
It turns me very negative.
It makes me feel old.
It helped Russians hack the 2016 election.
On.
And on.
And on.
But here’s one reason I love Facebook—Bluecorn.
Yes, Bluecorn.
Tanyia Bluecorn Hall.
Back when I was a kid, my parents sent me to a teen travel camp sponsored by the nearby Jewish YMHA (Young Men’s Hebrew Association). Every day we’d visit, like, a theme park, a lake, a ballgame, a movie theater. Stuff like that. I attended for, oh, two or three years, and I was pretty much one of the children who blended into the crowd. Not hated, but not noticed.
Anyhow, the star of the camp was Tanyia—the prettiest, cutest, most-outgoing girl of girls. She had no idea who I was, but I loooooved Tanyia. I wanted to date her. I wanted to marry her. Hell, I just wanted to talk to her. But Tanyia was 10 million miles out of my league. Plus, she had a boyfriend who (of course) was the handsome, popular boy with the great hair. So, from afar, I watched, and longed, and dreamed of Tanyia.
The years passed. They always passed. I had no idea what became of Tanyia, but every now and then she entered my mind in the same way old black-and-white photographs occasionally cross our paths. Well, the other day I was DMing with a woman who also attended camp, and I said, “Any idea what became of Tanyia?”
It just so happened she was her Facebook friend.
“Take a look. Her name is Tanyia Bluecorn Hall.”
Um, what?
Indeed, the Tanyia of my dreams is Tanyia Bluecorn Hall. She lives in Oregon. She has kids. Her life seems as organic and leafy as someone with the name “Bluecorn.” I did a Google search and found this …
She also has a page with one of her songs—a little ditty called “Seed.” And here’s the thing: I love everything about this. I love it, I love it, I love it. The Tanyia of my boyhood crush dreams would have become a swimsuit model, or sit atop a car in a Ratt video. She would have strutted down a runway.
But this is so much better. She’s interesting and funky and helping us experience the alchemy of our humanity. Fuck, I don’t even know what that means—but it sounds fantastic.
Tanyia is no longer my crush.
But she was worth the expended energy.
