Image from Gauldo

When I first arrived on campus at JMU Facebook enjoyed a relatively niche existence. It existed for college kids and young professional. It was so obscure that I hadn’t even heard of it till my roommate showed it to me that first week. It seemed pretty cool, it didn’t take that long to create a profile and it seemed like everybody in my dorm was already on it.

That first night I went on a “friending” binge and pretty much “friended” every person from my high school graduation class and all the new people I had met at college, at least the ones that were on Facebook. It was a nice way to open things up. All these new people at college and I had met previously at “scheduled social events” but we were far from friends.

Then something miraculous happened, at the next party people I had only casually passed by had actually transformed into my friends and pretty much all of those relationships were expedited from the acquaintances phase of a relationship to the real friends phase a lot quicker.

Facebook had made the facade of developing a new relationship, which is drenched in subtext, insecurities, and mind-games into an ominously explicit process. I click a button saying, “Would you like to be my friend?” and on the other end you either “Confirm” or “Deny.” This makes it gruesomely clear where you stand with any given person at any given time.

But that was long ago. I was never into MySpace and telling the world everything about me was never really my thing either, I am a pretty private guy and like to keep things close to the vest but this “Facebook” thing was definitely different from all the other social sites. Most other sites were fronts for corporations to use the information you gave them to sell you things and increase profits but this…well this was an independent operation that refused a buy-out offer from Bill Gates. Most sites were simply too busy looking with music different fonts and creepy side scripts, but this…well it looked a lot cleaner, I didn’t have personal music playing, and it was a good way to get the college social ball rolling. Mind you this all took place in late 2005. Seems like eons ago but yes this was pre-zombies and when nobody really poked anybody unless you count those Pillsbury doughboy commercials.

I unfortunately am no longer on Facebook, not because I think I’m too cool for it or anything like that, but simply because it no longer is what I signed up for. I signed up for friends what I got was links to virtual profiles, what I wanted was periodical updates on past friends, what I got was the continuous unconnected minutia of every minute updates by people who weren’t that interesting. What I wanted was to get invites to parties my friends were throwing that didn’t have my updated contact information, what I got was my aunt sending me an e-card for my birthday. I still enjoyed the pictures people put up just not the ones of me in compromising situations especially since just I’ve moved onto my professional life.

For those of you who are on Facebook (I don’t believe I’m going too far out on a limb to guess a few of you still might be) when is the last time you used Facebook for that original purpose of taking current acquaintances and evolving them into friends? How many of your “Friends” are actually your friends?

I haven’t been on there in awhile but the last time I was the experience quickly devolved into little more than zombie invites and twitter like updates, with seemingly no word limits. So I guess this is my farewell to this new age institution as the beginning of the end has come for anything once labeled “cool” when our parents are doing it. What we once thought was cool is now little more than emblem of past glory.

Farewell Facebook and I am proud of you as you made a valiant effort to connect the young in some sort of an exclusive electrical fabric but you have gone the way of the aforementioned MySpace, AIM, or even the rotary telephone…at least my aunt doesn’t know how to text message…yet.