Did we, or did we not hook up, Facebook style?

October 4, 2007 8:09 AM

What does "hook up" mean on Facebook?

In the context of the world of Facebook, is it appropriate for someone with whom I've had no sexual relationship to claim that they've "hooked up" with me?

Get off of my lawn, whippersnappers!

posted by syzygy to society & culture (31 comments total)

To the best of my knowledge, it means had a sexual encounter with. But sometimes people put "how I know you" as a joke.
posted by k8t at 8:12 AM on October 4, 2007

I've always assumed that "hook up" means "had sex," with possible implication of a one-time thing.

People aren't entirely serious on Facebook. It may have been accidental, or it may have been someone kidding around. (Or maybe they didn't realize what "hook up" means? Sometimes you'll run into an old friend and say, "We should hook up sometime," meaning something decidedly different than modern slang.)
posted by fogster at 8:12 AM on October 4, 2007

Take anything on facebook with a grain of very small salt. A number of people find entertainment at adding friendship descriptions which are far from true.
posted by jmd82 at 8:17 AM on October 4, 2007

If that weren't enough, you have to deal with local meanings, too. Apparently in the U.K. if you say you dated someone it means you had sex with them. I think even that meaning is dependent on social strata.
posted by Rich Smorgasbord at 8:17 AM on October 4, 2007

verb: to engage in any type of sexual activity.
noun: purposely ambiguous, equivocal word to describe almost any sexual action. usually used to exaggerate or minimize what exactly happened. a hook-up can range from a make-out session to full out sex.

If it's your boss or your mother jokingly suggesting that you "hooked up", probably inappropriate. Otherwise probably OK, and broadly understood as a joke in its context on Facebook.
posted by roofus at 8:20 AM on October 4, 2007

I would interpret "hooked up" as meaning "casual relationship" in this context, especially because it's between "met randomly" and "we dated" in the list of choices. It's not a girlfriend/boyfriend, but not someone you just talked to at a coffee shop, either.

Give the other person the benefit of the doubt, though - perhaps they didn't mean to imply this meaning. I'd message them and say something like "Haha, I saw you said we hooked up. Very funny. I changed it to [how we really know each other]."
posted by desjardins at 8:20 AM on October 4, 2007

I have always wondered what it meant to 'poke' some on Facebook. As a result of my confusion, I have yet to poke anyone.
posted by xmutex at 8:23 AM on October 4, 2007

As anybody who has read the latest Tom Wolfe novel knows, these days Universities are full of pernicious professors and students who show their anti establishment leanings by daring to wear cotton trousers rather than sensible wool. Also apparently there is a lot of this 'hooking up' going on, where women sleep with men for the purpose of gratification.

That is to say, as far as I (and Tom Wolfe) know, 'hooking up' is sexual. If you haven't 'hooked up' with them, why they put that there is something for you and them to discuss Presumably while wearing daring cotton trousers.
posted by Comrade_robot at 8:23 AM on October 4, 2007 [3 favorites]

I've never heard of hook up as a sexual thing. I've always used, and heard it used, as meeting up. i.e. "Hey, I haven't seen you for ages. Lets hook up at the pub on Friday."
I'm guessing that it varies regionally in the same way as that the meaning of "pissed" differs in the UK vs. USA (I'm from the UK).
posted by jonesor at 8:25 AM on October 4, 2007

Your Friends are having a bit of a lark. That's all.

On Facebook, let's say you selected someone to designate as a Friend. Good. That done, they receive a Facebook message saying that (in this case) Syzygy wishes to be their Friend. They can Confirm or Reject. Additionally, they can select the option to assign details to this particular Friend-ship.

This opens a little modal box filled with checkboxes, each one corresponding to a kind of relationship. Worked with. Belonged to a group with. Went to school with. And so on. Of course, one of these checkboxes is to define the relationship romantically. Selecting that checkbox then offers more precise selectors like "Is married to" and "We dated" and ... there it is ... "We hooked up."

(Which implies just what you think it might.)

But what the phrase means in the real world has little to do with the impish joy that your (so-called?) Friends might have by selecting that irresistable "We hooked up" option. In other words, it is a joke. The nice thing about this is that the recipient of such details is always given the option to confirm any such details.

So basically, if you don't want to be listed as Hooked Up to someone with whom you've never hooked up, then just reject the detail request. Simple, eh?
posted by grabbingsand at 8:26 AM on October 4, 2007

It not only varies by region, but by generation. When I was in high school, my English teacher mentioned to us that he hooked up with an old friend last weekend, and everyone started cracking up. I mean, it's slang, so that's to be expected.

Anyway, I'm 99% sure Facebook intends the sexual definition, but with tongue planted firmly in cheek. The additional field "...and it was:" seems to support this -- e.g., "We hooked up and it was hot!"
posted by danb at 8:29 AM on October 4, 2007

The woman in question, let's call her "B", isn't a USian, so I figure that's the source of her confusion about the term. In addition, B's "hooked up" with almost all of her Facebook friends, and I don't think she's that kind of girl (not that there's anything wrong with that).

