Sometimes you have to wonder, why do we keep saying yes to Facebook applications? Hell, why do we keep agreeing to join sites like Facebook? The Internet, with all its varied possibilities for self-improvement and edu-ma-cation, seems to have convinced all of my friends that endless clicking to build my Pirate/Vampire/Werewolf/Outlaw/Jedi/ stats is how I want to spend my spare time. If I had a nickel for all the time-wasting clicks I’ve done in the name of improving my Buffy The Vampire Slayer trivia score, I’d be a successful Internet advertising firm.
I had to finally call a stop to the madness in my life when my account got so full of pointless applications, it crashed through the floor of the Internet and even now virtual rescue workers are moving cranes into position to haul up its bloated pale white corpse from the under-webs. I’m sure they’ll start a new “My Deceased Facebook Friends” app soon so you guys can all add me. Facebook for all its endless sources of mediocrity is but a minor pantheon deity of dumb next to the true monster of the web, MySpace. Mulder and Scully should be investigating this thing for all the lost time it’s responsible for. The 600 lb gorilla of social networking sites, MySpace is best known for … wait for it … not working.
I know the thing is straining at the seams. I know it’s constantly trying to meet user demand for more ways to tell the world that Peter Petrelli is “da bomb”, Barack is the Man and Amy ain’t goin’ to rehab. I understand that servers can only take so much of a beating until they need a little “me” time crying under the bed. I feel its digital cry for help. But I mean … damn! Last month, MySpace wouldn’t even let me login for three weeks. Just took me to Google instead. Thought maybe it was a problem with my own computer but NOPE — apparently it was indeed something with their Death Star of a web site. Some enterprising Rebel Alliance hacker seems to be blasting their weak spot repeatedly. That was a huge service interruption for a site the size of MySpace, and I couldn’t even get an email reply from their non-English speaking help center employees to find out what the problem was.
Most people haven’t actually had to deal with not being able to use the site at all, but it seems to be a 50/50 ratio for any given function you try to use working or not. Perhaps that’s where they got the idea for Facebook…clearly people will just sit there and click till something works so why not add their favorite pop culture icons into the mix?
People will argue, “I use Facebook/MySpace for reconnecting/staying in touch with my friends.” Really? Because the one function on both these sites which would actually seem to facilitate this need, the blog, is actually used regularly by about ten people in my 1500 or so added friends. I guess I shouldn’t find it surprising that most people prefer to communicate by lolcat comments then by actually reading what their best buddies are up to. I swear, I once posted a blog advertising that I was giving away all my money and that my girlfriend wanted to have sex with someone else that I picked out for her, and all I got was a message from some band called “The Dogmatics” in Kansas who rocked out with God and wanted to be my friend.
To sum up, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that we’re more social than any given loner with a scoped rifle in a bell tower just because our profiles tells the world that we like, oh say, The Amazing Race, My Little Pony and rate higher in the “cutest smile” category than any of our other friends (BTW this means you are fat). Human interaction requires more action than comparing quiz results to be meaningful. Unlike your Mom and so many curmudgeons before me who’ve been telling you for years to go out to a park or hang out with a friend or you know, something involving getting out of your chair, I’m not gonna flog that dead horse.
For Pete’s sake, you should at least write the occasional comment (using actual words please and a minimum of acronyms) acknowledging that your old high school buddy’s big traumatic break-up did not go entirely unnoticed. Maybe if we put in a little effort, our inevitable lonely deaths and subsequent face consumption by our beloved cats will generate some post-mortem comment page sympathy.
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