Why Facebook? Why
now?
As a self-indulging contrarian, I’ve managed to steer clear
of facebook for some time now. It was a
conscious effort to avoid blending in to the masses, a way to avoid being just
like everyone else. The facebook
groundswell became a tidal wave while I was going to graduate school and
working full-time, and so conveniently, I just didn’t have time for indulging
in the trivial world of social networking.
Or at least being that busy afforded me the chance to avoid
participation in the ménage-a-web. I
didn’t see the point, really. If I truly
was friends with someone, wouldn’t I see them already? Wouldn’t I talk with them on the phone every
now and again? Or pay my social dues to
them via a simultaneously clever and bland email once in a while, or the Christmas
card family update? I’ll forward them a
link to a funny clip of a wipeout, an mpg of an unsuspecting baseball dad
getting a line drive to the junk, or some adorable kitty videos. Maybe I’ll send them a nice text on their
birthday. That, my friends, is
interaction!
Well, against my better judgment, I have finally taken the
plunge and added a facebook account to a growing list of redundant web-enabled
participatory endeavors to which I am only half-heartedly involved (for
instance, this blog). It’s just another
list in a long line of revolutionizing aps that I’m not totally enamored with,
but for some reason feel obligated to take part in. It’s an internalized and entirely imagined peer
pressure to which I am succumbing, but I don’t believe that is even accurate,
because no one has really asked me in some time why I don’t have a facebook
account. Maybe it’s the lack of people
asking about my facebook that led me to believe I actually needed one. To fill a non-void. That’s more my style.
So why am I now a member?
Why now?
Maybe I’m now signing up to pre-emptively screen my kids’
future facebook accounts. I know that
soon they will be venturing on their own into this virtual maze. And just like monitoring what youtube videos
they watch, and what websites they can visit, what TV shows/movies they should
or shouldn’t watch, I’m realizing that in order to properly understand what
they are doing with their friendly online communications will require that I
understand the inner-workings of this e-organism. I need to take those baby steps first, fall
down and scrape my knees on friend requests, likes and dislikes, twitter rants,
seedy photo posts, etc., so that I can guide them through their introductory
facebook stages and help in guiding them to avoid the evils that lurk. That sounds very responsible of me,
right? But that’s not really my full
motivation. A noble side-benefit, but
not entirely the real objective for joining.
I might be doing it for a social reason. When I say “social reason,” this is not code
for “looking up old flames.” It is not
to clandestinely check in on former acquaintances. Actually, there was some facebook friction
that took place recently with some extended family, and there could be some
voyeuristic aspect of those conflicts that might appeal to some, but that’s not
really my thing. I’m sure I’ll have my
opportunity in the future to cause this type of conflict, but I’ve missed out
on that so far, and frankly, the probability of that type of conflict happening
was one reason to avoid facebook thus far.
But I would like to think of myself as a social person, and that this is
just another way for me to socially interact with friends and family. The alleged social aspects of the program are
a genuine motive for signing up for facebook, and part of me subscribes to this
notion of a virtual community. It takes
an i-village, and I’m just a citizen here.
I must admit, I have been impressed (and distraught) by how
pervasive facebook seems to be with everyone I know, and how quickly people
respond to things. I’m glad I’m able to
check in with friends I haven’t seen or thought of in years. It’s cute to see the mini-versions of people
I grew up with in their childrens’ faces.
The fact that I have over 100 friends with fairly little effort on my
part and within the first few days of signing up is indicative of how
universally ubiquitous facebook is. It
has nothing to do with how compelling I am as a person, I’m pretty sure.
