Two Slashes

I can think of two reasons (not twenty-five) off the top of my head with which I can explain my jump back into social networking with Facebook last year.  The first was because of its relevance to my education (I can explain more some other time…), but the other (and perhaps more relative) reason was because social networking for me was ruined with all of those crappy surveys and “pass-this-forward” chain-mail notes typically associated with MySpace.

I think I’m going to have to find a new hidey-hole soon, though, because I think the MySpace “spam” has jumped ship in a big way.

Nick and I were making fun of the most recent hit on Facebook (in which the user posts 25 interesting things about themselves and then has everyone they know do the same in a chain) and ended up compiling a list of twenty-five (how original, eh?) reasons you know the site has dug itself a place in the mainstream community.  We came up with the following:

1. MySpace pleasantries, like the “if-you-get-it-you-must-post-it” ideology have found their way into the most useless of posts on Facebook.
2. Companies would rather pay someone to maintain a Facebook “page” than put together a full-on website.
3. (also known as 2b) Companies see more value in short-lived Facebook marketing gimmicks than they do in other longer-term investments.
4. Every entity known to man needs both a fan page and at least three different groups praising said entity’s hair and eye color and their date-ability.
5. (also known as 4b) In a work-safe allusion to xkcd’s Rule 34, if a Facebook group doesn’t exist for something you’re looking for, it must be created.
6. People you’ve never met before, let alone live in the same state as, ask to be your friend.  (I don’t know how many people claim they “recognize my name” in their friend request.  Sorry, but I’ve never bothered to keep in touch with any 40-year-olds from New Jersey, let alone ever been there.)
7. Advertisements are aware of your relationship status, and prey on you with this information.
8. The quickest and most effective way to recover your phonebook is by inviting all of your friends to post their numbers publicly to a Facebook group.
9. You get constant e-mail notifications that you’ve been invited to these groups.  (Of course, if you haven’t turned them off by now.)
10. You either ignore or accept these requests en masse in numbers too big to comprehend.  (To the order of a googol per day?)
11. Other websites try to use the Facebook design in hopes that it will make them “attractive.”  Sorry, but I don’t think that works.
12. Relationships are done and undone by the profile pages of those involved.
13. You find that people need to question what “it’s complicated” really means.
14. The act of poking someone is not a casual occurrence or a means to test the water, but the start of the next world war.
15. Not only are your friends on Facebook, but so are your parents, professors, and politicians.  (Alliteration++.)
16. It may now be optional, but everyone still writes their statuses (on Facebook or anywhere else) as though that extra “is” will be automatically added on, regardless of whether the blurb makes sense with or without it.
17. You’re more likely to be fired for partying on the weekend on your personal time than you are for making mistakes at work.
18. You’re more likely to lose all that effort you put into your education with your profile than you are in several other manners.
19. You find that your new pastime is untagging yourself from embarrassing photographs in hopes that your employer and/or other friends don’t see what you’ve been up to.  (It’s sad that people would rather play a cat-and-mouse game than simply not act like idiots for a camera.)
20. You find yourself being served legal papers via Facebook simply because the authorities haven’t had too much luck in tracking you down.
21. People make lists parodying common Facebook “note spam” in a poor effort to point out that things are going down the drain.
22. People no longer find proper instant messaging channels, e-mail, or even the phone appropriate ways to communicate.  The only forms of communication they now accept all revolve around their Facebook inbox or wall.  (If you don’t believe me, I have IM logs to prove that I’m not the only person who’s noticed this.)
23. You hear that Facebook is increasingly fitting into the shoes of Google and Microsoft and attempting to buy up everything in sight.
24. You hear that Facebook is increasingly interested in lending their userbase to third parties for data collection.
25. People randomly wish you a happy birthday, even though you’ve never told them when it was, and without any expectation of you doing the same thing on their special day.  (There’s nothing like a guilt-inducing sidebar area for that.)

Perhaps I’m being a little obnoxious in posting something like this, but I’m finding it harder to care as the number of posts I’m being notified about increases.  Twenty-five random facts about me?  Try twenty-five reasons Facebook is turning into MySpace with a new name.