In this modern age, we have a ton of ways to wish people a happy birthday. Some of them are essentially meaningless. Let’s list them out from most meaningful to least meaningful.
- Flying in from out of town to see you in person
- Engineering some elaborate, personalized birthday gift (e.g., wrote and recorded a song about you)
- Meeting you in person (not from out of town)
- Sending you a birthday card via snail mail that arrives on or before your birthday
- Calling you from a landline, when they probably should working
- Calling you from a cell phone as they walk from the office to the car
- Sending you a card that arrives after your birthday
- Sending you a card in an overnight package that arrives after your birthday
- Texting you
- Emailing you
- Sending you a personal Facebook message
- Emailing you a greeting card that is either relevant to your life or has a personal message
- Sending you a generic eCard that is all flash, seems to never end, and is signed with “Love, Me”
- Sending a birthday tweet to all of their followers by not putting your name first
- Starting a birthday tweet with your name in front, so only your common followers can see it
- Telling a friend to wish you happy birthday when they see you at your party
- Posting on your wall on Facebook
- Doing nothing
- Posting a “cryptic” message on their Facebook wall saying “I guess I missed her birthday”
- Checking in on Foursquare at the movie theater on the night of your birthday with the shout-out, “Sorry I’m missing so-and-so’s birthday but Saw 3D is out!!”
I could probably go lower, but it’s late and the thought that there is a lower is depressing.
11/02/10 11:01 AM
A 140 character text beats an email? Pshaw.
Question: Where on the hierarchy does this fall: Getting an email from a colleague saying "Happy Birthday Richard!" when your name is Robert?
11/02/10 11:04 AM
Yeah, I'd be willing to flip texting and emailing. As for calling you the wrong name, I'd put that just below doing nothing.
11/02/10 11:11 AM
PS. Is it your birthday? If so, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
(messages on one's blog comment board responding to a birthday post is probably in and around the Facebook comment level)
11/03/10 7:32 PM
Sadly, twice I've spent a couple weeks writing and recording a fun personal birthday song for people who treated the gesture as if I were too cheap to get them a real gift! Should have learned the first time. :)
04/06/12 11:06 AM
Came here looking to see where "faving others' happy birthday tweets without writing your own" falls in the hierarchy.