But I think the real reason I’m singing up now has to do
with the creepy IPO video that facebook released and then promptly removed from
their web arsenal. That’s what appealed
to me. In advance of releasing their IPO
today, May 18, 2012, facebook showcased a 30 minute commercial detailing their
plans for global dominance. This is a
rather unconventional step for a company on the eve of their IPO, but facebook
prides itself in doing things their own way, and they weren’t going to allow
some trivial stepping stone like a
once-in-a-lifetime-highest-IPO-valuation-ever opportunity to pass them by and
do it like everyone else! They were
going to be different! Because that’s
what facebook is! It’s different! It’s not Myspace, or Pinterest, or Yahoo
Social, or Youtube! It’s all of those
things and more! So instead of meeting
face to face with Wall Street investment bankers, instead of detailing their financials
in person and jumping through the usual IPO hoops like everyone else does, they
put their entitlement attitude on full display and just assumed everyone would
play along because their grand move fit their unconventional corporate culture,
and they wanted to run everyone else’s faces in their brand of
counter-corporate-culture. Bold move,
Zuckerberg, bold move.
http://facebook.retailroadshow.com/ was the link to the IPO commercial, but it is
no longer available. It was up for a
couple of days, and then removed entirely from the web universe. Youtube doesn’t have it, or doesn’t even have
an out-of-focus knock-off of it. Daily
Motion doesn’t have a copy. Google Cache
doesn’t even have it. The commercial was
that horrendous, and facebook didn’t realize this beforehand and quickly erased
all memory and indication of it from the internets. Business insider made a shot-by-shot summary
of it, and that’s still around, http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-ipo-roadshow-heres-why-facebook-thinks-investors-should-buy-into-its-ipo-2012-5#
. But the still frame version doesn’t do
it justice. It looks accessible in this still-frame
version, which is entirely opposite of what it felt like watching it. If you thought The Social Network made the
founder of facebook seem creepy, then you should have seen his glory in this
gem of marketing mayhem that will be used in MBA courses for years and years to
come as a perfect “what not to do”. This
self-produced commercial made the Zucks seem more like that guy DO from the Hale-Bopp
cult, not the youngest billionaire ever.
In the video the young brain trust of facebook goes on to
detail the relevance of the company, facebook’s role in every living being’s
existence, how important and groundbreaking their social networking interface
is, essentially how the world doesn’t function without them (which, I’m finding
out now, may actually be true). Shot
with soft lighting, hypnotizing cadences, and soothing background music, it was
incredibly captivating. Like watching
the Masters at Augusta. It’s pretty, it’s
pacifying, it deserves your respect, and everything else is so far below their
superiority we are all just lucky to behold their greatness. A tradition unlike any other, or at least
this was bucking tradition like no one before them.
When the commercial concluded, I loved that it was
creepy. I enjoyed that it was
arrogant. I appreciated the fact that it
was such a colossally horrendous promotion and thought that if they could screw
up their Trillion dollar campaign, then that was something that I could not
pass up! I had to get in on that ride,
and now’s my chance! How could I enjoy
the inevitable death rattle if I didn’t experience some of the life blood while
it was beating at maximum heart rate? And
don’t get me wrong. There are people who
know how to use this medium and do great things, pass along worthwhile messages
and knowledge. There are people who go
out of their way to do something bold and awe inspiring and incredible…and then
there’s this facebook IPO version, which reaffirmed my preconceived notions of
what this socially networked universe is like.
It is presented as an amazing and hyped up version of reality, accentuating
greatness and de-emphasizing the clutter and unnecessary pop-ups. But we all know that’s just a ruse, and that
sooner rather than later we’ll be inundated by spam and junk mail and pop-ups
and viruses…clutter. E-clutter. The show is not nearly as cool as they
thought it was, and they clearly don’t realize this. They obviously didn’t realize how
condescending they were being, how empty their self-promotion was and how
entirely anti-self-aware the whole facebook experience can be. Both the Yin and the Yang. And the video perfectly illustrated this
aspect of facebook.
So, after all of that, I’m just like everyone else. I’m a sheep who loves a train wreck, especially
when those driving the train keep going faster.
They know what they’re doing, and they want you to come along for the
ride. Actually they’re asking you to take
the wheel for a moment, they want you to participate in the fun, throwing some
coal in their fire and all of your self-promotion along with it! Vanity of Vanities! I love me some vanity, so I signed up. I’ve got a few years of virtual narcissism to
catch up on. And with its IPO roadshow, this
bandwagon just bought billions more gigabytes of space for me and you other
stragglers to jump on. Like it or not.