The main "issue" for me is that I've told my current girlfriend that I do not have a romantic past with B, and I'd like to avoid introducing any confusion into the matter.

grabbingsand: I already rejected it and switched it with "met through a friend".
posted by syzygy at 8:30 AM on October 4, 2007

hooked up in the UK has no sexual overtones, AFAIK
posted by criticalbill at 8:31 AM on October 4, 2007

Obviously, it's also at least somewhat generational; frequently where I work, during conference calls someone will say something like "tomorrowful, can you and Justin hook up after this?" and I do a double-take.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:43 AM on October 4, 2007

The "friend detail" stuff is stupid anyway. People who started using Facebook before it was added usually don't add friend details. Reject any you find unappealing.
posted by grouse at 8:48 AM on October 4, 2007

Where I'm from "hooked up" either means made out with, or had sex with, depending on context.
posted by lohmannn at 9:18 AM on October 4, 2007

FWIW, I'm listed as having "hooked up" with very, very nearly 100% of my facebook friends, including people whom I've never actually met in meatspace. My "...and it was:" fields also almost universally read, "mind-blowingly amazing." My friends often change or amend the detail befitting our friendship (e.g. "somewhat disappointing", "great, except for the donkey", etc).
posted by TheNewWazoo at 9:32 AM on October 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

I actually thought "hooked-up" here in the UK had a sexual connotation, so now I know it doesn't!
Useful to know.
posted by Wilder at 10:01 AM on October 4, 2007

If you want to play along but not look weird, you can set the year in which you 'hooked up' to something implausible (i.e. when you were 4 years old)
posted by 0xFCAF at 10:22 AM on October 4, 2007

I'm a 30-year-old from the US and I use "hook up" to mean either "make out/have sex with casually" or "get together with" (like Tomorrowful mentions). Context is all.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:25 AM on October 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

xmutex: I have always wondered what it meant to 'poke' some on Facebook. As a result of my confusion, I have yet to poke anyone.

It just lets them see your full profile for a week.
posted by loiseau at 10:55 AM on October 4, 2007

I think "hooking up" is an ambiguous term that can refer to anywhere from making out with someone to having casual sex with them - you don't necessarily want to admit to all of your girlfriends that you have sex with strangers all the time, so you just say you "hooked up." On the other hand, you can say "I hooked up with her" and that leaves it up to your friends to interpret how far you went.

But I don't think I would use it in a more casual sense. By now it's gone from "meet up" to this sexual or sex-related meaning.
posted by srah at 11:05 AM on October 4, 2007

I'm old enough that "hook up" just means finally getting together with someone, like, for coffee or whatever. It means more about the scheduling than the activities. And that "poke" means "fuck," so I have always felt repelled when I see the term on or in the context of Facebook.

It just lets them see your full profile for a week.

Oh, that's creeptastic. It's a word with historical sexual connotations AND it refers to a behavior in the app that has no meaningful connection with either the common or slang meaning. Why don't they use "flash" or something?

You crazy kids today. Definitely stay the hell off my lawn.
posted by caitlinb at 11:12 AM on October 4, 2007

caitlinb, you're upset that the word "poke" has inappropriate sexual connotations, and yet you're suggesting "flash" as a neutral alternative? Where are you from that "flash" means anything other than "pull open your 'dirty old man' trenchcoat and expose your nude body to other people?"
posted by decathecting at 1:56 PM on October 4, 2007

Yeah! like in Flash Gordon
posted by criticalbill at 2:19 PM on October 4, 2007

caitlinb: if you poke someone you're already friends with, it just gives them a notification - it translates well to poking someone with a finger for attention. But people do recognise the sexual connotations, which is why there are so many groups with names like 'Forget poking, let's just have sex already'.
posted by jacalata at 9:01 PM on October 4, 2007

Hair a little rumpled, clothes a little untucked.
posted by oaf at 4:58 AM on October 5, 2007

I used to view "hook up" as "catch up" or "meet up"...

only in recent years has it been "sexual encounter."
posted by drstein at 9:38 AM on October 5, 2007

In the urban Black vernacular, "to hook (someone) up" or to give or get "the hook up" refers to getting or providing something that is otherwise not readily available to the recipient, at least not at the normal cost, time, location, etc. It often involves things that have fallen off a truck, so to speak. For example, if someone whose cousin knows somebody who drives a delivery truck for Best Buy sold you a genuine whatever-the-hottest-new-techno-toy-is for less than half the price, you might refer to the transaction as having gotten "the hook up" or that someone "hooked me up". It would not necessarily be assumed that sexual activity was a part of the transaction.
posted by fuse theorem at 3:50 PM on October 5, 2007

if you care about how other people might interpret a humorously ambiguous statement, you can easily reject it. Otherwise, it's harmless fun among friends, which is what facebook is all about.

I swear, y'all old folks have no sense of humor :)
posted by Chris4d at 3:51 PM on October 5, 2007

Where are you from that "flash" means anything other than "pull open your 'dirty old man' trenchcoat and expose your nude body to other people?"

Where I am from, that is what it means. My point is that if they are going to be all saucy with their words, they might as well choose one that has a meaningful similarity to the behavior they mean to indicate (making one's profile visible to someone).

I have a sense of humor, for what it's worth. I just don't like Facebook very much.

Incidentally, "make something available to someone who might not have ready access to it" is a very accessible meaning of "hook up" to me, and I don't think of it as an ethnic usage. I don't know whether it's actually more mainstream or just reflects the ubiquity of the term from references on television to drug or stolen-merchandise connections, though.
posted by caitlinb at 5:40 PM on October 7, 2007