The Ghetto Called Facebook

Facebook is an enclosed, controlled, and manipulated environment for meek, tech losers. It's like a reality TV show—things are kind of real, but they're not.

The way I see it, Facebook's main competitor is Second Life. But while second life would represent something like a good fantasy novel, Facebook is more like a reality TV show—things are kind of real, but they're not. And like a reality TV show, Facebook is enclosed, controlled, and manipulated. In the end, it's all weak and without substance.

I think it's brilliant that the boys at Facebook are taking on Netflix by developing their own streaming service. It's yet another hinge on the door used to lock people into the self-contained world of Facebook, where the skittish can comfortably dwell. I'm wondering exactly when Facebook will buy out Second Life and reveal its true intent.

I'd like to remind people what I think of Facebook: It is the second coming of AOL. Anyone remember them? It's what AOL should have morphed into if it hadn't failed. It's a community evolved from the ideas of MySpace and LiveJournal and a number of AOL ideas and all rolled into one cogent vision. Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook was made in the image of his own introverted self—with a little Second Life thrown in.

I know many people who rely on Facebook to create an amorphous, plasmodial, shape-shifting version of themselves with an online personality (within the confines of Facebook).

"Friend me, like me, look at me." Oh no! Someone dropped me as a friend. Now I have to hound him to find out why.

Facebook is a world unto itself and has created what has to be refered to a second class citizenry online. It's laughable. When the Net was blooming in the mid-1990s, suddenly, all the isolated online services were forced to link into the Internet. This allowed people to explore outside the domain of a CompuServe or AOL.

This soon devolved into the meme that AOL was "training wheels for the Internet." Not long after that, people were telling me that they didn't need AOL anymore, since the Internet had all that AOL offered and more for free!

AOL never handled any of it right and became what it is today, a collection of services and Web sites that are dissociated. Then along came Facebook. It emphasized the associative nature of a community site, and suddenly people flocked away from the Net and back into a fake community, like nothing we've ever seen before.

So we went from saying AOL is like training wheels and diving into the rich Internet, back into a version of AOL. Did we like training wheels all along? Or do we actually need this kind of overall total control in general? Is Facebook actually representative of a lost spirit of independence worldwide?

Is that really what's going on? Or am I reading too much into this when I see Facebook as kind of a refuge for the meek and wary. I see Facebook as a ghetto for netizens who cannot survive on the real Internet; people who could never learn to ride a bike and would have stayed with AOL if it had not abandoned them.

Now corporations and the PR agencies representing them are further encouraging Facebook. I cannot tell you how many times I have been told to find out more by going to Facebook. You can't send me a pdf file? You cannot produce a simple Web site, but instead resort to Facebook? How hard is it to post something outside of the confines of Facebook?

What we are witnessing is the ghettoization of a self-selected class of people who are going to eventually find themselves categorized as tech losers. I mean, come on, these people flock to Farmville on Facebook as if it is a game worth wasting time on? Load World of Warcraft and play something that reflects real development efforts rather than cute marketing tricks.

I understand how hard it is for some people to keep up with technology and the ever-changing landscape, but cowering under the rock known as Facebook will not benefit you, that's for sure.


Let me know if you agree.. I am sure you will if you disagree..