Another “friend” on FaceBook has a maudlin rant about leaving FaceBook, here is his phone number, none of you are real unless you contact him the old fashioned way, even though phones are not face to face. I bet in 1909 there was some guy who pulled out the cord and announced he was sick of phones and the phone company and that any man who should want to address him should ride his horse over to the good man’s estate and address him face to face. I bet anything he had a phone reinstalled by the same phone company before 1912.
But back to the present day. The man has longwinded observations of what FaceBook is REALLY doing. How he cannot partake of any website that uses his information and he delivers the scintillating observation that FaceBook is using the information provided by users to feed to advertisers. Wow. He told us what we have known for years, but he told it to us in a way that puts him at the center of the universe.
You can overthink so much these days. And when you do you are almost always wrong. This guy cannot find a way to “master” FaceBook, to be the center of it. You see FaceBook works diligently to prevent anyone from mastering it. So the critique is that “IT MASTERS YOU” and those who cannot exist in a universe in which they are not the masters must then retreat form this force.
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but Facebook is not divine. It is not perfect. It is not even that intelligent. You see, FaceBook cannot master FaceBook. This company keeps making it up as they go along. Now, for some, maybe even for most, that would be a critique, right? But for me, little old disorganized me, it is a compliment. You can be valued at half a trillion dollars and you cannot get your shit together? Sign me up!
Now don’t go truther here on me. They are not part of the illuminati and their software protocols have no elders. They are just Facebook – they are like a printing press, a giant free printing press where you can create pamphlets and let them out into the world and the world is protected form you spamming them like a fucker.
Oh yeah we all hate to be spammed but we get righteous when FB does not let us spam away when we want to. FaceBook will not let you use it as a constant megaphone. Sorry, chump, you ain’t that interesting.
Email and MySpace did too little about Spam too late and the biggest attraction of FaceBook is that the communiques from people are legit. There is almost no spam on it. You cannot use FB as a database which makes it impossible to form a calculated and focused attack. Attack for what? For your spam, dummy. Oh, so you say you will never spam anyone, well, FB says “Why take that risk”.
So you have this environment where you are basically either just trying to stick out (conniving wannabe spammer) or you are just genuine (unfocussed talent).
Why would anyone not want to be on FB? They are a private person. Great. DOn’t be on FB. They are worried about stalkers or past relationships? There are privacy controls but, yeah, sure, ditch it. But the people who are demonstrative about getting off of Facebook, who make speeches and quote Alvin Toffler or Isaac Asimov are the people who, it seems to me, want to get hold of some secret throttle on FB to be sure their messages are getting some dominant positioning. The uncertainty of it all scares them. THe uncertainty in FB scares them a little and the uncertainty that their own majestic opinions being expressed are perhaps not quite that different than a bowl of cold soup on a counter after you have gone back to work from your lunch break.
FB is not the only internet service selling your info to advertisers but so what? Oh your sacred precious information – what, you like rap music and you like to ski and there are ads targeted for hip hop culture consumers and travel info to ski lodges. Gosh, you are so unique and special and awesome how dare someone reduce you to your superficial purchases. One irony is that the FB doesn’t really even get things right. I am in the art world and therefore have a lot of gay FB friends and Jewish FB friends. for many years my status was “engaged” to the woman who is now my wife. My FB ads featured NO ads for the art world but plenty for gay-firendly businesses and lifestyles and for Jewish holidays I did not even know existed. There were more ads for companies wanting to design my Katubbah than anything else.
See, all completely useless because the algorithm is like someone eavesdropping at a bar that you know is eavesdropping but you just do not care. This FB friend today got up and made a big speech about the eavesdropper and is going home to drink alone. And if you surf the internet for shoes or Palm Springs you can bet that FB will have ads for all sorts of stuff related to those visits even after you buy your pair of shoes or reserve that hotel room. It is innocuous, it is the guy at the bar who heard you talking about the Lakers and a half hour later tries to get into the conversation by bringing up Kobe Bryant while you had been complaining about traffic around the Staples Center because there was a game last night.
Thump away on your chest, please, thump away. FB is a polite printing press and you are sulking because it will not let you pamphleteer. You’ll be back. And you won’t been know why you aren’t bitter anymore. You have been schooled in spamming by FB, the site that cured spam when no one else could or would.