On Facebook, Part I: History Lesson

Before I get into some juicy Facebook Ranting here, which has been stewing ever since I gazed upon Fincher's Bible I need to make a few comments:

1) I haven't posted much the past week because I'm trying desperately to make Fantasy Football Playoffs. The only team with more points that I had last week was the team I was playing against. That will not happen this week, not if Seattle's piss-poor run defense and my timely Brian Westbrook pickup have anything to do with it.

2) Why the hell is that Twilight Post I made last year one of the top posts of the week around here? Is it full of people seeking its degradation or fans looking for juicy info? Do Twilight Fans even read Internet Essays on their Franchise or just Google image search for Cedric Diggory (Sorry, I'm still getting ABC Family Harry Potter Weekend Events out of my mind)? The irony that surrounds either fanbase is still very entertaining to me - anti-Twilighters searching hard for Twilight Material or Twihards finding nothing to fuel their obsession.

Where the hell was I? Oh, Facebook. Facebook is dangerous.

The number one reason that Facebook really sucks is because we've started to base our lives around what a Drunk Harvard Sophomore thought would be cool. Yeah, I'm not going to rant here about the privacy issues, the exposure of stoner pics to potential employers or your creepy uncle wanting to be your friend and poking you every day. I'm much more concerned with how Facebook effects our actual lives.

Firstly, I'd say there are at least three separate generations of Facebook Users. The first Generation was about anyone who graduated College let's say Class of '06 to Class of '10. Anyone much older had attended classes without Internet Stalking for too long to really capture their interest, much younger people weren't in school yet for that first excitement. So now a personal history lesson:

Whoever's profile this is comes up first on a Google Search for Early Facebook. Lucky you.

I graduated Hiram College in Hiram, OH Class of Oh Eight. The first year Facebook was in existence was based primarily on exclusivity. The social networking site got a huge advantage over MySpace because it had stricter privacy controls that only allowed your college or friends from other colleges from viewing your shit. See, some of us back then still had brains and knew anything put on the internet would probably end up coming back to us. It spread to big schools first and then smaller institutions had to send tons of e-mails to the CEOs (who we later learned was Zuck) to appeal our campuses. This built insane hype, especially being at a smaller school while all my other friends rambled about how glorious this new fad was. Spring 2005 my campus got Facebook, we went nuts. So these kids I consider First Generation, the college kids who had at some point in their lives experienced Facebook when it was only on Campus.

Those were good days, actually. It was like Facebook was all ours. Actually it was primarily used to post Drunken Pics, stalk girls and conveniently plan parties. That's all I still use Facebook for, but it's potential has greatly expanded. There was this sense though that Facebook was "ours" you know, it's what separated us from wiener High School kids and worse than that, parents. Anytime your parents get into something like this it instantly becomes uncool. It's like hearing my dad say "I need to GTL, dawg." I can never watch Shore again. Unfortunately, on Facebook's warpath towards Global Ubiquity, that's exactly what happened.

Second Generation got into the party when Faceook expanded to High Schoolers. Ugh that sucked. Instead of being full of pot-smoking kids who faked reading Nietzsche you had pot-smoking kids who faked reading Nietzche AND watched Anime. Rough times. That adds such a terrible dimension to that stereotype really. Anyway, by getting kids earlier Facebook established itself in existence in its users lives by that many more years. It's like fucking smoking.

Actually my profile pic December 2006. So Creative.

So finally, there's everyone else. Facebook expanded to your boss, CBS news and your Grandmother. Facebook was like that cool bar that only you and your friends new about and loved it because you would be the only guys there, but then suddenly it was the coolest place to hang out and everyone's there. It's loud, crowded, people spilling drinks on you as they struggle to get to the bathroom. Sure the walls are the same and on Tuesdays there's enough room to play darts, but it's not the same. Actually, the same thing happened to Dane Cook. If you were a fan pre-Retaliation (2005) and pre-Waiting...(2006) you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'll stop the tangents in second.

So the point of these ramblings is simply thus that Facebook is now unescapable. A good argument among friends is now "Would it be better to own the Entire NFL or Facebook for the Next Ten Years." If you're older than 25 you might be tempted to say NFL, but if you're younger and pay attention you'll say Facebook.

Stay tuned dear readers, after the most Rambling Post in NMW history (not bloody likely) next time I'll get into more of our present dilemma. That is of course assuming Christopher Ivory and Jacoby Ford have good games this weekend.