Semper Fye

Aaannnd my Facebook is back. I think it was deactivated a total of 4 days. But it wasn't my fault. Facebook is the Wal-Mart of Social Networking. Both are eternal, soulless Evils filled with sweaty fat ladies in spandex and cheaply made merchandise, but practically a necessity if you're trying to survive. Here's why you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave...

3. No one Knows/Cares That It's Possible to Leave Facebook

It took me about 2 minutes to find LiveJournal and setup an account. It was easy and fun. Then I went to add friends. Not a single one was using LiveJournal of course.  My heaviest use of social networking was during the heyday of MySpace. I had a decent group of real world friends (with the exception of Tom. Poor, poor Tom) on my list. MySpace was not without it's faults, but I always enjoyed how you could tweak your homepage. It seemed to be what everyone in my age group was using. Then I remember someone messaging me about this new site called Facebook people were starting to use. If only I'd known it was the beginning of the end.  I checked it out. It only took about 2 minutes to set up a profile.

I didn't put much effort into my Facebook profile because I wasn't interested in switching over to a whole new setup. But right off the bat I noticed a handful of people I hadn't seen in years. Reconnected with a few people. Then went on back to Myspace. Continued posting and messaging people. But they weren't responding like they used to. They were ignoring me! So I thought. But they were just moving on. The Myspace magic was gone. Loading a Myspace friend's page was like playing a game of Russian roulette with your web browser. If their page was loaded down with too many embedded videos you were gonna be screaming at your monitor for 5 minutes until the page finally closed. All my friends seemed to be finding all THEIR handfuls of people they hadn't seen in years on Facebook. And it was just easier to use. So they stopped coming back. I felt like I was the last holdout, an old farmer hellbent on keeping the land that "The Man" was paving a new highway through. But I eventually got lonely, and over the coming weeks I found myself beefing up my Facebook profile with actual facts and uploading an actual photo to replace my "witty" joke profile picture.


Born: 1980 Interests:Sitting around Occupation:Smell-Maker

My problem leaving Myspace is the same one people have with Facebook. The average person doesn't like change. Even when Facebook itself changes features it always brews up a shitstorm from people that liked it just the way it was. It sucks to have to learn something new. It sucks even more to have to relearn something you already knew how to do. But sometimes, learning can be fun! I've had a blast since I came to LiveJournal. But it's just not the same because....


2. Sometimes the Only Way You can Reach Certain People is Through Facebook

I had a bit of a crisis last week that left me scrambling for advice/input from a specific demographic of my peers. The problem was, the only way I knew to reach those people were through Facebook. They weren't people I talked to enough to warrant having their personal information, and basically all of our interaction had been through Facebook before. So it was either play detective, try to track these people down the old-fashioned way, or just log on and shoot them a message.


"I've been hired by your best friend from the 8th Grade. He wants to know if your mom still makes those awesome cookies."

So yeah. I logged in and shot them a message. And while I could have asked them for an alternate way to reach them, in case I'm in another similar crisis, I kinda prefer having them right where they are. Personal conversation in an impersonal way. And even if I tried to reach them through some other means, if it involved using the internet it would be impossible considering...

1. The Internet Is Becoming Increasingly Harder to Use Without a Facebook Account

This was basically the thing that got me back on Facebook before I even had a chance to piss on my account's shallow grave. We use the internet for pretty much EVERYTHING in our house. We don't own televisions. We don't have any video game systems. No dvd/cd collections. Not even a fancy RCA phonograph. So we use a lot of sites like Blip, hulu for watching shows. The problem is, you need to make your own account to a lot of sites in order to get the most out of them. And on most, you have the option of creating your own account, filling out the 3 page forms and emailing a stool sample to activate it, or just using this little gem instead:


Not to be confused with the Lumberjack Support Group "Loggin' with Facebook"

When I set up all these 20+ different accounts, I did what any sane person would do and used this option. And I thought I could get away with keeping all my info and my Facebook account dead, but the first time I tried logging in to one it REACTIVATED my account. So I gave up. Again.  And I am now on Facebook til the end of time.


Random Fact: "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" was written about Meatloaf's relationship with Facebook.