I have noticed something in recent years with the rise of Facebook I would like to call “Facebook Outing” and I want to talk about it a bit. Let us create a definition of the act for the purpose of having a baseline from which to build our discussion.

Facebook Outing – Verb; The act of posting on a friend’s wall in a way that makes public a detail about said friend’s life that they have not actually publicized yet.

For instance –

“Hey Roderick…loved that diamond ring i saw you buying at the jeweller’s the other day. Anything you want to tell us? :-)”

These posts are almost invariably ended with happy faces sort of in the way needles at the doctor are ended with lollipops; Helps to take away the sting.

There are loads of other examples…”Hey Mary – I hear there’s a bun in the oven! Congrats!!! :-)” or “John – sucks that the cops pulled you over last night…hope the ticket wasn’t too big. :-(” (notice the sad face variation on the happy face…communicates sympathy).

The whole thing is akin to walking into a crowded room or a party and shouting to a friend on the otherside something like ‘Hey – I see you have purchased a new car…I noticed it in your driveway last night while I happened to be wandering by – how do you like it? :-)”

I admit to being puzzled by the whole outing act and find it intriguing from an anthropological point of view. There is a little bit of “I saw it first” action combined with something like gossip given the nature of the medium and the fact that one could just as easily message, email, call or otherwise communicate directly to the individual in question. The fact that one doesn’t suggests the importance of ensuring lots of eyes notice said post and said poster.

I suppose from an etiquette (or netiquette) perspective I find the act rather rude and somewhat presumptuous. It has never happened to me (not yet but now I expect some humorous ones to start cropping up) but I have noticed it enough to wonder about it.

Have you ever been “Facebook outed”? If so post a comment and let me know how it felt and if I am off base here.