Facebook Applications Are Great... For Me To Disapprove Of!
This post was first made on June 11th, 2007, on Facebook.
These are the eight people I care most about, ranked in order of just how much I love them:
1) Truman Capps
2) Alexander Jasper
3) Dylan Petrie
4) Your Mom (zing!)
5) Joe Wales
6) Jesus
7) That girl who goes out with Joe Wales
8) George Clooney (but if he likes the script I sent him, he's going straight to #2)
If you're not on this list, it's a result of your own personal negligence, and probably a manifestation of the antisocial tendencies you want so badly to believe you don't have. Come the apocalypse, be it nuclear, viral, or zombie oriented, these eight people will be the ones with whom I share my house, my supplies, and my chainsaws*. The rest of you are on your own - unless anybody on my Top 8 takes me off of theirs, in which case Kristin Vanderburgh will be allowed into the Truman Capps Postapocalyptic Fortress of Doom.
*Offer only valid in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
If you're still reading, and I sincerely doubt that, you're probably wondering why I'm bitching about applications when it's clear that I already have two - the Compass and the X Me function, and also the Movies function which I just remembered. This is because I think X Me is actually pretty funny, and the other two because they seemed cool at the time, 'the time' being just before I realized that Facebook is sliding down the slippery slope of, well, I don't want to call it 'doom' for fear of overusing hyperbole, but doom comes pretty close to describing it. I will delete two thirds of my applications after I publish this note.
We live in a world at war. This is not a war for justice, or, more importantly, oil, but instead a war for the online profiles of millions of people. We can choose to post our information on Myspace, which is 40% middle schoolers, 40% corporate interests targeting the middle schoolers, and 20% indie rock bands hoping to be picked up by the corporate interests (child molestors, pornographers, and general perverts are in there too, of course, but keeping track of them is like trying to chart all the trees in Oregon, or all the stupid people in Los Angeles). If Myspace's bizarre milieu of angst and commercialism doesn't please, the alternative is Facebook, which you no doubt already know everything about considering that you're reading a blog published on Facebook. Until recently, when asked about the difference between Myspace and Facebook, I would glibly reply "Facebook is for smart people." Now, I'm not so sure anymore.
Facebook is better because it's safer than Myspace. Safety isn't exactly a prime concern of mine, because I doubt that the majority of online stalkers are in the business of seeking out long winded 18 year old boys, but if I had a kid I'd want him/her to use Facebook. The problem with Facebook is that the main good thing about it - The Class - is oh-so-swiftly disappearing.
If you view a random Myspace profile, well, you'd better damn well like My Chemical Romance, because as soon as the page opens you're going to have "The Black Parade" blasting out of your speakers, and you won't be able to find the Back button because your eyes are so badly blinded by the hot pink text on a yellow background. Did I mention that an optional script has caused a string of hearts to follow your cursor around? Well, uh, it has. Your browser has also been stretched to the limits by gigantic pictures of Jessica Simpson while yards of poorly spelled, highly emotional postings spill downwards toward the bottom of the page. This is what customization does.
Choice and opportunity are both wonderful things, but by using Facebook we choose to forego many staples of Myspace. If a person signs up for Facebook, you can assume he or she has weighed the options and decided that they don't need to have an interactive flash powered animal "Buddy" to make their online persona complete. Then again, I've posted like four notes that have pictures of rabbits in them, so maybe a Buddy would be a good choice for me. Point being, Facebook users don't expect the extra add ons of Myspace, and they certainly don't need them.
But we're getting them anyway, additions by private companies that Facebook is allowing us to install at will. I currently have invitations from 14 such applications, scrolling all the way down my profile's sidebar. I don't need them. I don't want them. I wanted three of them, but now I don't want two, and they're going to be gone soon. Facebook profiles are starting to become just as cluttered and illegible as Myspace, and pretty soon it's going to be hard to tell the difference, save for the fact that an illegible Facebook profile is that much harder to see than an illegible Myspace profile.
What makes Facebook great are its restrictions, its bare bones layout. Never doubt the value of some good old fashioned simplicity. Giving people the option of sprucing up their layout has devestated the simplicity in favor of pizazz. Before the applications, Facebook was a to-the-point database of personal information and photographs with some fun group elements thrown in. Now, with the additional choices, the site is attempting to become something it's not, like a 50 year old with a leather jacket and a Harley.
