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My hatred of the Facebookers
Submitted by Monira Begum on Tue, 12/02/2008 - 5:52pm.
Monira Begum
Facebook! Facebook! Facebook! I think if I hear that word once more, I'm actually going to scream! When is the hype for such ludicrously mediocre social networking sites going to end?
I remember at the tender age of 15, about three years ago now, signing up to Myspace just to find out what all the fuss was about. I must admit that I found myself entertained for a total of about 10 minutes of which I spent filling in pointless information about myself such as my favourite films or my favourite books which turned out to be a tragic waste of time as no one ever reads those sections anyway.
Ah yes! Let's not forget about the dozen or so futile sites that popped up to accomodate the ever increasing Myspace population. Sites such as MyGen.co.uk which enabled you to create your own disastrously colourful/ depressing profiles or just steal one from some loser who had spent hours creating it.
Another one was Photobucket.co.uk which allowed you to upload digital pictures and creates slides or edit some in some equally unattractive way. All pointless yet popular, I assumed this fad would soon be over. I was not only surprised but deeply disturbed to see that the social networking phenomena still hadn't died down in the last few years and recognised for what is actually is, a load of old tosh!
No, it seems that it has actually increased in popularity with newer sites such as Facebook or WAYN taking over the old Myspace mantle. I found myself thinking, "Maybe i should join Facebook now, it's bound to be better than Myspace, everyone's talking about it."
So off i went to register myself and guess what I discovered? THERE IS NO IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MYSPACE AND FACEBOOK! The only differences being that on Facebook you can see exactly what the other person is doing by way of annoying messages such as "Fred is now friends with Hoolio" or "Fred just ate a Horse". I have been informed that Myspace now offers the same feature. Tell me please why I'd need to know that "Tom just wrote on Jerry's Wall" like it was the most pivotal moment of his life?
I say this not because I'm a miserable person who just wants to look down on all you dim-witted Facebookers or Myspacers or whatever the hell you call yourselves these days. It genuinely baffles me as to why you'd want to spend hours on the internet, looking at peoples narcissistic portraits of themselves which seem so eloquently named as "profiles".
I understand the whole comment section may entertain you for a total of about five minutes but what can possibly warrant an hour's attention or even a whole night? I wonder is it the witty feature you can attach to your profiles such as a "fun wall" or inane quizzes like "Which Friend's Character are you?" which as far as I can decipher hold no practical purpose to the site what so ever and are about as much fun as gluing my eyelids together.
I think the Facebook phenomena reached its optimum of absurdity when all the adults started jumping on the bandwagon. It still makes me cringe when I hear an over 35-year-olds churning out phrases such as, "I'll Facebook you" or when my lecturers insist on setting up a Facebook group. When I hear such things I think, "OH GOD! Don't do it, don't give in to peer pressure, you're much better than this, you don't need to use Facebook to connect with the students, you're supposed to be an academic for God's sake!"
Doesn't anyone understand there are much more productive ways of entertaining yourself that will not leave you as a socially inadequate buffoon. You could read a book, even learn a few things. You could take a walk or you could even meet up with people face to face and have real conversations and do a spot of REAL socialising with people you actually know!
Or, God forbid, you could actually have a life! The world is your oyster, just stop with this sad nonsense of fake socialising, it's going to erode your brain cells and dampen your intellect and play into the hands of the advertisers! DOWN WITH FACEBOOK!
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Beware of Facebook abuse
Submitted by chris on Tue, 12/02/2008 - 10:28pm.
Chris Gaynor
I agree with you - but, unfortunately, for us wannabe journos, you can get a very good story occasionally on there - FACEBOOK has its uses, but, if, like anything, you know how to abuse the system, you will!
Facebook is ok
I cannot help but think this is just another tirade against another facet of social conformity. I apologise if you don't want to hear a defence for this phenomenon (as you may brand me as a "loser" just like many of the faceless inhabitants of the internet) but I feel it is my duty.
I've used the internet since about 1998. Although I'm only 21, I've seen many trends come and go online - I remember when Google didn't exist to 99% of internet users (Yahoo! and AskJeeves were much more important) and megasites like eBay and Amazon were in their infancy. Hell, even MSN Messenger was in the 2.0 build.
What screams out to me isn't a hatred of Facebook or MySpace, but a hatred of the people who use them. Alongside Bebo and Faceparty, each has served a particular role (and social division) in the users that mingle with them.
Faceparty seems very sexually-orientated and generally subscribes to miscreants. Bebo was more for immature teenagers, and MySpace built on this after they allowed customisation. However, Facebook (when I joined over a year and a half ago) was for students only. It served (and can still serve) as a valuable commodity in educational circles. However, as with any internet craze that becomes big, pressures from the market turn it into something it originally did not set out to be.
In March, Facebook allowed applications to be added to pages. It came a short time after it opened the doors to "regular" users for future money-making purposes (and rightly so... it is a business after all, and someone has to pay the server charges). It annoyed me, but also makes sense. People crave showing their personality.
If anything, these applications show the difference between the people you show to be everyone who uses Facebook et al (the customisation whores) and the people who use it for more meaningful purposes (which is more in number than you think).
For every camera shot from arm's distance to show they're not fat when they are, there's a person who keeps in touch with a long-distance relative or friend. I've found people I thought I'd never see again, even met them out for drinks (and not sitting going "LOL THAT IS T3H FUNNEH" on their Wall).
The line that blew me away was the "You could read a book, even learn a few things." You reminded me of the critics from Newsnight who said exactly the same thing when saying why the Nintendo Wii was the bane of their existence. Very poor indeed.
Facebook does not turn people into socially inept idiots. It will change many people, but really, is it fair to use such sweeping generalisations on the millions of people who have joined up? For the ones that are like you say, it is in their personalities anyway.
Like any major trend in life - whether it be a gadget, a music taste or a style of clothing - personalities will always be reflected first and foremost. You can't blame the musicians, toys or manufacturers for the way people are, only the people themselves.
It is just that they are faceless that you find it so easy to funnel them into one easy (and lazy) grouping?
Most of all, it saddens me that an 18-year-old is criticising 35-year-olds for not having a life. I'm hardly one to point this out at age 21, but after a life at University that was probably socially galvanized by services such as Facebook (who gathered together people for nights out, kept you in touch with people spending summers or years out of the country, or just sorted out a kick about in the park saving costly text messages or phone calls), I think you need to reconsider this somewhat personal attack on people you callously stereotype. You haven't even started your own life yet.