Facebook is a difficult planet for me. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one on the planet with these feelings. I just don’t know how to be comfortable there. I’m not sure who or what are friends when its seen as a place for sharing such intimate moments of life. Many people have ‘rules’ about who their ‘friends’ are often excluding work colleagues, and others have so many relatives that it works out as a great family reunion and continual catchup. Some people do Facebook really well,  throwing out a challenge to all of us to follow their lead.

I like to have the option of re-editing my words after I’ve sent them. Re-thinking and softening the blow of my words landing with a crash on the screen for all to see.  Although Facebook masters are refining the short snippet, I’m frustrated by the limitations and possible misinterpretation of so few words. But then what would I say anyway. So I poke around Facebook not quite knowing what to do in there.

I have a Facebook page for Curiousweaver which I sometimes use to push through this blog’s posts. Increasingly Facebook is getting into stats everywhere I look. I’m not really into stats despite their interesting and suspect revelations. BUT, I stumbled on the most lovely popularity graph combined with the people talking about me graph (yikes!). I also had a most popular week which I was totally ignorant of.

When weaving design is on your mind even your popularity or lack thereof can be promoted to a higher purpose. The graph design reminded me of a clasped weft design and provides very good strong lines to work with. To look at how I could use the graph, I copied it into Photoshop and used the polygonal lasso tool to create a colour block on individual layers for each graphed segment. There is a surprising amount of flexibility in how the shapes can be divided and coloured.

You can see here the rotated original Facebook popularity graph and how I divided the segments. This design is now on my loom. I rather like the meaning behind it all. Custom designed popularity scarves. Those unpopular or talked about dips in the graph actually make for a better design so you shouldn’t worry about not being talked about.  I may have discovered something delightful to do in Facebook at last.

Check out popularity graphs and design your own graph online.