From Rodger’s Desk – The Birthday-Industrial Complex

Rodger Morrow

Editor & Publisher, Beaver County Business

My birthday was August 27—which once would have been a private matter involving my parents, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and a cake. Then Facebook got involved.

Facebook has done what Hallmark, florists, bakers, and attentive aunts could never accomplish: It has turned the birthday into a public works project. Every morning, it informs us that six people we have not spoken to since the first Bush administration have survived another year.

We are expected to type “Happy birthday!” beneath their names, preferably accompanied by a balloon, a cake, or an animated creature bouncing with an enthusiasm rarely seen outside pharmaceutical advertising.

This is now called friendship.

In the old days, remembering someone’s birthday required remembering it. That was the point. If a friend remembered, you were touched. If your husband remembered, you were astonished. If your insurance agent remembered, you checked the fine print.

Facebook has eliminated this uncertainty. Birthdays now arrive with the efficiency of municipal tax bills.

The result is the birthday-industrial complex, a vast enterprise devoted to birthday wishes, birthday photographs, birthday fundraisers, birthday memories, and, finally, the birthday proclamation thanking everyone who participated.

Yes, I issued one on Friday.

There comes a point—usually after the 87th greeting—when a man realizes he cannot possibly answer everybody without abandoning his family, his career, and most forms of personal hygiene. He therefore releases an official statement:

“Thank you to everyone who took time from your busy day to wish me a happy birthday. I am truly blessed.”

This is gracious, but it also sounds like something issued by the Vatican after a successful papal tour of Latin America.

Facebook has even persuaded us to raise money on our birthdays. Merely surviving another year is no longer enough. We must also cure lymphoma, rescue Labradors, preserve wetlands, or buy trombones for disadvantaged middle-school children.

This may be charity. It may also be evidence that Facebook, having collected our friendships, political opinions, vacation photographs, and interest in orthopedic footwear, is coming for the cake money.

I have several theories.

The first is that Facebook discovered birthdays keep people on the site during those brief periods when there is no election to ruin Thanksgiving.

The second is that Mark Zuckerberg owns stock in a balloon company.

The third, and most likely, is that the system was invented by people who never had proper childhood birthday parties and have decided nobody else should escape without paperwork.

I had proper birthday parties. They involved Waite’s Ice Cream in Patterson Heights, a name that still causes Beaver Countians of a certain age to gaze into the middle distance as though recalling a lost republic.

Waite’s did not have an app, a rewards program, or a privacy policy. It had ice cream. This was considered sufficient technology.

There were homemade cakes with butter icing, including one shaped like a baseball diamond. It had green icing for the outfield, brown base paths, and little ballplayers positioned in ways suggesting the decorator understood baseball only slightly better than I did.

Nobody photographed the cake from nine angles. Nobody waited while the candles were adjusted for social media. Nobody complained that the butter icing lacked brand consistency. The cake existed for perhaps fifteen minutes, which is the natural life expectancy of cake in a room full of children.

Presents were modest. You opened them in front of the giver, which encouraged gratitude and discouraged later resale. If you received socks, you thanked Aunt Martha. If you received a baseball glove, you loved Aunt Martha. Either way, Aunt Martha got a handwritten note.

Now Facebook sends the reminder, supplies the cake emoji, recommends a charity, displays photographs from birthdays you had hoped were destroyed, and prompts you to thank everybody afterward. It is less a social network than an exceptionally meddlesome relative with access to your files.

Still, Facebook birthdays have their civilized side. For one day, people pause between rumors, political arguments, and “Does anyone know a good plumber?” inquiries to say something kind. Most of them mean it. Even those who write only “HBD” have surrendered three letters they might otherwise have used to call someone a fascist.

So I was genuinely grateful for Thursday’s greetings. I was touched that so many people took a moment to remember a birthday Facebook had remembered for them.

I thanked everyone by proclamation, as protocol requires. Rumors, plumbing inquiries, and political hostilities may now resume as scheduled.

But I am keeping an eye on the balloons.