It's only as genuine or fake as you make it be. I'm sure you don't keep in touch with 100% of the people who made positive contributions to your life. You can take this as a less-awkward opportunity to wish them well, and maybe get back in touch if you feel like it, instead of living life as if their existence doesn't matter to you. Or you could not... you could do something else, or you could do nothing if you don't want to do anything with people you don't regularly keep in touch with. It's up to you how real it is and what it means; that you can only think of false narratives for it doesn't mean it is or needs to be that way.

I'll agree that the simple "Happy Birthday" messages people post on facebook are trite, but rather frequently I'm reminded that it's someone's birthday via facebook and then text or call the person.

I'm not the OP, but yes, I have a calendar with people's birthdays in it. Every computer since the 1980's comes with a calendar program, and now they sync to your mobile phone, so there's no need to pass responsibility for that sort of thing to Facebook.

I also send (gasp) paper birthday and Christmas cards to the people who mean a lot to me. And from what they tell me, getting a real card in the mail means a million times more to them, since they know I took time out of my life to think of them and didn't just click a button and move on.

Me too, it's called Facebook.

> I also send (gasp) paper birthday and Christmas cards to the people who mean a lot to me.

Same but for those people who haven't shared their addresses , a Facebook post and/or message suffices.

Nor have I ever asked anyone that sent me a happy birthday text or call how they knew.

What matters is what you do once it's someone's birthday, not how you found out or keep track.

To me this is markedly different than your scenario where Bob nags Alice until she relents and wishes me happy birthday.

Your gcal says "Wish your friends a happy birthday!" above a box it pops up for you to do so?

The difference is that you consciously choose whose birthdays you enter into your calendar. Facebook just assumes anyone you know is close enough.

I surely do. It's not a problem to memorize a few numbers related to the people significant to me enough to send them a birthday message.

The Dunbar numbers go around 3-5, 9-15, 30-45 [0], so even "the 2nd tier" relationships' birthdays are not really that hard to remember

[0] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2004...

Having 100s of relationships isn't real, nobody can actually maintain that many. Trim it down to people you care about and suddenly everything gets better.

The reminder can still be useful though. Once in a while I'll see a reminder for a birthday of someone I would genuinely like to reach out to, and I'll call or text or email them. I still have calendar reminders for birthdays from before all of this when I was meticulously curating my own contact list with birthdays, but Facebook's birthday list is more complete than my old calendar, especially for my younger friends / relatives.

People used to keep this information in their personal planners. How is this different?

Caring enough about that person to write it in a personal planner, and then doing something when you see that reminder is 'the thought that counts'.

LinkedIn is the online version of a collection of business cards. Sending a birthday card is a typical business development practice that is difficult, in my opinion, to take seriously or take much offense from.