"HAHA this piece of shit social networking site!" I would say, to myself, in the comfort of my youth, mid-decade. "Why would anyone ever want to be on a site that constantly changes its privacy policy and doesn't let you personalize anything and elevates the most mundane aspects of our lives to an undeserved height, cheapening our definition of social interaction as we fall prey to the lie that every dumb thing we do is worthy of being broadcast to every person we have ever been in contact with in our entire lives?"
Well, I WAS WRONG. There's being a little bit wrong, and then there's being the level of wrong I was about Facebook. I was so wrong. I was so motherfucking wrong that I don't even have the words to tell you how motherfucking wrong I was about Facebook. 'Cause look at it! It's motherfucking Facebook now!
And I'm still trash-talking that bitch, because I don't even care. Here, look at this picture my friend Melissa Photoshopped for me for my birthday:
So today I introduce my newest segment, HATIN' ON ZUCK, in which I will either say something derogatory about the current state of Facebook, or I will post something hilariously old and dated that I wrote years ago about Facebook on MySpace. Today, I give you the latter (and bonus points to my youthful counterpart for working Aaron Carter in her rant).
From June 27, 2007...
I feel there is an issue that needs addressing, and that is the issue of Facebook. Facebook is lame, people. LAME. Do you know how many times I've heard/read people say, "MySpace is old news; Facebook is where it's at." Okay, in those exact words, I've probably never heard/read that, but the sentiment is everywhere! People can't stop talking about if Facebook is the new MySpace and all this and let me tell you the answer to that: NO. First of all Facebook has been around FOREVER. Since February of 2004, to be exact. MySpace started just a few months earlier in November of 2003 (according to Wikipedia, so no doubt both dates are completely wrong...but bear with me). So why are people just now hearing about Facebook? Because it is STUPID and was nothing more than a glorified e-mailing service until a couple months ago when you could start reviewing movies over there. And who has time for that when you could be making MySpace profiles for fake Presidential candidates?! Other reasons why Facebook sucks:
1. You cannot stalk people on Facebook who are not your friends or in your "network." The privacy settings are stupidly restrictive and you can't see much of anything unless you're logged in. It's pretty much the worst thing ever.
2. You can't really customize your profile. Everyone's page has the same androgynous, sterile look, with only the wittiness of your words to help you stand out. But no one's going to be cruising your profile anyway because of the privacy settings, so what's the point? As of very, very recently, you can add random add-ons (like the movie application) but there isn't a lot to choose from and 95% of the stuff is so worthless that you have to immediately uninstall it. You heard me, "uninstall." Because you can't touch any of the html code yourself.
3. Um, I think those two reasons are enough.
I have a Facebook profile and I use it a lot. However, I use it as it is intended: a nice middle ground between e-mail and MySpace. It's somewhat private and somewhat useless. No one ever says, "Man, check out my Facebook profile!" Or if they do, they are NERDS. Facebook is fine, but to say it's the next MySpace is like saying that Aaron Carter is the next Justin Timberlake - or possibly some other analogy that works better than that one. Don't embarrass yourself by making statements about the superiority of Facebook.
***
Facebook is fine, but to say it's the next MySpace is like saying that Aaron Carter is the next Justin Timberlake. There should probably be a list made at some point of all of the bombastically inaccurate things that I have written on the internet since 2006, and that sentence should go somewhere near the top...
Damn Facebook.
For the sake of posterity: Current comments on this post = 0. Current comments on the post about this post on Facebook = 8. Number of those comments that are about the post itself = 0.
ReplyDeleteNot to go all meta on everyone, but this is totally fodder for another anti-Facebook blog. :D
OMFG, woman. This is good shit. I said I was going to go back & read your whole myspace blog from the beginning, but of course RL has gotten in my way & I have yet to do it. Some day, I will dammit.
ReplyDeleteThat photoshop pic is fucking funny. haha... Go get 'em, PG. Zuck sucks. How's that?
I have to say that I have had lots of days where I blasted FB because of it's stupid limitations & lameness. I still use it too, but sometimes I feel like just deleting the damn thing. I at least could do something that was my own thing with myspace. Still can. But most of my damn friends & fam are on stupid FB & never even had a myspace profile. Go figure. I guess Zuckerberg wins in the end. Of course, we could always organize a boycott of FB & show him he can't win. But we know that'll never happen, we would just be booted off while all our friends & fam stay on. OK, ranted enough for now, thanks for the great post, made me feel better.
I think though that Myspace has shot itself in the foot. I went over there the other day and it was soooo damn confusing. I was clicking links and nothing was happening so i gave up. And now that you are posting over here i doubt ill really go back... FB won in the end.
ReplyDeleteI love that you arnt afraid to admit that you were way off the mark. FB would have to be one of the biggest things ever to hit the internet...
But, to be honest... i do think we should be able to make our profiles prettier. I mean even hotmail has backgrounds now!
MySpace did shoot itself in the foot. There was a time when it was the undisputed king, but it wasn't managed well *at all* and I think Facebook won more by default than anything else. That's another thing that kills me about Zuckerberg...everyone acts like he's such a genius, but the best thing he had going for him was luck. There was nothing superior (or even original) about his product, he just had good timing and rode the wave all the way in.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, I figure if I was bold enough to make such statements back in the day, then I can be bold enough to mock myself for them now (better me than someone else!). Actually I can't think of many things in life I've been *more* wrong about than Facebook!!
And Vanessa, you're so right! No one ever leaves FB and so even when those of us who don't love it feel like backing away, we're trapped by it!! It's sort of like Windows. I'm not a fan, but it's not like you can function in this world and *not* know how to work a PC...
A Facebook employee is actually speaking at the weekly math seminar at TX state today. The husband asked me if he should bring rotten fruit ; )
ReplyDeleteHA!! In a way, I wish you could see the conversation that arose when I posted a link to this entry on Facebook, although all it would do is reinforce all the downsides that you and I have discussed to no end (and make the rotten fruit idea seem even better!). I left two comments on Facebook the day before, and for some reason they had both vanished by the next day. So I wrote that Mark must have known I was going to start this segment today and that's why my comments disappeared. And EVERY SINGLE RESPONSE was about my comments being deleted and not this entry, which my stats page suggests essentially no one clicked over to. I wound up with 13 comments and 3 "likes," but no one read the damn entry that was the entire point of me posting to begin with. Oh, Facebook...
ReplyDeleteSo, maybe I should be glad I never joined?
ReplyDeleteCause, seriously, most days I do feel like a bit of an outcast for not having a clue what this whole Facebook thing entails...