What’s Actually Facebook? No, Really…
Ah yes…this is familiar. Here I am at my desk, catching up on the new Facebook update, trying to figure out how to restore my privacy, and I am completely lost. In my efforts to conceal from my grandmother that I hate Andy Rooney, I have now become Andy Rooney. I am at my desk, I am talking to you and I am crotchety. Let me tell you about the “old days” (aka 2004).
FACEBOOK AT HAHVAHD
I was hanging out with someone I knew from high school in my freshman year of college. Said student was attending Harvard but grew up nearby and was on spring break. We were screwing around on the Internet when she said the fatal words: “Hey check out this thing, Facebook.” I don’t remember if she typed in “thefacebook” (what it used to be called) or “facebook.” It was a simple site where you could put up pictures of yourself and your interests, and it was limited to Harvard students.
As Wikipedia shows, it was a hothouse of drunk pictures from the very beginning. It was basically an online yearbook and I said so. You would think the obnoxiousness of a high school yearbook would’ve made people reluctant to use such a thing, but no. My reaction was “well, that’s cool,” and I didn’t think about it anymore after that. Whatever, Harvard.
IT’S ALIVE
Well, soon Harvard opened its Facebook up to select other colleges. Thus began its offensive period, when students would wonder why their school wasn’t on Facebook. Were they not elite enough? Were they spending $30000 a year on nothing? How can one possibly get an education when they are not spending 6 hours a day on Facebook? The mind reels.
Eventually my school was welcomed into the Facebook network and it took off. It was exhausting. “Are you on Facebook?” was the question of the hour. I held out for a while but then signed up.
And it was fine. It was really easy to use, and the whole point was to write nice/horrible comments on each other’s Walls and stalk the person in your Lit class who you thought was cute. Of course it had that aspect that plagues Facebook users to this day – would you or would you not be accepted by someone as their friend on Facebook? Fingers trembled as people stared at the “Friend Request” button. This was the anxiety of Facebook, made all the worse by the fact that your world of friend requests existed in a real space, with real people that you had to spend at least the next 1-4 years with. However, at least you didn’t have to spend your entire life with them…
OH MY GOD MY MOM’S ON FACEBOOK
Suddenly (in 2006), a new phase of Facebook began – anyone could log into the service. This was the Apocalypse. Disaster struck. Fire started. Buildings collapsed. All this happened as a result of my running to log into Facebook and change my settings so my mother, my 14 year old cousin, and my boss could not see what I was doing on Facebook. I am a decent person, but the conversations you have with friends are not the same as the ones you have with the office accountant at the water cooler. We all know this!
This was the beginning also of Facebook’s (nearly incessant) privacy updates and new feature rollouts. They confused me then, and they confuse me now. They’re so confusing I don’t really know what to say about them.
WHEN I LOST THE PLOT
So, let me be honest – I have no idea what Facebook even is now. What is Mafia Wars, and what is a Farmville? This stuff to me is just crazy. I thought the fun of Facebook was randomly joining and making up ridiculous Group names (among my favorites – “Why Does No One Respect Jimmy Buffet’s Literary Works?”). I have no idea where to even find these games to become addicted to them. How does Facebook get more traffic than Google? Really?
I shouldn’t be ungrateful though. I have had fun on Facebook. I have cried tears of laughter reading wall posts, I have tagged photos of my friends only to receive a phone call to take the picture down, and there is actually an entire group dedicated to finding where my last name came from, so that is good to know. And the site “Lamebook” is hilarious – a compendium of the staggeringly ridiculous things people say on Facebook.
Now, all of this must have a moral. And the moral is – do not be afraid. Privacy doesn’t exist anymore, and we should be okay with that. For some, shades of Dr. Strangelove, I know. But as Momus sings in his prescient song the “Age of Information,” “Somebody is prying through your files, probably/Somebody’s hand is in your tin of Netscape magic cookies/But relax: if you’re an interesting person/Morally good in your acts/You have nothing to fear from facts.”
And he’s right. In a better, more honest world, no one would worry about who can or cannot see them on Facebook and who is reading their updates. We would be more lenient to people’s crazy behavior and people would not get fired because they were holding a beer. Facebook could actually improve the world! I’m not sure I want various corporations possessing my personal information, but, Lord, that is another story.
In the spirit of Andy Rooney though, I must say I prefer Twitter. I can just scream into the universe. So simple.
Robyn Schelenz is a writer and blogger for home drug test company Home Health Testing. She is probably still trying to figure out that Facebook update.
This a really interesting post. My particular favourite bit is this quote “I thought the fun of Facebook was randomly joining and making up ridiculous Group names”. Keep up the good work. Will be back for a read later in the week.
Cheers
Matt