Fuck Facebook.
No, I won’t be joining you on Blogspot, Facebook or Twitter, stop sending me invites, you’re wasting valuable time you could be telling other people what you had for lunch or that you’re excited it’s Friday. It’s great that you’re having such a fascinating life, but you know back in the day we used to get by without knowing what you’re doing/thinking/feeling several times a day, this may come as a shock to you but we don’t care, nobody does. Back in the dim dark days of 2005 I used to think MySpace was bad - here was a collection of stupid camwhores and kids who listen to Trivium that I would never have to encounter on LiveJournal, but little did I know we were nowhere near the bottom of the barrel at that time. As bizarre as this may sound, I think the internet is actually getting stupider, and social networking sites are to blame.
Facebook exists only for self-promotion and communicating on a level that would have 12-year-old girls embarrassed - I TAGGED YOU IN A PHOTO LOL! I’M SENDING YOU A VIRTIUAL GIFT OMG ISN’T TECHNOLOGY FANTASTIC! At least on MySpace you can check out bands and find new music, all you can find on Facebook are people you hated in high school, but because you want to look popular and have issues with letting go, so you add them, and then never talk to them. And this is the core of my argument here, people claim that social networking sites like Facebook are changing the way we communicate, but the truth is folks, they’re deluding themselves.
Let my tell you a story. When I started this journal back in early 2004 the only people on my friends list were a handful of people in Melbourne I knew personally. Now I have people on my friends list in Canada, the US, England, Japan Norway and other places. I’ve met these fascinating and excellent people through LiveJournal, and they’re people I’d like to think I would be mates with if we met up, which is something I would very much like to do if I’m overseas or if any of you are passing through Melbourne. Now compare that with MySpace, where I added a bunch of people I’ve actually met and some I haven’t, but since 2005 none of them has made an impact. I met a girlfiriend through LJ and have known some of you here longer than my wonderful current girlfriend. This is why I have praise for LiveJournal (even if there are emos on here, at least they don’t try and add me all the time like they do on MySpace). Now ask yourself, how many friends have you made through Facebook, and then ask yourself what fraction of “friends” on there do you regularly talk to? How many of them did you add just because you kinda know them or you went to school with them? I thought so.
Aside from inflating fragile egos, Facebook was invented to give people pointless busy work when they don’t want to do any real work, like when they’re at work. In fact with the keeping track of hundreds of trivial updates from people you don’t give a shit about, plus responding to thousands of messages to check out this hilarious video on YouTube of 2 retarded fucking kids laughing and shitting themselves, you need a lie down. Here’s an idea, read a book or have a real conversation, it will do you the world of good. I was reading about the horror a journalist in England felt when he realized that he’d just spent his whole Saturday night with a bottle of wine on Facebook. Don’t worry mum and dad, little Johnny isn’t masturbating up there, he’s on Facebook, and well it’s pretty much the same except wanking is at least exercise, and doesn’t take up a huge chunk of your life. It also turns out young teenagers who spend a lot of time on social networking sites actually have lower social skills than their peers who don’t. So if you weren’t a retard already you just might become one.
And speaking of retarded shit, don’t even get me started on fucking Twitter. It’s scarcely surprising that 60% of people who sign up for it quit within a month. I mean come on, 140 characters? Back in the old days GSM mobiles would at least allow you 160 characters, and now you can send messages of 1000 characters (at least you can on my network). What can you say of import in 140 characters? “Boy, am I a sheep-like dickbag for signing up for this, I really should be punched in the face for being such a slave to trends.” There, 130 characters, and something more profound and truthful than anything you’re likely to read on Twitter today. And I don’t care if Stephen Fry is doing it, so is Newt Gingrich - these things even out as you can see.
In fact you better enjoy all this while it lasts, because the cost of websites propping up your vanity by hosting the hundreds of identical pictures you all post and your inane updates is spiraling rapidly out of control. Last year, TechCrunch reported that Facebook spends $1 million a month on electricity, $500,000 a month on bandwidth, and up to $2 million per week on new servers to keep up with its users' insatiable photo-uploading needs (members post nearly a billion photos every month). But Facebook gets relatively little in return for storing all your memories. Ad rates on its network are terribly low, the company doesn't make a profit, and it hasn't shed any light on how it will make good on investments that valued the company at $15 billion. Interestingly YouTube is in an even more parlous financial position, financial-services company Credit Suisse estimates owner Google will lose $470 million on the video-sharing site this year alone. Seems like a lot doesn’t it, just so you can upload videos of your dog and your deeply profound vlogs where you can issue the pearls of wisdom all of cyberspace has been hanging out for? At the end of the days someone is going to have to pay for all this indulgence, are you willing to cough up?
