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.