Yeah, mid life crisis. That's my metaphor. Yes, Truman, you are a good writer...
These are the eight people I care most about, ranked in order of just how much I love them:
1) Truman Capps
2) Alexander Jasper
3) Dylan Petrie
4) Your Mom (zing!)
5) Joe Wales
6) Jesus
7) That girl who goes out with Joe Wales
8) George Clooney (but if he likes the script I sent him, he's going straight to #2)
If you're not on this list, it's a result of your own personal negligence, and probably a manifestation of the antisocial tendencies you want so badly to believe you don't have. Come the apocalypse, be it nuclear, viral, or zombie oriented, these eight people will be the ones with whom I share my house, my supplies, and my chainsaws*. The rest of you are on your own - unless anybody on my Top 8 takes me off of theirs, in which case Kristin Vanderburgh will be allowed into the Truman Capps Postapocalyptic Fortress of Doom.
*Offer only valid in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
If you're still reading, and I sincerely doubt that, you're probably wondering why I'm bitching about applications when it's clear that I already have two - the Compass and the X Me function, and also the Movies function which I just remembered. This is because I think X Me is actually pretty funny, and the other two because they seemed cool at the time, 'the time' being just before I realized that Facebook is sliding down the slippery slope of, well, I don't want to call it 'doom' for fear of overusing hyperbole, but doom comes pretty close to describing it. I will delete two thirds of my applications after I publish this note.
We live in a world at war. This is not a war for justice, or, more importantly, oil, but instead a war for the online profiles of millions of people. We can choose to post our information on Myspace, which is 40% middle schoolers, 40% corporate interests targeting the middle schoolers, and 20% indie rock bands hoping to be picked up by the corporate interests (child molestors, pornographers, and general perverts are in there too, of course, but keeping track of them is like trying to chart all the trees in Oregon, or all the stupid people in Los Angeles). If Myspace's bizarre milieu of angst and commercialism doesn't please, the alternative is Facebook, which you no doubt already know everything about considering that you're reading a blog published on Facebook. Until recently, when asked about the difference between Myspace and Facebook, I would glibly reply "Facebook is for smart people." Now, I'm not so sure anymore.
Facebook is better because it's safer than Myspace. Safety isn't exactly a prime concern of mine, because I doubt that the majority of online stalkers are in the business of seeking out long winded 18 year old boys, but if I had a kid I'd want him/her to use Facebook. The problem with Facebook is that the main good thing about it - The Class - is oh-so-swiftly disappearing.
If you view a random Myspace profile, well, you'd better damn well like My Chemical Romance, because as soon as the page opens you're going to have "The Black Parade" blasting out of your speakers, and you won't be able to find the Back button because your eyes are so badly blinded by the hot pink text on a yellow background. Did I mention that an optional script has caused a string of hearts to follow your cursor around? Well, uh, it has. Your browser has also been stretched to the limits by gigantic pictures of Jessica Simpson while yards of poorly spelled, highly emotional postings spill downwards toward the bottom of the page. This is what customization does.
Choice and opportunity are both wonderful things, but by using Facebook we choose to forego many staples of Myspace. If a person signs up for Facebook, you can assume he or she has weighed the options and decided that they don't need to have an interactive flash powered animal "Buddy" to make their online persona complete. Then again, I've posted like four notes that have pictures of rabbits in them, so maybe a Buddy would be a good choice for me. Point being, Facebook users don't expect the extra add ons of Myspace, and they certainly don't need them.
But we're getting them anyway, additions by private companies that Facebook is allowing us to install at will. I currently have invitations from 14 such applications, scrolling all the way down my profile's sidebar. I don't need them. I don't want them. I wanted three of them, but now I don't want two, and they're going to be gone soon. Facebook profiles are starting to become just as cluttered and illegible as Myspace, and pretty soon it's going to be hard to tell the difference, save for the fact that an illegible Facebook profile is that much harder to see than an illegible Myspace profile.
What makes Facebook great are its restrictions, its bare bones layout. Never doubt the value of some good old fashioned simplicity. Giving people the option of sprucing up their layout has devestated the simplicity in favor of pizazz. Before the applications, Facebook was a to-the-point database of personal information and photographs with some fun group elements thrown in. Now, with the additional choices, the site is attempting to become something it's not, like a 50 year old with a leather jacket and a Harley.
Yeah, mid life crisis. That's my metaphor. Yes, Truman, you are a good writer...