Finally, go back to your Facebook and count how many of your “friends” on there you would give your phone number to and invite around to your place for drinks. If it’s less than half, delete your profile and rejoin the real world. This rant has been bought to you by LiveJournal, a place where you can still express ideas in detail rather than banal one-line statements which will be read by no one.
Stats taken from this interesting article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2216162
Facebook exists only for self-promotion and communicating on a level that would have 12-year-old girls embarrassed - I TAGGED YOU IN A PHOTO LOL! I’M SENDING YOU A VIRTIUAL GIFT OMG ISN’T TECHNOLOGY FANTASTIC! At least on MySpace you can check out bands and find new music, all you can find on Facebook are people you hated in high school, but because you want to look popular and have issues with letting go, so you add them, and then never talk to them. And this is the core of my argument here, people claim that social networking sites like Facebook are changing the way we communicate, but the truth is folks, they’re deluding themselves.
Let my tell you a story. When I started this journal back in early 2004 the only people on my friends list were a handful of people in Melbourne I knew personally. Now I have people on my friends list in Canada, the US, England, Japan Norway and other places. I’ve met these fascinating and excellent people through LiveJournal, and they’re people I’d like to think I would be mates with if we met up, which is something I would very much like to do if I’m overseas or if any of you are passing through Melbourne. Now compare that with MySpace, where I added a bunch of people I’ve actually met and some I haven’t, but since 2005 none of them has made an impact. I met a girlfiriend through LJ and have known some of you here longer than my wonderful current girlfriend. This is why I have praise for LiveJournal (even if there are emos on here, at least they don’t try and add me all the time like they do on MySpace). Now ask yourself, how many friends have you made through Facebook, and then ask yourself what fraction of “friends” on there do you regularly talk to? How many of them did you add just because you kinda know them or you went to school with them? I thought so.
Aside from inflating fragile egos, Facebook was invented to give people pointless busy work when they don’t want to do any real work, like when they’re at work. In fact with the keeping track of hundreds of trivial updates from people you don’t give a shit about, plus responding to thousands of messages to check out this hilarious video on YouTube of 2 retarded fucking kids laughing and shitting themselves, you need a lie down. Here’s an idea, read a book or have a real conversation, it will do you the world of good. I was reading about the horror a journalist in England felt when he realized that he’d just spent his whole Saturday night with a bottle of wine on Facebook. Don’t worry mum and dad, little Johnny isn’t masturbating up there, he’s on Facebook, and well it’s pretty much the same except wanking is at least exercise, and doesn’t take up a huge chunk of your life. It also turns out young teenagers who spend a lot of time on social networking sites actually have lower social skills than their peers who don’t. So if you weren’t a retard already you just might become one.
And speaking of retarded shit, don’t even get me started on fucking Twitter. It’s scarcely surprising that 60% of people who sign up for it quit within a month. I mean come on, 140 characters? Back in the old days GSM mobiles would at least allow you 160 characters, and now you can send messages of 1000 characters (at least you can on my network). What can you say of import in 140 characters? “Boy, am I a sheep-like dickbag for signing up for this, I really should be punched in the face for being such a slave to trends.” There, 130 characters, and something more profound and truthful than anything you’re likely to read on Twitter today. And I don’t care if Stephen Fry is doing it, so is Newt Gingrich - these things even out as you can see.
In fact you better enjoy all this while it lasts, because the cost of websites propping up your vanity by hosting the hundreds of identical pictures you all post and your inane updates is spiraling rapidly out of control. Last year, TechCrunch reported that Facebook spends $1 million a month on electricity, $500,000 a month on bandwidth, and up to $2 million per week on new servers to keep up with its users' insatiable photo-uploading needs (members post nearly a billion photos every month). But Facebook gets relatively little in return for storing all your memories. Ad rates on its network are terribly low, the company doesn't make a profit, and it hasn't shed any light on how it will make good on investments that valued the company at $15 billion. Interestingly YouTube is in an even more parlous financial position, financial-services company Credit Suisse estimates owner Google will lose $470 million on the video-sharing site this year alone. Seems like a lot doesn’t it, just so you can upload videos of your dog and your deeply profound vlogs where you can issue the pearls of wisdom all of cyberspace has been hanging out for? At the end of the days someone is going to have to pay for all this indulgence, are you willing to cough up?
Finally, go back to your Facebook and count how many of your “friends” on there you would give your phone number to and invite around to your place for drinks. If it’s less than half, delete your profile and rejoin the real world. This rant has been bought to you by LiveJournal, a place where you can still express ideas in detail rather than banal one-line statements which will be read by no one.
Stats taken from this interesting article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2216162