Facebook/Schmuckbook
I hate Facebook. It is like celebrating Christmas, having hair free armpits and saying that other people’s babies look cute – it is something that I can’t really be arsed with, but constantly feel the social pressure to conform on. However unlike Christmas, armpits and babies, and even using Google, I have not given in and I am not on Facebook.
So because they couldn’t find me on there, someone I knew when I was seven has contacted my brother via Facebook to find out whatever happened to me. My brother is five years younger than me so this means that he was two when they met. I mean, really! As much as I can’t begrudge anyone being nice enough to want to catch up after 26 years, why are they harassing my brother and what sort of information are they expecting to get on the superficial Facebook level anyway?
I almost wish that I was a polygamist terrorist with a keen interest in 16th century madrigals so he had something interesting to tell her.
Anyway, I am not alone in my anti-Facebook stance as an article in today’s Guardian by Tom Hodgkinson proves. Here he describes Facebook as a libertarian capitalist experiment that seeks to commodify relationships. He also does a fabulous deconstruction of the Facebook privacy policy. i.e. you don’t have any, all your details ‘are on sale to giant global brands’.
As someone who works in marketing, I think that this is genius. And as someone who desperately needs a new job, it’s an appalling attack on things I hold dear like privacy, individuality and being seen as a citizen rather than a consumer.
However, as a cynic the worst thing is when people on Facebook have the audacity to complain about being marketed to, like they expect something (a social networking facility) for nothing. I think it is the combination of Facebook hoovering up and selling on market intelligence and people actually being naive enough to be outraged by this which is the truly interesting thing.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
This is what terrifies me about social networking sites. Being tracked down by someone from my past.
“You know, theres a reason I don’t stay in touch with you any more…………..”
I’m actually ok about using my real name every so often, and try stopping me plastering shots of my ugly mush up on my blog……..
Thing is, nobody I know, or once knew, is likely to stumble over a blog that gets about thirty hits a day. They will however track you down in seconds flat if you’re on bebo/Facebook/Myspace.
My feelings towards bebo and Facebook are that both look like they were set up with precocious twelve year olds in mind. Which is pretty fucking sinister. Shouldn’t kids that age be out eating worms and breaking windows? I’ll let Myspace off. As a source of music, I genuinely think it has some worth, though it’s pretty fucking boring.
Had to laugh at the prat I saw on the news moaning about not being able to remove all his personal info when he closed his account. I hope he had fun fending off the dodgy roofers and tarmac gangs…………….
January 14th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Oh yeah, precisely – there are a lot of people I do not want to contact me. Not necessarily because I don’t like them, but because I can’t deal with the embarrassment of the pointless catch-up. The people that I do keep in touch with from school, university, numerous jobs etc. are all because I genuinely like them and know that whenever I see them, we’ll both have something interesting to say.
I completely agree with you about blogs – you can do your self-interested web thing, but still remain relatively anonymous! I would use my real name on this site, but my name is immensely google-able. i.e. you put my name in and you get me and only me.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I got lured into Facebook and though I have been quite fortunate, in that nobody I haven’t been pleased to hear from has tracked me down ( and my ‘Privacy Settings’ are as high as I could set them), my heart sank when I read that Guardian piece. It sort of confirmed a half-formed suspicion I’d had in my own mind that there was bound to be a potentially sinister side to the whole thing. And, it seems once you’re on it, you’re there for life!
By the way I have the same problem you do with my real name – I appear to be pretty much unique too!
January 17th, 2008 at 11:55 am
To look on the postive side, ISBW, you may be on Facebook for life, but the whole fad will probably be over in a few years. And in the meantime, you get to catch up with lots of different people. I admire you for being less mean-spirited about that than I am!