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.