Facebook is a virus

I got in contact with Facebook just a little more than a month ago thanks to a guild friend in World of Warcraft (thanks a bunch Aggro). At first I wasn't really impressed, and could hardly find anyone there I recognized. A week later it all just exploded and goddamn acquaintances and old friends were everywhere int hat place. I was intrigued and for a week or two I enjoyed the freshness of the community a lot. Until I realised what it really was: A disease.

Now, before I get started, I should point out that Facebook has a lot of things that older/earlier communities lacked, such as MySpace or LiveJournal and the likes. All those were based on profile focuse where the profile was all about marketing you. Older communities are all about what you are, what you do and think, and reflects the world through your visions. That made them quite limited in the sense that it was harder to create networks in them than in Facebook. You had to wade through thousand upon thousand of individuals (that more or less served as their own ads for themselves) and figure out who's who. If you added someone it was usually because you were already networked through some other means first.

Facebook changes that entirely, because Facebook changes focus totally. Facebook isn't about you anymore, Facebook is ALL about who and what you are in the context of who you know. It is in fact perfect for networking. Finding friends and people is way easier and it expands with you as your profile and network grows. You share your applications with your friends and you are instantly compared to anyone else you know if you happen to use the same applications.

But still Facebook is just a facade for a much more deceiving principle; that of disease. For every contact you get you expose him or her for other contacts, that add them to their network to expand their own community and further define themselves by who they know. And as such it is the perfect place for contamination. Everyone knows everyone and is but a click or two away. If you add an application, you will expose others for this "disease", leaving them a risk to be "contaminated". Those who get contaminated they expose their contacts in the same way, and plagues are literally born on Facebook every day.


It is totally genius. But it is also in the end boring, trivial and lacks of personality. You are deleted from your own context as you define yourself by others. And, to be honest, how fun are those small applications, really?

I mean, REALLY?!

No. I thought so. They aren't.